The Advent Calendar
It’s honestly kind of surprising that I have not heard of anyone doing an advent calendar-themed horror movie before. That alone makes Patrick Ridremont’s thriller worth checking out on Shudder starting December 2. The structure of a different “reward,” of sorts, when you open up each door of an advent calendar is an ideal one for a horror movie, especially when you’re dealing with a protagonist who is a paraplegic. What seems like it could be a cheap ploy becomes a fundamental part of the film’s endgame, and we’re on the edge of our seats for how it pays off.
We first see Eva (Eugénie Derouand) at the pool. She’s being chatted up by a young man, but as soon as he sees her wheelchair, his affection isn’t as strong. She works at a small company that sells crap insurance to people, and it’s her birthday. She tries to call her father, who has Alzheimer’s, but his caretaker doesn’t let him near the phone. Her best friend, Sophie (Honorine Magnier) comes to celebrate, and gives her an advent calendar she got while in Germany. It has an ominous look to it, however, and a warning- “Drop this and I’ll kill you.” Eva makes a wish, and begins to open the doors to catch up on the clock. It is the end of Day 3. Will she make it to the end, and if so, how will she be?
Ridremont’s storytelling here doesn’t give us every day- just hints, a times- but enough of a through line to make sense of what it going on. The advent calendar chimes each night at midnight with the visage of Ich, a fairy tale demon. This is a sort of folk horror that we’re familiar with in films like “The Ring” and “The Grudge”- found items that are supernatural vessels- and it’s a damn good version of that. Eva isn’t an immediately likable character- she’s a bit bristly- but when events begin to play out, she’s a strong heroine for this film to hang its head on. Ridremont brings strong visual style to some of the most unsettling moments, and building a world in which Ich exists in. This is a bleak movie, however, but it almost needs to be when you think about the story being told. The ending is one you will not expect, however, even if you remember the video Eva is making at the beginning of the movie. It’s a nice treat of a horror film for the end of the year.
