A Christmas Tale

(2005)

The final film in the Spanish 6 films to keep you awake series. Our story opens with a group of kids who find a woman dressed in a Santa suit stuck at the bottom of a hole. They are about to release her when they discover that she’s wanted for robbery. She stole a large sum of money and the greedy kids decide to keep her in the hole and starve her until she tells them where she hid the cash. But things don't quite go as planned. Someone should have told them that every bad decision has an equally bad consequence.


This is a colorful little story which is carried off lightly. Pretty amazing considering the rather heavy subject matter. All the kids aren't evil, the girl among them is sympathetic to the woman's situation and sneaks her some food when the boys aren't around. One of the boys is obsessed with The Karate Kid therefore you can expect some campy humor centered around that. In fact, the translation to subtitle at one point had “wax on, wax off” as “pour polish, wipe it off” or something like that. The whole episode reminded me of one of those mildly humorous 80's horror flicks, kinda kid friendly. It doesn't ruin it though and the ending is quite good. Maybe that makes up for the crappy ending of A Real Friend which was the flip side on this disc.


Altogether, 6 Films to Keep You Awake is a series worthy of Horrorthon viewing. Some good creepy stuff in here. The first 2 stories (The Baby's Room & To Let) being the best of the bunch.