★★★★ out of ★★★★★

Directed by Patrick Ridermont

Stylish, creepy, and strange. Begin the countdown to Christmas with The Advent Calendar.

Eva (Eugénie Derouand) is a former ballerina who became confined to a wheelchair after a car accident left her paraplegic. It’s the beginning of December when her best friend Sophie (Honorine Magnier) returns from Germany and gifts Eva with a strange-looking advent calendar that she picked up at the Christmas Market in Munich. This isn’t your typical candy-filled calendar but a large and highly decorative wooden one with storage pictures and a key that opens each day’s drawer as the clock strikes midnight.

This calendar also comes with rules: if you eat one candy you must eat them all or you’ll die, follow all the rules contained in the candy wrappers or you’ll die, don’t throw the calendar away, or…yup, you’ll die. As Eva eats her way through December she beings to realize that the calendar may have the power to give her back her mobility, but how many others will have to suffer for her to be restored?

The Advent Calendar is an incredibly stylish and creepy “careful what you wish for” story with a fair amount of gore. “Ich”, the demon within the calendar is a nightmarish creature with notes of Hellraiser and Silent Hill. The performance by Eugénie Derouand is magnetic and the ending is fantastic. This film will be added to my annual Christmas movie rotation.

The Advent Calendar is available to stream on Shudder. If this film leaves you wishing for more French Christmas horror films, listen to podcast Episode CXIV: Ho Ho Horror! for my recommendations.