‘Unholy Night’ Review – Holiday Horror Film Falls Short Of Potential [Fantasia Fest 2026]

Christmas is such a nice and strange holiday. You spend an entire evening trapped in a house with relatives you may only see once or twice a year, eating lots of food, and waiting for an argument that has been stewing in a pot just waiting to burst out. It’s a great holiday really. So the idea of adding murderous undead relatives to the equation is honestly a pretty great and amusing one. Unholy Night takes that premise and turns a traditional Italian Christmas Eve gathering into a zombie movie, with our lead protagonist Gino (Marc Bendavid) caught in the middle of undead relatives resurfacing, trying to kill everyone.

There is a really fun movie buried somewhere inside Unholy Night. The setup is appealing on its own, and the film has enough genuinely creative ideas to make you wish the screenplay had done more with them. But unfortunately, the movie keeps introducing possibilities that feel more interesting than the story it eventually chooses to tell. 

The film opens with an unrelated family being attacked by an undead man, leaving only a young girl alive. It is a grim opening that suggests Unholy Night might have something more sinister in mind than a simple zombie comedy. Years later, the story moves to Gino’s family Christmas Eve celebration, where the arrival of his dead grandmother, Nonna Pina (Jacqueline Robbins), turns the holiday into a nightmare. She returns home and begins cooking as if nothing has happened, before suddenly becoming violent. Soon, more deceased relatives begin appearing throughout the neighborhood.

The idea of the dead returning to the places they once lived is a strong one. It gives the movie a nice sense of domestic horror, particularly when the undead aren’t immediately treated like traditional monsters. Some of them behave violently, while others are strangely calm. So that right there is where some problems begin; that specific inconsistency could have been used to create a genuinely unsettling mystery about what these revenants want and why some of them seem more aware than others, but it mostly makes the rules feel unclear. The threat changes depending on what the scene needs, and that makes the zombies feel less frightening as the movie goes on.

There are still some cool moments of horror here. The makeup effects are one of the film’s stronger elements, and the practical work gives the undead a tangible presence that helps sell the more gruesome encounters. Unholy Night clearly understands that a Christmas zombie movie should get messy. There are some fun images and a few effective scares scattered throughout the film, even if the movie never builds enough tension around them.

The bigger problem is that the characters aren’t developed enough to make the chaos matter as much as it should. Gino is the central figure, but Marc Bendavid’s performance makes it difficult to connect with him. I don’t think this necessarily means Bendavid is a bad actor, but the performance here never feels fully committed to the material. His fear and distress often come across as performed rather than genuinely felt, if that makes any sense. This becomes especially noticeable during the more emotional or frightening scenes. When your character is surrounded by dead family members coming back to life, you need to believe that he understands how insane the situation is, but it never really felt like that. 

The film does have an interesting relationship at its center with Gino and Rene (Shailene Garnett), his former love. Their reunion gives the story an opportunity to explore the way old relationships and family histories can resurface when people are forced into a crisis together. Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t spend enough time developing them. Their history is there, but the screenplay seems more interested in moving from one supernatural incident to the next.

That is a recurring issue throughout Unholy Night. The movie keeps introducing potentially interesting ideas about family, tradition, gender, ancestry, and social expectations, but it rarely follows through on them. Lucia’s belief that the dead may have returned because the family has disrespected its ancestors is much more interesting than the explanation the film eventually provides. There is a sense that the movie is building toward something strange and thematically rich, only to settle for a much blander answer.

The same problem affects the comedy. The premise is naturally funny. There is something inherently absurd about trying to have a traditional family Christmas dinner while your dead grandmother suddenly comes back and starts murdering people. Yet Unholy Night rarely finds enough laughs in that situation. The movie has the ingredients for a very entertaining horror comedy, but the jokes don’t land consistently enough. Too often, the film seems to assume that the situation itself is funny when the characters and dialogue need to do more of the work.

The shifting focus also hurts the story. There are a lot of family members, old relationships, supernatural questions, and competing character dynamics; it is a lot to juggle and deal with under such a short runtime, and the film doesn’t give most of them enough room to develop. Relationships that should feel emotionally important are often reduced to bits of exposition, while certain characters disappear for long stretches before suddenly becoming relevant again.

I also found the explanation for the undead particularly disappointing. The movie spends much of its runtime suggesting that the returning dead could be connected to something deeply rooted in the family’s history and traditions. There are hints of a larger mythology involving ancestors and the way the living treat the dead. That material gives the film a little mystery. Unfortunately, the eventual explanation feels far less interesting than the questions the movie initially raises.

That leaves Unholy Night in a frustrating position. There is a genuinely creative horror premise here, some good makeup effects, and a few entertaining moments of violence. I like the idea of a Christmas family gathering becoming a battle against undead relatives, and the film occasionally finds the right tone. The problem is that the story never develops its best ideas far enough. The themes are introduced and then abandoned, the characters remain thin, the comedy is inconsistent, and the explanation behind the supernatural events is much less satisfying than the mystery surrounding them.

I kept thinking about how much more interesting the film could have been if it had committed more strongly to its ideas about family and tradition. The undead could have represented something more specific than simply a supernatural threat. The film could have explored why these particular people were returning, what their relationships with the living had been, and whether the family was actually being punished for something or simply being forced to confront the things it had buried. Instead, the movie mostly uses those ideas as a path toward another zombie attack.

There is a fun movie somewhere in Unholy Night. I like the concept, and the practical effects give it some personality. But the screenplay never quite figures out how to balance the family drama, supernatural mystery, horror, and comedy. The result is a film that has more potential than payoff.

Unholy Night had its World Premiere in the Septentrion Shadows section of the 2026 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Director: Michael Gabriele

Writer: Michael Gabriele

Rated: NR

Runtime: 91m