Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas boils and ghouls! It’s my second favorite time of the year, besides Halloween obviously. A time of the year where families can get together to eat, drink and be merry. It’s a time of giving as they say. This holiday season isn’t exactly known for horror to most. But, here at The Horror Syndicate we never take a day or holiday off. With that said, I was given the opportunity to screen a Christmas hack and slash survival film. As always, I prepared my pre-movie ritual of popcorn and beer. Time for another cinematic adventure, as we take a look at Stuart W. Bedford’s Good Tidings.
The plot of the film is fairly simple. A homeless war veteran, is out scavenging for his next holiday meal. He comes across another man down on his luck. He offers to take the man back to an abandoned place, where others like themselves are staying warm for the holidays. Everything is merry at the abandoned place. Caroling, eating and dancing. Until everything goes all 6’s and 7’s, when three uninvited guests in Santa Claus outfits show up wielding weapons. The homeless group are in for a night they will never forget. Who will make it out alive?
Good Tidings was filmed at a break neck pace over 18 days. Filmed in Southport, Merseyside a town outside of Liverpool. The film had a truly meager budget of only $9k. Post production, distribution and marketing brought the final amount to around $25k. An amazing feat to produce such a polished work of cinema on limited financial means! Good Tidings also won a few awards over the Indie film festival circuits. Winning Best Feature Film at The Optical Theatre Festival and Bedford winning Best Director at HorrorQuest Film Festival just to mention a couple.
The flick stars Alan Mulhall, Colin Murtagh, Alexander Mounsey, Stu Jopia and Claire Crossland. The performances were all really well done for such a low budget affair. Most notable performance was given by Mulhall as Sam, the down on his luck war veteran with a turbulent and troubled past. I was pleasantly surprised also by the performance of Crossland as Roxy, the rough street wise junkie trying to get herself clean.
Good Tidings was written by Bedford, Giovanni Gentile and Stu Jopia. They did a wonderful job fleshing out the main characters in a film where usually most script writers would keep it simple. This film had some really great gore provided by Andy Savage and his team at Savage SFX. Truly a bloody good time! I was incredibly impressed by the practical effects.
Overall, I was truly drawn in by this film. This was a wild romp! A true survival horror, where you really see what humans are capable of when backed into a corner. It’s not very often you get a film that shows you the best and worst parts of Christmas. If you are looking for something new this Christmas, look no further than Good Tidings! Where Christmas Can Be Killer!
Good Tidings was released on VOD, iTunes and Amazon on December 6, 2016.
IMDB: 4.8/10 (too low)
ZombiSurvivor: 7.0/10
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
STAY SCARED with The Horror Syndicate all winter long!
