25 days, 25 chapters. This December, the countdown to Christmas will chill you to the bone.
Hoping to bring his family closer together, Adam Gray arranges a vacation in a remote cabin on a snowy mountain. Things take a dark turn, however, when someone starts leaving gifts in the Christmas stocking mounted on the barn door.
Each morning brings something new, and with every passing day, the contents become more terrifying. Soon, the family makes a spine-chilling realization: they’ve been dragged into a deranged game of Secret Santa, and if they want to survive, they will have to fight.
My imagination was captured by the idea of a horror story told as an Advent Calendar – one chapter a day from 1st December.
I’ve entered into the spirit of it by reading one chapter a day and writing down my reactions.
I’m having fun. The classic horror set-up is enriched by how well the family is drawn and enlivened by rotating the point of view through the four family members chapter by chapter.
Here’s what happened in the second week.
December 8th
I like seeing things from nine-year-old Chloe’s point of view (although I was suprised to hear a girl her age use the phrase ‘per se’.
Things have now gotten bad enough that the parents are having to level with the kids. Odd how that’s definitely a sign of things being serious.
December 9th
More an interlude than a chapter but enough to re-inforce my impression of Adam as being the weakest member of the family under stress. He thinks himself into being at a disadvantage. He has no outdoor skills and he’s a little too nice to be familiar with giving or receiving violence. As for his preparations, who picks a pitchfork over a hammer as a weapon to take down the mountain? Either take both or leave the heavy, hard-to-use-without-practice pitchfork behind.
I’m left wondering if his wife, Beth, should be (or will be?) in the lead for theit attempt to descend from the mountain.
I’m also wondering what’s going to happen to fuel another sixteen chapters.
December 10th
Now the conflict starts. We’ve moved from generalised menace to direct attack.
I should be focusing on the attacker’s agenda. What does he want beyond terrorising the family?
Instead, I’m distracted by how ill-prepared the family are for a winter hike down the mountain. They left late, seemed to have taken very little food and no means of making a fire and aren’t carrying any water. They seem as much in danger of dying from hypothermia as from any attack.
December 11th
This was a chapter of odd contrasts.
The family dynamics, especially the way the two sisters dealt with their angry, arguing parents and how the sisters related to each other felt real and appropriate. It was nothing deep but it was easy to relate to.
On the other hand the mechanics of the journey are so implausible that I find them distracting Where did Adam find dry kindling to make a fire? Why isn’t he building the fire against the rock face where one side is protected from the wind and the heat will bounce back. How is it that, in this family with no outdoor skills, everyone can climb? And why go UP a mountain you don’t know when you have no supplies and poor survival skills?
December 12th
OK, so now the big bad is here. And what an entrance.
It was a great choice to describe this through Chloe’s eyes and to have her paralysed by fear.
NOW I want to know what happens next.
But… I’ll wait for tomorrow to find out.
I’m old enough to remember when the Saturday Matinees at the movies felt like this,
December 13th
I didn’t expect this chapter to be from Adam’s point of view, even though it was his turn in the rotation. Does it make me a bad person that I’m slightly diappointed that he’s still in the game?
Still, this was a clever move. It keeps me in suspense about what has happened to Beth, Abby and Chloe. It opens new possibilities with Adam as a Wild Card and it means that I’m likely to get my first up close look up at the Big Bad from Beth’s point of view.
December 14th
In a single short chapter, the whole tone of the story has changed. We’ve moved from undefined menace to immediate danger. There’s nothing lighthearted anymore. Just the darkness of abuction, isolation imprisonment, po3erlessness, cruelty and fear.
The big bad has struck and he’s scarier than I had expected. Partly it’s because I don’t know what he wants. Parly it’s that he’s so well prepared and parly it’s because of his silence.
Beth’s reaction£? Rage. Pure homicidal rage. I love her focus. It doesn’t change how helpless she is or how much danger she and her daughters are in but Beth’s rage may keep all of them alive
You can find what the first week looked like HERE
Mike Finn's Fiction 