Season's Greetings
Tags: suspenseful

Plot synopsis:
The play begins on Christmas Eve. Harvey and Bernard argue over the violence shown in a film on TV while Neville and Eddie obsess over building remote controlled Christmas Tree lights; all the men largely ignoring their wives. Rachel becomes anxious over the late arrival of Clive, eventually leaving the house to look for him. When Clive arrives he meets Belinda and they swiftly develop a mutual attraction.
Throughout Christmas Day Clive grows closer to Belinda and more distant from Rachel. Finally around midnight, after a drunken game of snakes and ladders when Belinda and Clive believe everyone has gone to bed, they attempt to have sex in the sitting room but they are thwarted when they set off a toy drumming bear which rouses everyone else.
On Boxing Day, Bernard goes through the rehearsal of a dreadful puppet production of The Three Little Pigs. But after only two of the sixteen scenes, Harvey grabs the puppets and begins a fight, enraging Bernard.
On the 27th, Clive tries to sneak off first thing in the morning but Harvey shoots him, mistaking him for a looter. Bernard incompetently pronounces him dead. When Clive recovers, he is taken to hospital, leaving Neville and Belinda together, Neville having chosen to ignore what happened.

Review: A Cute Halloween Story That Introduces Sam. Dougherty introduces the adorable but not-to-be-messed-with Sam in this little feature short.
Twelve years later Sam will get his own feature film title 'Trick 'R Treat'.
The story here is in support of the Halloween spirit and little Sam is out to collect candies when he encounters unexpected things.
The animation is done by Dougherty himself and it is all beautifully hand drawn and coloured.
This gives an authentic and nostalgic feel.
Even though there is no dialogue, it's a story well told with a funny surprise in the end.
Overall, it's a satisfying short movie that introduces Dougherty's potential.
He might have a bright future as a filmmaker.
He's already proved that with the spin off 'Trick 'R Treat'..
Introducing Sam. Season's Greetings (1996) *** (out of 4) A decade before making TRICK 'R TREAT, writer-director Michael Dougherty made this four minute animated short that introduced the world to the Sam character.
This film is pretty simple on plot as we see Sam getting his candy bag stolen and the aftermath.
SEASON'S GREETINGS isn't the greatest thing around but there's no question that it's a nice little gem and it's really too bad, like the feature, that we don't have more of these.
There are so many "fun" things centered around Halloween that it's really too bad we didn't get to see more cases played out like the one here.
Having your candy bag stolen on Halloween is something most people have done, had done to them or at least have heard about so that adds to the entertainment factor here.
The animation is quite nice and this is certainly an entertaining way to be introduced to the Sam character..
Tricky....
This short animation is very short indeed, but I really enjoy the eerie tone and atmosphere that it manages to establish in the limited amount of time.
It's a classic old tale of the deceptive role-reversal kind, in which we see what appears to be a little boy trick or treating all alone in the spooky dead of night, and a missing child poster tells us that the neighbourhood isn't exactly a safe nice one.
And then a dark and sinister figure appears who we can safely assume is responsible, and he approaches the strange burlap sack-headed kid in an alley, and although it's all done in silhouetted flashes, I still found the violence against a kid pretty nasty, as well as the solitary splatter of blood.
It's quite the creepy and tense moment.
It wasn't the kid's blood, nor was that any ordinary kid!
It was perhaps the bad man that should have watched out for him!
Very cool stuff.
I loved the Gothic beautiful style of the animation, which is one of my favourite styles and it was a great way to introduce an early version of that lethally mischievous impish spirit of Halloween "Sam" who I personally wouldn't tag as "iconic" just yet.
In time sure, he has all the right pathos to make him a bonified "Movie Maniac" one day.
I thought Michael Dougherty make spectacular use of him in the "Trick 'R Treat" anthology, which was one of the most fun and well-made I'd seen in years.
Watching that film reanimated a little of my own Halloween spirit and appreciation of the season.
There's really no better time to watch it, or indeed this little work of art which is much grimmer than it first seems.
It's awful quick, but it has a beginning, it builds, and it has a good payoff.
Excellently done, Mr. Dougherty!
Happy Halloween.
Excellent Halloween-themed animated short.
Lethal and mischievous, but still lovable and adorable demon Sam experiences all kinds of nifty misadventures while out trick or treating on Halloween night.
Writer/director Michael Dougherty astutely pegs the infectiously fun'n'spooky ooga-booga midnight-in-the-graveyard spirit of the Halloween season complete with a black cat, a creepy old house, leering Jack O'Lantern pumpkins, an ominous hooting owl, and, best of all, a foolhardy would-be back alley mugger who gets more than he bargained for when he beats Sam up for his bag of Halloween candy.
The bright, sharp, and colorful animation has a totally happening old school hand-drawn charm to it.
Kudos are also in order for Evan T.
Chen's superbly shivery score.
Plus this short makes for a great introduction to the iconic character of Sam, who returns in a substantial part in the terrific horror anthology winner "Trick 'r Treat." A real enjoyable and on the money little delight..
Forgettable animated short.
"Season's Greetings" is a 4-minute animated cartoon from almost 20 years ago.
Iit seems that writer and director Michael Dougherty already had a soft spot for Halloween back then as by today, his most famous work is of course "Trick 'r Treat" if you do not count the films he wrote without directing.
Anyway, the action here is fairly uninteresting.
It's neither scary, not funny, nor entertaining for any other reason unfortunately and the animation level is pretty bad for a 1990s movie.
The only thing I can say in Dougherty's favor is that this little award winning movie is a student film and was done extremely early in his career and almost all the great names from directing have made weak films very early in their careers.
Dougherty is no exception.
The again, he is no great name either.
Forgettable watch and I do not recommend it.
Not even on Halloween.