A Very PearTree Christmas

Kate Christmas is a journalist with a deep aversion to Christmas, and is happy for a job over the holidays — even if it is to cover a 'Twelve Days of Christmas' festival in the village of Peartree. Kate is greeted upon her arrival by a smiling mayor named Kringle, and the innkeeper, Merry Bright. The town's insistence on maintaining a perfect veneer despite the occasional holiday 'accident' borders on unsettling, so it's a relief when Merry's nephew, Brandon, notices the odd occurrences as well.

Slowly, Kate lowers her guard and begins to fall for Brandon, the town, and maybe even Christmas. But as festival contestants continue suffering bizarre accidents, her reporter's instincts take over. Gradually she learns that what she suspected was a local scandal is far more: PearTree's holiday magic is a cover for a design that has been in motion for centuries, and Kate has been brought there for a reason that has nothing to do with writing about the festival.

A Very PearTree Christmas is a Hallmark movie that slowly reveals it's been a folk-horror film the whole time — and it plays both sides honestly. The romance is real. The scares are real. The audience gets the rug pulled mid-movie the same way Kate does.

Horror audiences have an enormous appetite for the novel — and with the Hallmark-style, nobody has co-opted yet for horror. Existing holiday horror, as great as it is, is starting to feel same-y. This film draws our audience with the promise of something genuinely new and delivers what will become a holiday horror-comedy classic.