Despite the misleading American release title -- giving the impression of another holiday-themed slasher flick -- this British production (aka Timewarp Terror) is set in midsummer and employs a wacky but interesting supernatural theme. The story serves up the usual batch of teenage morons and bimbos as horror-fodder, stranding the group in a haunted hotel which, years ago, was the site of a massacre so horrific that the entire locale has been trapped in a deadly time warp. The resident ghosts torment their new guests with a variety of silly special effects -- including a possessed vacuum cleaner, an inter-dimensional mirror, and a lethal movie screen -- and turn them into murderous ghouls who then pursue the still-warm survivors. Directed by
Norman J. Warren (the sceptered Isle's answer to
Fred Olen Ray), this film is derivative of
Sam Raimi's
The Evil Dead and
Lucio Fulci's
The Beyond, minus those films' extreme approach to horror. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide