Deck the halls with… chunks of bodies!

One can never have enough Christmas-themed horror to watch in the weeks leading up to the big day, and a partnership between Blumhouse Television and YouTube Red this year brings twelve brand spankin’ new tales of holiday horror to the screen you’re staring at right now. Co-created by Chris Cullari and Jennifer Raite, “12 Deadly Days” debuted exclusively on YouTube Red today, and each day on the road to Christmas will see the premiere of a twisted holiday short.

The anthology series is made up of interconnected half-hour tales set in the fictional town of Saturn, California, and let’s just say things get a little weird in Saturn around Christmastime. Filmmakers like Joe Lynch (Wrong Turn 2) and Eduardo Sanchez (The Blair Witch Project) teamed up with both horror icons and YouTube stars to bring the stories to life, and throughout the course of “12 Deadly Days” you will come face to face with everything from cursed fruit cakes to killer carolers.

What can we expect from “12 Deadly Days”? We had the chance to sit down and chat with Joe Lynch, who directed the first and second episodes along with the two-part finale, and he provided us with some insight into the series. As it turns out, Lynch is a HUGE fan of Christmas flicks like Rare Exports, Black Christmas, Krampus, and Die Hard (Lynch’s own Christmas-set Everly plays out like Die Hard with Salma Hayek as the badass hero), and when he heard that Blumhouse was developing “12 Deadly Days,” he pulled out all the stops to make sure he was on board.

“It was the end of the summer and I was locking cut on my new feature Mayhem and we were getting ready to hand over the VFX and begin that process,” Lynch explained to us, digging into the chain of events that led to him becoming an integral creative force in the series. “So I took a drive to clear my head on the Pacific Coast Highway and my Mayhem line producer, Buddy Enright, called to just say hi. He mentioned he was working with Blumhouse and Dakota Films – who I’m a big fan of – on this Christmas Horror anthology and I nearly drove off the road! I immediately told him I needed the emails of everyone involved and pulled over on the side of the road and began contacting them. Now, I know that’s not the most elegant way to get a job, but when you say “Horror,” “Christmas” and “Anthology,” I immediately get excited and had to take a shot.”

“Luckily enough, the showrunners, Chris Culari and Jen Raite, were in the process of looking for directors for the show and whether this is true or not, I was on their list for possible directors!” Lynch continued. “So we met and we realized we had the same loves for holiday horror and movies like Trick ‘r Treat and Go – where different stories weave and interconnect with each other. We all got very excited at the possibilities. Five weeks later we were shooting… it all happened that fast.”

The Lynch-directed premiere episode of “12 Deadly Days” is titled “The Haunting At the End of the Street,” and it puts a horror spin on the classic Christmas Carol tale. When he saw the script, Lynch knew he was the one to bring that story to life, and he brought a beloved horror icon along with him.

“Immediately when I read Haunting and the possibilities of playing in the world of Scrooge and the Christmas Carol mythology I knew I was hooked; it was such a clever play on the Dickens story and I couldn’t wait to play with those familiar tropes but with a horror bent,” Lynch recalled. “But they didn’t assign any directors to episodes yet, so it was up for grabs at that point. When I finally met them and the producers at Dakota, I basically said I HAD to do the Scrooge episode and wouldn’t leave till they let me!”

“The Haunting At the End of the Street,” written by Culari and Raite, stars Bill Moseley as Ebenezer Scrooge, and horror fans will get a huge kick out of seeing him in the role.

“One thing I kept pressing on is ‘We need an iconic Scrooge’ and the idea was always to cast a fantastic character actor that genre fans would appreciate but not be stunt-casting, you know?” Lynch told us. “When the first list got sent to me however, all I remember saying was ‘Moseley. No one else. Has to be Moseley’ and there was little pushback on that at all. I absolutely love Bill; both what he brings to each part but also his tried and true work ethic. We acted together in Holliston but I had never formally directed him. He was a dream and everyone loved working with him… it was hard to see him suddenly turn into Scrooge when I called ‘Action’!”

Alongside veteran actors like Moseley and John “The Cryptkeeper” Kassir, “12 Deadly Days” also stars a handful of YouTube personalities, but don’t let that deter you from checking it out. There’s a certain stigma attached to YouTube “influencers,” but having seen Lynch’s two episodes, I can tell you that there are nothing but great performances on display here. Lynch himself revealed that he was a little wary of the whole thing at first, but he quickly realized how much talent he was working with.

“When they first laid out the plans, of course we were a little nervous,” Lynch admitted. “Nothing against them at all, but with things moving so fast, we didn’t have time for rehearsals, which I’m more used to in film. But thankfully we found good roles for many of them in each short and I was very happy with the results. Plus, it’s a misconception that YouTube Stars aren’t real actors – most of them I know and worked with are some of the most talented people with tons of formal training and acting experience, they were just savvy enough to find another avenue to work their craft. I LOVED working with Burnie Burns in episode 2; I knew his work through my friend Colton Dunn and in Rooster Teeth’s Lazer Team, but never worked with him formally and it was a fantastic time. He and Betty Gabriel hit it off famously in the episode and it was a joy fighting in the trenches with them. All of the “influencers” were awesome to have on set, many bringing a great energy…and a slew of selfies.”

The second episode of “12 Deadly Days,” titled “Tree Witch,” centers on a haunted Christmas tree lot, and Lynch says it was so ambitious that he was initially a bit intimidated by it.

“I won’t lie, when I read that script, I kind of peed a little, and not the good kind!” Lynch explained. “It was awesome but VERY ambitious, especially given our parameters. Given the time and budget we had, that script was a little scary because I didn’t want to drop the ball and not deliver. Thankfully we had an amazing crew, like our DP Scott Winig and production designer Nate Jones, who, along with so many other great artists, were able to pull magic out of their asses every day on a breakneck 8-week shoot. It was crazy but in the end we pulled it off! And being able to tell a completely different type of story, with its own look and feel while still being in that Saturn world, was really exciting. It was like making two completely unique little horror movies back to back.”

There’s a horror-comedy tone to “12 Deadly Days,” but you might be surprised by how creepy the titular “Tree Witch” is. She resides in an Upside Down-like world that was impressively brought to life by Lynch and his crew on a tight budget, and she’s sure to be one of the standout highlights of the entire series. So too is the story itself, which will leave you hungry for more.

“I put most of my brain power trying to come up with both a unique way to present this dark space within the confines of what we had to work with and also a look for the Witch that would evoke pangs of fear, not laughter,” said Lynch. “Her look was really inspired by culling through many different images of witches in woods; nature influenced the design. And I won’t lie, it gave me an excuse to watch William Friedkin’s The Guardian, where we got a little inspiration for the bark-like skin and the idea she’s actually made of wood, hence the crackling of twigs we hear when she moves. When we were coming up with how to make Tree Witch scary, I kept thinking of these haunting images in Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood or Carpenter’s The Fog, where just a simple presence, blocked and framed in just the right way with some atmosphere in the wind can cause chills down your spine. Plus, less is more in many cases with horror so it was about JUST showing enough.”

“If audiences are wondering more about Tree Witch or the other elements in other episodes and how they could be bigger stories,” he added, “then we’ve done our jobs!”

As mentioned earlier, Lynch also returned to direct the two-part finale of “12 Deadly Days,” which he promises will wrap everything up and bring it all together in satisfying fashion. Each individual story bleeds right into the next one, and he told us that “almost everything comes back around in the finale.” He also noted that “all hell breaks loose,” but wasn’t at liberty to say more than that.

“It all feels like one long, fucked up Christmas nightmare in this very peculiar small town,” Lynch said of the series as a whole. “The town we created really lives and breathes, has a history and its own dark secrets, and the more you watch, the more things will be revealed up to the big finale.”

Lynch’s passion for “12 Deadly Days” was palpable throughout my chat with him, and in closing, he said that he hopes the series will be enjoyed by all horror fans this holiday season.

“This was a show made for horror fans by true horror fans to enjoy with their in-laws over the holiday break,” he noted. “One of the things I love to do when I go home for the holidays to visit family is pick a series of movies to binge with my brothers in-between the festivities and present-openings. We’re hoping that 12 Deadly Days will be the kind of show you won’t want to stop watching during the holidays, and with YouTube’s plan of dropping a new episode a day, it’s like a digital advent calendar. It’s our little gory gift to all of you! Merry Christmas!”

Watch the premiere episode of “12 Deadly Days” below!