Holiday horror films typically fall into one of two broad categories. They are either excessively corny or lean towards the supernatural, often relying on loosely defined folklore. The original Krampus fits into the latter group, while Blumhouse’s recent Thanksgiving belongs to the former.
Both styles can be entertaining, but they also risk becoming painfully dull and predictable. Very few manage to be genuinely terrifying, and even fewer offer something truly unexpected. Whether for better or worse, Damien LeVeck’s A Creature Was Stirring presents a layered experience.
Not all Christmas creatures come from folklore (Photo: A Creature Was Stirring/Skubalon Entertainment and Paper Street Pictures)What initially appears to be a creature-based horror story gradually transforms into something completely different, albeit somewhat puzzling. Here is a breakdown of its ambiguous ending.
The Story Behind A Creature Was Stirring
In this holiday-themed horror film by LeVeck, Chrissy Metz from This Is Us takes on the role of a nurse and mother doing her best to raise her teenage daughter, Charm (played by Annalise Basso from Snowpiercer). Christmas is around the corner, and although Faith (Metz) loves Charm deeply, something seems off.
She administers medication, keeps a close watch on her temperature, forces her into ice-cold baths, and insists on keeping her emotions in check. The way events play out suggests that Charm could transform into something beyond human at any moment.
When a pair of intruders break into their home during a Christmas snowstorm, things quickly spiral towards disaster. As the tension builds, a brother and sister—Liz, played by Scout Taylor-Compton from Rob Zombie’s Halloween, and Kory, portrayed by Connor Paola of Revenge—find themselves entangled in the chaos.
They must go through the unpredictable terrain of a frantic mother and the looming possibility of a monstrous outbreak. The film’s strong creature effects and well-executed set pieces contribute to an uneasy atmosphere, keeping the audience uncertain.
Just as Liz and Kory start questioning what they have stumbled upon, we too begin to doubt what we perceive about Faith and Charm. This all culminates in an ending that may seem perplexing at first but makes more sense once certain clues are understood.
Deciphering the Ending of A Creature Was Stirring
Horror stories frequently incorporate addiction as a central theme, much like grief and trauma. Though this approach has become increasingly common, it still manages to catch viewers off guard.
However, A Creature Was Stirring does not immediately present itself as an addiction allegory—at least not until the final moments, when everything takes a sharp turn and redefines the entire story. As Charm’s agitation intensifies, Faith’s past resurfaces in a way that upends everything.
She discloses that Charm was conceived following an encounter involving a porcupine accident. Faith was once a drug addict, making poor decisions and harming those around her.
Guilt from her past weighs heavily on her, leading her to believe that her daughter is at risk of becoming a monster due to her own previous mistakes.
Throughout the film, we are given the impression that Liz and Kory are being hunted by Charm’s father—an enormous porcupine-like creature—and later by Charm herself, who eventually takes after her supposed father. However, the final moments turn this perception upside down.
Faith rescues Charm from inside the beast after Kory meets his end and Liz manages to flee. As Faith hums a familiar lullaby to Charm—now fully transformed into a porcupine creature—she places her bat aside. But this is merely a ruse. Faith then stabs the creature and reaches inside to extract Charm from within its body.
After pulling her out, time skips forward by a week. The mother and daughter are later seen having breakfast together while a news report states that it is unusually warm for January, with spring seemingly arriving early. Charm expresses gratitude to her mother for saving her.
Shortly after, Faith steps outside, where reality begins to set in.
Faith’s Distorted Reality and the True Horror
Outside, Faith discovers a suitcase and a Polaroid picture of herself and a boy from 1998 hidden in the bushes. This is when the truth unravels—Faith was the real monster all along. Her past wasn’t just marked by substance abuse; she was also a murderer.
Back in 1998, she injected Kory with an overdose of a narcotic, causing his death. The vision of her and Kory kissing on the bed wasn’t a dream—it was a memory of their relationship before she ended his life. The film doesn’t depict events as they happened.
Instead, everything is filtered through Faith’s unreliable perspective. Kory had died in 1998, and Liz never broke into Faith’s home. Charm was never afflicted with any strange disease, nor was she at risk of turning into a porcupine-like being.
A home invasion spirals into something far worse (Photo: A Creature Was Stirring/Skubalon Entertainment and Paper Street Pictures)All of it was a delusion, the fragmented thoughts of a deeply disturbed mind. Faith’s instability could have been triggered by her long-term drug abuse or by the guilt of what she had done to Kory. At no point was Charm ever truly saved—she was killed by her mother.
Faith had likely subjected Charm to drugs and abuse for most of her life, in what resembled an extreme case of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome. Charm, in a desperate bid for survival, attempted to escape through the window. The truth is, it wasn’t Liz who went out that window—it was Charm.
The circumstances of her death remain unclear. It is uncertain whether she succumbed to the freezing conditions outside or if Faith dealt the final blow herself. However, based on Faith’s warped recollection of events, it is implied that she fatally stabbed her daughter.
Faith never reported the incident because, in her mind, she wasn’t aware of what had truly taken place. Charm’s body was only discovered once the snow had melted, revealing the grim reality. Faith’s troubled past was the true horror at the heart of A Creature Was Stirring.
The haunting presence of drug addiction and her destructive tendencies manifested into an overwhelming sense of guilt, creating an imagined monster that symbolized her fears.
She spent so much time worrying about preventing Charm from turning into something unnatural that she failed to recognize that she was the real threat. Her actions were never about protecting Charm from a monstrous father but rather about shielding her daughter from Faith herself.
The creature never existed—only the lingering consequences of addiction and the hallucinations of a fractured mind. Perhaps there was a minor incident involving a porcupine at some point, though that seems unlikely.
It is more reasonable to assume that Faith fabricated this detail due to the resemblance between porcupine quills and the needles she once used. The connection between the porcupine imagery and her history of drug use strengthens the addiction metaphor.
Additionally, it is improbable that she was injecting Charm with antifreeze. A more likely scenario is that she was administering morphine or methadone stolen from the hospital—if she was even a nurse at all.
Much like the surreal and visually striking Braid, A Creature Was Stirring presents an unreliable version of events, making it difficult to distinguish reality from delusion. Faith’s psychological state is so fractured that she may never be able to acknowledge the truth of what transpired.
The roses blooming in her yard—despite it being January—serve as an unmistakable sign that she has completely detached from reality. The graphic novel-inspired cinematography should have hinted at the film’s distorted nature from the start.
While A Creature Was Stirring may not be an outright terrifying horror film, it succeeds in delivering tense moments.
The impressive cinematography, combined with remarkable practical effects, makes it a film that will likely gain a dedicated following over time. It is currently available in select cinemas and on VOD platforms.
