Horror Movie Review: Killer Christmas (2017)

Directed & written by PeterPaul Shaker & Tony Shaker, Killer Christmas is a Christmas horror where six friends explore an abandoned hotel near a Christmas tree lot only to find themselves being murdered one-by-one by someone in a Santa mask.

Taking all its cues from every slasher ever, Killer Christmas is a low budget, competently acted but uninspiring horror film.

Starring PeterPaul Shaker, Freya Lund, Tony Shaker & Matt Maretz. A group of friends obsessed with playing games head off to a Christmas tree lot to cut down their own trees. They see an abandoned hotel & decide to break in to play hide and seek. One that involves lots of bickering, sex references & not a lot else.

The pacing of Killer Christmas is all over the place. It takes an age to get going with the killer showing up finally with more than half the movie over. The mystery behind the killer’s identity is less of a surprise & more of a confirmation of who the script makes painfully obvious is behind the mask. It’s really not much of a surprise & the motivation is sketchy at best. You don’t have to like people to not be a murderous psycho!

The cast are mostly fine though, the faults with the movie can’t be attributed to them. Their interactions are believable & the characters fleshed out. Well, as much as possibly can be done within a slasher. The dialogue is hit & miss though. For some reason there really isn’t much in the way of blood but there is a huge amount of swearing. You’ll hear ‘fuck’ so many times here that you’ll end up thinking it’s a normal part of human vocabulary!

The location is nothing special, it could have been though if it wasn’t for the constant darkness. Killer Christmas is not a well-lit film leaving you feeling like you’re watching a found-footage horror. Ultimately, Killer Christmas doesn’t have an original bone in its body & the Christmas theme is stretched out. Decent acting can’t make up for a bland plot, poor pacing & a disappointing killer reveal.