Horror Movie Review: Mercy Christmas (2017)

The best kind of Christmas horrors are the ones that embrace the absurd. The ones that dial it up to eleven and make it feel like an authentic holiday film. Think the visuals of Home Alone but where Kevin tortures and kills the burglars before serving their corpses as food for his parents. Welcome to Mercy Christmas. A comedy horror that takes all of the above and has a blast with it.

There’s a short list of Christmas horror movies we would recommend as few really impress but Mercy Christmas can proudly join it. It’s a down-right insane movie but you’ll be giggling with glee all the way through it.

Steven Hubbell plays Michael Briskett, our star who is a kindly loser toiling away at in his office cubicle. He is lonely and dreams of spending Christmas with a real family and a woman who cares for him. That’s not going to happen if his boss, Andy (Cole Gleason) has anything to do with it though. He takes advantage by making Michael do his work over the holiday period.

Michael, being such a timid and affable fellow can’t say no but when he meets Cindy (Casey O’Keefe) things start to look up. She agrees to go to his party and when nobody else turns up the pair actually have a nice time. On her way out, she decides to invite him to spend Christmas Day with her family and Michael agrees.

At Cindy’s home the next day, Michael meets her seemingly perfect family and he couldn’t be happier. That is until he decides to give a toast during dinner and his mind starts to get hazy. Just as he falls unconscious, he sees his boss walk. It turns out that Andy is part of the Robillard family and Michael has been chosen alongside two others to be part of a tradition. A family tradition that involves cannibalism and goes back a long way.

It is as mental as it sounds but plays out in such way that it’s impossible to not get totally invested in the absurdity of it all. Part comedy, part uber-violent horror…Mercy Christmas combines the two perfectly. All thanks to the bright visuals, the excellent camera-work, the Christmas feel and the excellent acting.

Steven Hubbell’s Michael may not be much of an original character but he puts his heart and soul into him. Michael is adorable and incredibly likeable holding onto hope as long as he possibly can even in the face of the evil that comes from Cole Gleason’s Andy. A truly despicable character that you desperately want to see get his comeuppance.

While these two are the standouts, everyone does a fantastic job. From Casey O’Keefe’s desire to honour the memory of the family’s dead mother to Gwen Van Dam’s Granny who is twisted and without remorse to Whitney Nielsen’s Katherine who deals with the hostage situation a little differently. You’ll remember every character and no-one half-arses it here at all.

If all that appeals then the film also adds some top-class gore to the mix to really turn this cake into a thing of beauty. Mercy Christmas has no issue with taking the dark subject matter and making sure your stomach might turn a bit while watching this. When this family say they enjoy a leg over the dinner, it’s not come from what you might think!

Brilliant. Thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end. Even when it ramps up the silliness for the finale, it’s still an absolute blast. If you watch one Christmas horror this year, make it Mercy Christmas!

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