Horror Movie Review: Nutcracker Massacre (2022)

Written by Joe Knetter, directed by Rebecca Matthews, and starring Beatrice Fletcher, Christophe Monplaisir, Julie Stevens, Andy Dixon, Patrick Bergin, May Kelly, and Stephen Staley. A movie called Nutcrack Massacre should not be this boring, yet here we are.

Clara (Beatrice Fletcher) has recently dumped Paul, (Andy Dixon) her cheating boyfriend and doesn’t have the heart to tell her aunt Marie (Julie Stevens) when she invites them to stay at her place for the holidays. Why doesn’t she tell her aunt? Because she likes him.

It’s stuff like this that really make you wonder about the writing of this film.

Clara goes to stay with her aunt, making an excuse for Paul’s absence and discovers that she has a life-sized nutcracker. One that we already know is alive because the movie opens with it killing someone before we rewind to a few days earlier.

Alongside Clara, Marie’s horrid daughter Mellisa (May Kelly), her suffering boyfriend James (Stephen Staley), and Paul also come to stay. The latter hoping to get Clara to forgive him. A cast of wholly unlikable characters played with little gusto, all ready to be massacred by the nutcracker.

It should have been so simple, but instead Nutcracker Massacre goes the dry and uninteresting route of saying what happens rather than showing it. This is a cheap movie, exemplified by the disappointing look of the nutcracker costume, but even then, the lack of blood and guts overall is surprising.

A lack of budget is no excuse for just how talky this film is and when you take into account how unlikable all the cast is, things really go off the rails quickly. Nowhere is that better exemplified than the excruciatingly long backstory of the nutcracker and why it’s got bloodlust. Calling it dull is being kind.

It’s hard to be harsh to the cast when they have so little to work with but that lack of meaty content does show in their performances. There’s a distinct lack of energy to the roles and it all seems to come back to the same thing, which is the boorish story. This really should have been an ‘off the chain’ shlock-fest but instead it’s nothing more than a snore-fest.