Christmas Slay (2015) Review

You Better Watch Out, You Better Not Cry

Christmas Slay is a micro budget British indie horror that is slow, boring and strangely doesn't even feel like a horror movie for most of the runtime.

You know what you're getting into early in this movie. The first 15 minutes is 5 minutes of a weak kill scene and 10 minutes of watching the killer Santa getting arrested. And yes, he's a killer who lets himself get arrested by cops who don't even have guns. Two cops get into a fist fight with him, and even though Santa just killed a family, he goes down after a couple of punches and gives up.

Everything in this movie is unexpectedly calm. The killer is calm, half of the first 5 minute kill scene is literally watching him eat Christmas cake (the kid leaves out an entire cake instead of a few cookies) and sip tea. Then he goes into the parents bedroom and they wake up and just kinda watch him kill them. They don't try to walk to the other side of the room much less run. The cops that show up are calm, the killer is calm and the victims are calm. It's all very calm and slow and boring.

And the killer isn't a psycho Santa with any real reason to kill. He's just some old angry guy in a Santa suit. The movie says he escaped from a mental facility, but he's not mental. Escaping from jail would make more sense since he's just a dude with impulse control issues.

The story itself follows a group of British Becky's to a cabin in Scotland where most of the runtime is just watching them talk shit and hash out drama. It reminded me somewhat of the Norwegian movie Christmas Blood which is also about a group of women who just hang out and chat. Of course Christmas Blood had a few redeeming qualities, unlike Christmas Slay.

Worth Watching?