Christmas Cruelty!
A Norwegian no-budget slasher that spends an hour watching a group of friends drink, bicker and buy a tree…
Festive Factor 33 out of 100: A different kind of Christmas.

Essential Christmas · 2015
A slasher in a Father Christmas mask, made by people who clearly love the eighties originals and want you to…
On Prime Video · UK subscription →The CineClaus Christmas score
A different kind of Christmas.

A little magic in the making.
Five ingredients make the Festive Factor.
Open an ingredient to find out more.
What we ask: Take Christmas out. Does the plot survive? Worth up to 30 of the 100 points.
What we ask: How much of the running time is visibly Christmas? Worth up to 20 of the 100 points.
What we ask: How many kinds of Christmas icon turn up on screen: trees, lights, snow, carols and the rest? Worth up to 15 of the 100 points.
What we ask: Does the ending depend on what Christmas means: goodwill, family, redemption, belief? Worth up to 20 of the 100 points.
What we ask: Is it actually watched at Christmas in the UK? Worth up to 15 of the 100 points.
Chilly in tone. Genuinely frightening. An unsettled ending.
Festive Factor measures how Christmassy a film is. Five ingredients add up to 100: story (30), setting (20), seasonal details (15), emotional heart (20) and returning tradition (15).
Cosiness is a separate score for warmth of tone, sense of safety, visual comfort, a reassuring ending and how easily you can settle into it.
How the Festive Factor works →

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Rachel Kimmel comes home for Christmas to the grandmother who raised her and agrees to help the reclusive Mrs Garrett next door decorate her house. While she does, a killer in a Father Christmas mask works his way around the neighbourhood, and by Christmas Eve Rachel and two friends are cornered in the Garrett house with him. The answer to who he is reaches back into Rachel's own childhood. An American indie slasher, written and directed by Todd Nunes, that plays the psycho-Santa formula straight and gory.
A slasher in a Father Christmas mask, made by people who clearly love the eighties originals and want you to know it.
The kills are inventive and the practical effects are strong, but the middle stretch drags and the neighbourhood is thin on actual Christmas once the opening snowball dare is over. What lifts it is the house next door, full of dressed mannequins and too many trees, and an ending that turns the story round on itself.
Strictly for gore fans who want their December with blood on the tinsel.
Our take: adults only: graphic, sustained gore and sexual violence from start to finish, so this is not one for children or younger teenagers.
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