My Review Of “Killer Holiday”

“Killer Holiday” takes classic horror into true crime territory. Not that this film is based on any real life events but the premise does sort of reoccur on those true crime channels quite a bit. The film is directed by Marty Thomas and stars a hot cast. Michael Copon, Marty Thomas, Alex Mandel, Rachel Lara, Randolph Mantooth, Julia Beth Stern, David Namminga, Rachel Wixom,Matt Calloway, Rich Hoag, Noah Gibbings, Sydney Rae Shalhoob, Gabriel Olivera, Jon Zuber, Terry T. Miller all star in this visceral nightmare. The plot has a group of friends heading out for a vacation with a psycho killer following close behind.

The story is as straight forward as they come with friends on a trip falling victim to the brutality of a serial killer. There is a twist at the end but you kind of see it coming two scenes prior so the impact isn’t as strong. Still the story is classic and fun. It does have the burden of stereotypical set-ups and banter dragging it down somewhat but the fact that it isn’t a supernatural force of evil slaughtering the youths makes the film a bit darker. This aspect actual helps the story feel more intense with zero “intentional” cheesiness. The characters are a bit cliché but most horror films have that flaw that can create a small amount of cheese.

“Killer Holiday” does bring some pretty cool actors together that look camera ready. The acting isn’t stellar but the cast all give pretty decent performances with a few standing out more, notably the psycho. This one made me a bit conflicted. It is very seldom I enjoy finding a killer so hot that I define them as “fuckable”, I prefer to not really relate to killers in cinema, I never was one for celebrating psycho characters that are too close to “reality”. Of course I never thought the classic masked killers were fuckable so it isn’t often I face this dilemma. Even with the acting being above grade there is a weird disconnect with the actors’ portrayal of these characters, almost as if they feel two dimensional or lake in depth. Actually the whole film of the drama and dialog feels somewhat disconnected from the story tries to create on screen.

The special effects and soundtrack in “Killer Holiday” is the expected caveat of melodrama and death rattles set to some creepy, chilling instrumentals and sound effects. All of which work great in the movie. Even though it is more of a serial killer situation as opposed to the supernatural, unstoppable monster, the death scenes are just as memorable, bloody and creative. The only thing that holds this back from being stellar is that odd, almost Eurocentric disconnect between what is written and what is acted out. By that I mean it has that strange feel of pretending to be an American slasher instead of actually feeling like an American slasher. If that makes since. Still with the things that bothered me about “Killer Holiday” , the film is a pretty good horror film with plenty of blood and gore for the traditional horror fan. Plus it has a pretty stand-out killer, and nice, all be it expected, ending. A definite once over for any horror fan.