 | MOVIE DETAILS • Name: The Killing Tree (aka Demonic Christmas Tree) • Year: 2022 • Country: United Kingdom • Director: Rhys Frake-Waterfield • Main cast: Sarah Alexandra Marks, Marcus Massey, Kelly Rian Sanson, Sarah T. Cohen, Ella Starbuck, Lauren Staerck • Runtime: 72 minutes • Production company: Dark Abyss Productions • TRAILER
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The genre of horror might be the best genre in the whole cinema industry because of one simple reason: there are no limits. The limits are only the imagination of the filmmakers and how far the audience can take it. The rest is a whole empty field for creativity to grow as much as the creators want.
With the freedom to make a premise as crazy as they want, the filmmakers can take it to the fields of philosophy, cruelty, violence, social criticism, or silly comedy. The Killing Tree (2022), also known as Demonic Christmas Tree, clearly resides in this last group. And its premise is as crazy as it goes. A couple of serial killers is caught, and the man takes the blame and gets executed. The widow oaths revenge and does some magic enchanting to bring back alive his beloved husband and partner in crimes, quite literally said. But something goes wrong and the soul of the assassin gets reincarnated in a Christmas tree. Nevertheless, that won’t stop him to get his revenge, since he breaks into the party the daughter and survivor of his latest victims, the one who sent him to the death penalty, is throwing. So, people, dinner is served, a teenage slasher horror comedy where a Christmas tree is committing all kinds of atrocious murders.
Needless to say, the strong side of The Killing Tree (2022) is the crazy silliness of its plot and how the filmmakers don’t give any single fuck refusing any bit of liability that gets in their way to achieve their rag. But, sadly, there is not much to hold on to besides the joke. The acting is pretty lame, the story develops in a very clumsy way, the killings are funny enough but they don’t have the punch to make this a memorable experience, and the special effects are closer to a farce than an ally to the movie.
Another good reason to take a look at The Killing Tree (2022) is the warming up for one of the most awaited movies to come up in the following months since its director Rhys Frake-Waterfield is also the man behind the making of Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023). And, from what we have seen in the shared trailers and screenshots, the Winnie-the-Pooh flick seems to have a way darker and more serious tone than this Demonic Christmas Tree.
I can believe this “treevenge” flick can work well when screened in a genre festival where the theater turns into a party zone full of horror goers craving for a good dosage of murdering nonsense, or in a group of friends’ movies night with lots of popcorn, beer, and the yearning for a bunch of loud laughs. But as a simple watch, although the movie never gets boring and it can have some funny moments, the global feeling is that the filmmakers wasted a great opportunity to create one of the memorable horror comedies of the season by their self-indulgence in the weak development of the story.
RATE: 5/10
IMDB URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt16899216
