Read @ Joe’s

Christmas horror works because the season already comes gift wrapped with stress. Put enough relatives in one room, add grief, old grudges, and a few too many glasses of eggnog, and you’ve basically got the first act of a slasher movie. How To Kill Your Family On Christmas understands this. The problem is that it also understands about six other movies at the same time.

Title: How To Kill Your Family On Christmas (2025) Director: Robbie Dias Writer: Marc Gottlieb Studio: Film Regions International // 3 Keys Media // Eggy Productions IMDb Plot: Deranged grandparents kidnap an 8th grader as a Christmas gift for their daughter’s family. The captive teen eliminates family members after manipulation by the couple’s daughter. Joe Says: How To Kill Your Family On Christmas won’t be joining the upper tier of alternative holiday classics alongside Gremlins, but there is still enough twisted holiday spirit here to recommend.

Directed by Robbie Dias working from a screenplay by Marc Gottlieb, this dark holiday comedy starts with a delightfully warped premise. Howard and Helen, shaken by the loss of their granddaughter and facing their own mortality, make a decision so spectacularly misguided that it could only happen in horror… or a Hallmark movie. They kidnap a young girl and attempt to force a little Christmas magic back into their fractured family. Unsurprisingly, things go from Ho-Ho-Ho to Ho-Ho-Oh-No.

The film’s biggest issue isn’t a lack of ideas; it’s an overabundance of them. This thing is stuffed fuller than Santa’s sack. Family drama. Dark comedy. Kidnapping thriller. Murder mystery. Horror movie. Satire. Too many genres; not enough control. After all, hot chocolate doesn’t always need marshmallows and candy canes and sprinkles and bourbon; oftentimes it is fine on its own.

Yet there’s something charming about the chaos.

Dias does an admirable job grounding the story in a believable family dynamic. The cramped cabin feels authentic, old, worn, and cluttered with enough dollar store decorations to make National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation blush. The camera plays intimate with the characters, allowing the dysfunction to breathe. You can smell the baked cupcakes frosted with passive aggression.

The screenplay is where things get tangled in the tinsel. Gottlieb throws subplot after subplot onto the fire. A bizarre embezzlement scheme. Running family feuds. Kidnapping. Murder. Horror elements that appear and disappear like Christmas ghosts who forgot their cue. Some jokes land with a satisfying thud. Others bounce off the roof and roll into the snowbank. The result is a movie constantly changing sweaters before you’ve had a chance to compliment the first one.

The tonal shifts are too abrupt. A family squabble worthy of a holiday sitcom quickly becomes a strange episode of Bosch. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Dias truly has to work to find the sweet spot between the dark and the absurd.

Thankfully, the cast keeps the sleigh moving. The always-wonderful Daniel Roebuck is paired with Lisa Wilcox – forever beloved by horror fans from A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master – and brings warmth and humanity to characters… as well as their caricatures. Meanwhile, Galen Howard practically vibrates with comedic energy as Wilbur and feels like he’s starring in a funnier version of the movie happening just off-screen. There is clearly not enough of his onscreen antics.

How To Kill Your Family On Christmas won’t be joining the upper tier of alternative holiday classics alongside Gremlins, but there is still enough twisted holiday spirit here to recommend. This is the cinematic equivalent of finding a forgotten present from a slightly-unhinged relative under the tree but you’re still glad you opened it.

For viewers who like Christmas lights flickering, family gatherings uncomfortable, and mistletoe dripping with a little blood, this scrappy holiday oddity has enough mojo to earn a spot near the back of the seasonal shelf. Not a Christmas miracle. But definitely a Christmas curiosity.