Remember what happened when someone decided to put on a ghoul mask and make a bunch of school kids scream their way to death back in 1996? And, what happened when someone knew what a bunch of college kids did one summer of 1997? The cultural legacy of the Scream franchise and I Know What You Did Last Summer can be seen in the many rip-offs that have spawned since. The latest in the long assembly line is the Spanish film, Killer Book Club, which is what you would get if you mixed Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, but did away with all the fun.
The film opens with a daughter burning her mother alive in a room full of books. Six years later, we meet eight members of a book club that meets once a week to discuss horror/thriller/occult stories. We are told that a clown-mask-wearing, axe-wielding killer is out to murder each of them, and that this pursuit is being documented as a book in real time. As interesting as the premise may sound, the narrative is missing the most important element—momentum.
The film shows no urgency whatsoever in the proceedings, and the plot moves at a languorous pace. So much so that the members of the book club drop dead like flies to no impact. It’s almost like the viewer doesn’t care who is dead, and who is next. The makers are to blame. Except for the protagonist, Angela (Veki Velilla), none of the other members have been given even a semblance of a character arc. They are nothing but stereotypes of the slasher sub-genre, and while the film attempts to be self-aware by naming them by their character traits, it seems in vain.
The murders are gory. That’s not bad, but the writing is. Too superficial, it doesn’t give the audience enough material to connect with. What’s worse is the farcical logic behind the murders. At one point in Killer Book Club, we see a primary character talking about the problems with poor horror fiction, “There’s a lot of gimmickry, cliches, doors banging shut, haunted houses, and that stuff works to a point and then, falls apart... It is contrived.” Well, that’s one self-aware shtick the film gets right.
Director: Carlos Alonso Ojea Genre: Horror Platform: Netflix Language: Spanish (English) Rating: 1.5/5 stars
