12 h. ago Silent Night, Deadly Night review – killer Santa remake is overstuffed

There are too many competing and overfamiliar ideas in this busy slasher reboot that’s sorely lacking in styleThere was a bizarre moral outrage back in November 1984 when seasonal slasher Silent Night, Deadly Night dared to put an axe in the hands of Santa. Despite being, you know, not a real person he was once treated with enough reverence to cause parent-led protests, a ban of all advertising and then of the film itself. It provided a sharp edge to an otherwise blunt and unremarkable post-Halloween knockoff and might help to explain why it managed to eke out four junky sequels and a 2012 remake.We’re now at the inevitable second remake stage but the 2025 redo arrives after the gimmick of Killer Santa has now become a subgenre in itself. He’s cropped up in Christmas Bloody Christmas, Christmas Evil, Santa’s Slay, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, Deadly Games and last year’s Terrifier 3 and the makers of this December’s take are more than aware that seeing Santa with a weapon isn’t e...

Events

61 h. ago Film reviews: Eleanor the Great | Silent Night, Deadly Night | Lurker | Preparation for the Next Life

Scarlett Johansson brings humour and heart to her directorial debut about an elderly woman lying about being a Holocaust survivor, writes Alistair Harkness

Events

3 d. ago The Dead of Winter by Sarah Clegg audiobook review – haunting Christmas tales

An esoteric blend of folklore and festivity reveals the lesser known, dark side of Christmas, from horse skulls and Yule cats to Icelandic ogresChristmas nowadays tends to revolve around family, food and a furtive visit from a pot-bellied stranger down the chimney. But in The Dead of Winter, the historian and folklorist Sarah Clegg reveals a lesser known side to the festive season, unearthing unsettling midwinter traditions and stories that fell out of favour in the Victorian age.Subtitled The Demons, Witches and Ghosts of Christmas, the book opens with Clegg embarking on a pre-dawn walk to a graveyard on Christmas Eve. She is recreating an old Swedish tradition called årsgång, or “year walk”, which is said to offer glimpses into the walker’s future along with “shadowy enactments of the burials of anyone who will die in the village this coming year”.Available via WF Howes, 4hr 21min Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery review – Rian Johnson’s cool, clever whodunnit is yet to stumble

Josh O’Connor delivers a killer turn as a timid priest caught in the crosshairs of Daniel Craig’s debonair detective

Politics

2 w. ago Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery review – Josh O’Connor excels in another deadpan delight

Daniel Craig is joined by a sparkling array of talent including O’Connor, Glenn Close and Josh Brolin in this latest murder mystery with a religious undercurrentRian Johnson’s delectable new Knives Out film is a chocolate box: mouthwateringly delicious on the first layer and well, perfectly tasty on the second. Daniel Craig returns as private detective Benoit Blanc, in a slightly more serious mode than before, with not as many droll suth’n phrases and quirky faux-naif mannerisms, but rocking a longer hairstyle and handsomely tailored three-piece suit.Blanc arrives at a Catholic church in upstate New York to investigate the sensational murder of its presiding priest, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, a ferocious clerical alpha male played by Josh Brolin, thundering his reactionary views from the pulpit. (That “Monsignor” title can only be bestowed by the pope incidentally: presumably Benedict XVI or John Paul II, not milksop liberals like Francis or Leo XIV.) And prime suspect is the sweet-...

Events

2 w. ago Wake Up Dead Man movie review: knives way the hell out (London Film Festival 2025)

Wake Up Dead Man movie review: knives way the hell out (London Film Festival 2025)  Flick Filosopher

Culture

2 w. ago Jamie Carragher vs Mo Salah: Latest issue, row with agent and Liverpool star's response

Jamie Carragher reignited his feud with Mohamed Salah on Monday night when he took aim at the Liverpool star for staying silent in the wake of the Reds' current issues

Politics

4 w. ago Christmas Karma review – Dickens adaptation has as much Yuletide spirit as a dead rat in the eggnog

Gurinder Chadha’s leaden update of the hardy seasonal chestnut with Kunal Nayyar is joyless and nausea-inducingKeen though I always am to indulge any and every new riff on Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, and keen also to hear from Bend It Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha, this cynically Christmassy movie is leaden, unconvincingly acted and about as welcome as a dead rat in the eggnog. It’s the worst Christmas film since last year’s Red One, in which Dwayne Johnson played the head of security for Santa Claus and more or less had us all rooting for anyone who could beat up Father Christmas.In this one, Big Bang Theory star Kunal Nayyar lifelessly and joylessly plays a Scrooge variant called Mr Sood, part of the Ugandan south Asian community expelled by Idi Amin in his childhood, and embittered by early poverty. An early romance soured because of his obsession with money, and he has become a grasping and unpleasant old guy in London (cue stock footage of the London skyline) in the ra...

Events