Red Christmas features a memorable character in the form of Cletus: rescued as a fetus from an abortion bin and raised to adulthood by a pro-life priest, he hides his deformed appearance under bandages and a big cloak, and goes in search of his mother, Diane (Dee Wallace),looking for some maternal love. But when mom rejects him (again),he picks up an axe and takes revenge by hacking his way through her dysfunctional family.

Like the elephant man, only uglier, Cletus is a sympathetic character driven to kill when all he wants is a motherly hug and some loving words; this makes him a rather unique movie maniac, but one deserving of a much better film. Writer/director Craig Anderson might have created an impressive killer, but he doesn't do the slobbering freak justice, his film suffering from a weak script and dreadful dialogue, crappy acting, horrible lighting (unnatural green, red and blue colours) and duff direction. Dee Wallace used to be a Hollywood A-lister, and it's a real shame to see her appearing in such rubbish, but she's only got herself to blame: she is the producer of the film, after all.

As for the whole Christmas setting, it is purely incidental, having no real bearing on the plot: Cletus could have turned up on Shrove Tuesday and it wouldn't have made much difference (except that the title wouldn't work so well and Anderson's garish lighting scheme would feel even more out of place).

3.5/10, rounded up to 4 for the scene where a guy has his head pushed onto some kind of spinning device (it was hard to make out exactly what it was) and his eyeballs turn to mush and burst out of the sockets.

Love Christmas/Christmas-themed films and have an appreciation for horror with shades of thriller. So despite hearing a lot of negativity, 'Red Christmas' premise did really intrigue. Plus the cover was an attention-grabbing one. Really wanted to like it and for it to not be another waste of decent potential.

Watching it, unfortunately 'Red Christmas' turned out to be exactly that...a waste of decent potential. Not how to execute such an intriguing idea. It's not irredeemably awful by any stretch, there are a couple of good things. Those good things are sadly eclipsed by the numerous things 'Red Christmas' gets catastrophically wrong. Killer is the completely wrong way to describe it, the Christmas theme didn't seem relevant and was bland, the more serious elements (i.e. abortion) the film tried to include were diluted and the horror elements were predictable, not scary and too tame.

Lets get the good things out of the way first. The best thing about 'Red Christmas' is the villain's look, it is great. So cool and menacing, not goofy at all.

Dee Wallace brings heart, class and dignity to the film, something that was so lacking elsewhere that her presence was in a different league to everything else and put them to shame, she deserved a much better film.

Generally the acting ranges from very bad to truly terrible, Wallace excepted. Their cringe-worthy, unintentionally silly dialogue (one deserves a prize if they succeed in not bursting out laughing when they're not meant to, that is a challenge),annoying characters with stupid and illogical decision-making and behaviours and indifferent direction gave them no favours.

Neither did the story, where there is no warmth, cosiness, charm or magic to the Christmas theme (the Christmas spirit just isn't there). The more serious elements didn't feel like they belong and felt trivialised and cloying, when reading about the film initially admired that the film was including mature and sensitive subjects but it does nothing with them. There is no tension or suspense here, no surprises, no creativity, no wit and the only thing that is scary is the look of the villain and the scare factor ends there. The kills are un-creative, instead of biting the nails one is shrugging their shoulders, and the whole horror atmosphere feels tame and leans towards being dumb.

'Red Christmas' is an eyesore visually. With the lighting, colour schemes and camera work, it seemed to striving for the showing off or experimenting with supposedly arty to them feel but instead it comes off amateurish and nauseating. Cannot remember the music.

Overall, not irredeemable but very bad. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Personally I don't think this film has a political agenda, either pro-life or pro-choice. All the characters are awful IMO. I think the reason for the bad reviews comes down to politics. Christmas + abortion. What a heartwarming combination! but if you can get past that, I actually really enjoyed the film. It wasn't as shallow as the typical hack and slash horror flick. No, not every scene was realistic, but so what? Very few horror films are. Recommended for anyone that isn't politically sensitive and enjoys horror.