Killer Book Club Review: Ending Up Serving Us All the Narrative Implications On A Silver Platter
Cast: Veki Velilla, Álvaro Mel, Carlos Alcaide, Hamza Zaidi, Iván Pellicer, Ane Rot, María Cerezuela, Priscilla Delgado, Daniel Grao
Directed By: Carlos Alonso-Ojea
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3/5 (three stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Killer Book Club is a 2023 Spanish horror film directed by Carlos Alonso-Ojea and written by Carlos García Miranda, who also authored the novel. 8 university students who belong to a book club. A murder for which they signed a pact. And a clown who decides to reveal all the details of the crime through the internet, to later kill each of its members. Killer Book Club, the first Spanish slasher on Netflix that adapts Carlos García Miranda’s novel of the same name, where nothing is as it seems. The cast includes Veki G. Velilla, Iván Pellicer, Álvaro Mel, Priscilla Delgado and Daniel Grao. Remember when a few years ago it was fashionable to dress up as a clown and scare people around the world? Based on this, Killer Book Club builds a classic horror film (almost) ideal for a Friday night. A bit of Scream-style literary meta-fiction that, without distorting the genre, plays its cards intelligently and without going outside the box.
You can watch it on Netflix starting August 25, 2023. Based on the novel of the same name by Carlos García Miranda, Killer Book Club, is the new Spanish horror slasher available for streaming on Netflix from August 25th. A title that will surely arouse the curiosity of those who love franchises such as Scream and Happy Death Day: In fact, we are faced with a creepy clown who begins to persecute a group of eight boys after the unspeakable secret they keep has come to light. On its publication in 2018, the pages of the book were instantly transformed into great scenes of anguish for young audiences, who made the novel a bestseller in Spanish bookstores. Now, the film adaptation transfers the best terror to streaming through those characters that have already raised all our suspicions, counting on young actors such as Álvaro Mel, Priscilla Delgado, or María Cerezuela in this production.
Killer Book Club Review: The Story Plot
Angela, Nando, Rai, Sara, Sebas, Eva, Koldo, and Virginia are a group of university students who share the dream of becoming successful writers one day. Meanwhile, they are all part of a reading club in which they are mainly dedicated to horror novels. However, when Angela suffers harassment from creative writing professor Luiz Cruzado, the group decides to make him pay, taking inspiration from the book they are reading at that moment, “Clown Killers”. Taking advantage of the deserted school, they dress up as clowns and ambush the professor who, fleeing to the roof in terror, ends up falling to his death instantly.
Killer Book Club Review and Analysis
At the center of the narrative, there seems to be this presumed clown phobia of Angela, which the protagonist herself seems to discover only after reading the book of the month of the club, Pagliacci assassin, and with the exchange on the Whatsapp group of some videos starring people dressed as clowns intent on frightening unsuspecting passers-by. This gave rise to the boys’ idea of dressing up as a clown to take revenge on the professor, a joke that becomes a way for Angela to exorcise one fear with another. Little does she know, however, that it is only the beginning of a nightmare, as the (accidental?) The death of the teacher will bring a murderous clown – the materialization of her phobia of her – of her on her trial and those of her friends of hers. It is therefore clear from the beginning that, being herself, the cause of everything, the final girl.
From the first minutes of the film, it is obvious how Killer Book Club refers to much better-known sagas such as Scream and Happy Death Day. A similarity emerges above all in the choice of the villain, a human being – whose identity, however, we do not know – masked (in this case as a clown) and who seems not only to have the gift of ubiquity but also a particular athletic training. To be persecuted, however, is always a heterogeneous group of boys among which the protagonist stands out (here it is Angela), of whom we know nothing except that she will be the only one (or almost) to save herself from the slaughter of the killer. The result is an all too predictable narrative structure – however amusing in some comments – which also contains some small errors and plot holes.
Standing out among the cast of young actors is certainly Veki Velilla as Angela who, as the protagonist, has more screen time than the others. It is a pity that, although Velilla gives an overall sufficient interpretation, her character is not as in-depth as it should be and even what is shown to us of her past – fundamental for the development of the plot – ends up being told very summarily. As for the other elements of the cast, no performance turns out to be memorable, both for some slightly over-the-top interpretations and for the artifact dialogues and a total absence of characterization of the characters. In the end, whether one or the other dies seems to make very little difference.
Killer Book Club is a well-crafted college mystery slasher that, with the help of the tradition of this type of story, manages to create a good genre work with a script that, playing surprised, doesn’t surprise for wanting to rewrite a story already told before. The film constantly plays with this irony, pretending to be a slasher without actually being one. A film that admits to being deceitful in a genre that is deceitful, and for this very reason makes us enjoy this obvious deception. A good story of horror and mystery about literary fiction that doesn’t try to break the mold, that doesn’t try to find out “beyond Stanley Kubrick” or push us to the brink of madness in a genre that is quickly relished, appreciated and quickly forgotten, in a genre in which all films want to be transgressive to look too much alike.
Killer Book Club Review: The Last Words
Killer Book Club, however enjoyable at times, seems to draw excessive inspiration from sagas such as Scream and Happy Death Day, ending up serving us all the narrative implications on a silver platter and making the twists not more such. Killer Book Club knows how to play with the irony of its subject in a very classic film aware of its qualities, its defects, and its potential. Achieving all of his goals, Carlos García Miranda does a more than worthy job in this good horror film which, at the same time, doesn’t stop being a horror film which, however, knows how to make fun of us with irony and without presumption.
Killer Book Club Review: Ending Up Serving Us All the Narrative Implications On A Silver Platter - Filmyhype
Director: Carlos Alonso-Ojea
Date Created: 2023-08-25 14:40
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