Nerdly » ‘How To Kill Your Family On Christmas’ Review

02nd Oct2025

‘How To Kill Your Family On Christmas’ Review

by Alain Elliott

Stars: Daniel Roebuck, Lisa Wilcox, Sadie Katz, Galen Howard, Bill Dawes, Stephen Wu, Lauren Francesca, Eden Shea Beck, Jennylyn Caterina, Ken Davitian | Written by Marc Gottlieb | Directed by Robbie Dias

I would love to say that this is my first Christmas movie of the year, but that would be far from true and I have even reviewed a few for this very site earlier this year. It is, of course, for me at least, never too early to watch a Christmas movie. I am always willing to add to my ever-expanding Christmas movie collection, so I was happy to check out How To Kill Your Family On Christmas.

The first hour of the movie plays a long like a slightly dark family comedy set at Christmas. It’s your typical Christmas movie where family members and their partners get together for the holidays, even if they don’t really like each other all that much. There are disagreements between couples and family members, and it all seems very normal until one family member announces they have kidnapped a child for one of their daughters. This leads to the more violent end of the movie.

This first hour is suitably Christmassy, and that’s one of the things I most liked about the movie. There’s constant, pleasant-sounding Christmas music throughout its runtime, the decorations and tree are up (including either wrapped presents stuck to the wall or wrapped photo frames, both seem like strange choices), Christmas jumpers and hats are worn and we even get some snow. It frustrates me when Christmas movies don’t have some of these, so I was glad the filmmakers here put in the effort to include them all.

This is a low-budget movie and with that performances are mixed. The standout for me though was Bill Dawes as Peter. His IMDb shows he is an experienced actor, even if he hasn’t featured in anything too high profile, but in How To Kill Your Family On Christmas he was the best part of every scene he was in. He was the most believable performance with his acting and by far one of the most likeable characters – when people start dying off, you’ll be quite happy for most of them to get murdered horribly.

So, what happens in those last twenty minutes you might be thinking? Well, things certainly get a lot more violent. This is where all the blood and gore appear, and it’s highly entertaining. The cheap CGI didn’t even dampen my enjoyment of some fun death scenes. Maybe it’s as simple as I wasn’t expecting it to happen all of a sudden, or maybe it’s because the action had been so limited before it, but the most horrific moments really took me by surprise… but in a good way.

There’s a chance, of course, that some people will struggle to get through the first hour to get to that payoff and enjoyable ending but stick with How To Kill Your Family On Christmas and it’ll be worth it. Looking for something a bit different this Christmas? How To Kill Your Family On Christmas might just be the perfect choice – part Hallmark, part Silent Night Deadly Night, it might be a niche market but it’s definitely worth checking out.