Nerdly » HorRHIFFic 2026: ‘Charlie Shaw’s Revenge’ Review

25th Feb2026

HorRHIFFic 2026: ‘Charlie Shaw’s Revenge’ Review

by Phil Wheat

Stars: Cerys Knighton, James Payton, Bill Fellows, Mark Benton, John Locke, Shahla Ayamah, Amelie Leroy, Billy Cashin, Molly Cattanach, Keri Martin, Aaliyah-Monroe Pires, Renato Pires, Justin K Hayward | Written and Directed by John Langridge

WARNING: This review contains spoilers

Let’s be honest, Charlie Shaw’s Revenge does not get off to a great start. The film opens with one of the most instantly irritating characters in recent memory – a buck-toothed musician whose sole personality trait appears to be complaining. Loudly. Constantly. Thankfully, he exists purely to pad out the prologue body count. And when he goes? Sweet relief. Thank God.

Once that hurdle is cleared, the film properly introduces us to Marion (Cerys Knighton, Charlotte: The Movie), the newly appointed manager of a struggling adventure park preparing to reopen. What should be a routine run-through of maintenance checks and rehearsals quickly turns deadly when the staff realise they’re being stalked by a silent killer: Otto the Clown (James Payton). With the park closed off and escape routes limited, survival becomes the only priority.

Surprisingly, Marion – despite being positioned as the film’s lead – is remarkably unlikeable. I understand the intention: she’s the no-nonsense manager trying to whip a chaotic troupe into shape ahead of opening day. But there’s a difference between firm leadership and veering headfirst into full-on tyrant mode, and she crosses that line early and often. Thankfully, Langridge does attempt to humanise her, particularly through Bill Fellows’ repairman Russ, who sees through the abrasive exterior and forms a tentative camaraderie with her.

In the press notes, Langridge insists the film was “always about people before it was about horror,” focusing on fear, mistrust and the breakdown of relationships under pressure.

Yeah… I’m calling marketing bullsh*t.

What that translates to on screen is a lot of padding. Extended montages of performers practising their routines. Lengthy café arguments. Scene after scene of characters grumbling about Marion. Yes, technically that’s “focusing on the people.” But this is a slasher movie. We don’t need every potential victim saddled with a semi-convoluted backstory and multiple rehearsal sequences to justify their inevitable demise.

At its core, this is a traditional slasher. A mute killer. A cast of colourful would-be victims. A handful of suspicious oddballs thrown in as red herrings. You’ve seen this blueprint before. Swap out the adventure park for a lakeside camp, trade the clown paint for a hockey mask, and you’re basically watching a film you’ve rented multiple times already.

That said, the circus setting does give the film a slightly fresher coat of paint. The performers – eccentric, theatrical and inherently a little “off” – add an energy I wasn’t expecting. There’s something inherently unsettling about backstage circus life, and pairing that with a killer clown feels less like lazy irony and more like the film leaning into its own weirdness.

And what a homicidal clown Otto is.

Unlike many slasher villains who skulk in the shadows, quietly stacking bodies before the big reveal, Otto just goes for it. He slays victims in full view of others. No elaborate stalking. No dramatic slow-burn unmasking. Just mask-on carnage in plain sight. It’s blunt, chaotic and, honestly, kind of refreshing.

Because if we’re being realistic, these killers aren’t master tacticians carefully managing optics. They’re psychopaths. Literally. The idea that they’d politely isolate each victim one by one has always been one of the genre’s most convenient tropes. Otto doesn’t care who’s watching, where he is, or whether it’s strategically smart. He just kills.

And in a film that otherwise plays things fairly safe, that recklessness is oddly its most honest trait.

For much of its runtime, Charlie Shaw’s Revenge plays like a competent but overly familiar slasher. But a late-stage psychological twist (one that more seasoned horror fans may see coming) injects the film with a boldness it perhaps should have trusted sooner. The groundwork may be thin, and the exposition arrives late, but the ambition is undeniable.

When the film finally embraces its psychological undercurrent, it becomes far more compelling than its early slasher trappings suggest. Knighton’s final-act turn is magnetic, transforming Marion from brittle authority figure into something far darker, and far more interesting. In those closing moments, she absolutely kills it. Literally and figuratively.