aka The Killing Tree
UK. 2022.
Crew
Director/Visual Effects Supervisor – Rhys Frake-Waterfield, Screenplay – Rhys Frake-Waterfield & Craig McLearie, Producers – Rhys Frake-Waterfield & Scott Jeffrey, Photography – Vince Knight, Music – James Cox, Makeup Effects – Scott Jeffrey. Production Company – Dark Abyss Productions.
Cast
Sarah Alexander Marks (Faith), Marcus Massey (Clayton/Tree), Sarah T. Cohen (Cindy), Kelly Rian Sanson (Becky), Ella Starbuck (Louisa), Judy Tcherniak (Morrigan), May Kelly (Maria), Lauren Staerck (Tina), Nikolai Leon (Alex), Richard Harfst (Gilbert), Gillian Broderick (Magna)
Plot
One year ago, Faith’s parents were murdered by Clayton, who claimed to be a worshipper of the true spirit of Christmas who was determined to punish those who have polluted its ideals. Now Clayton’s girlfriend Morrigan performs an occult spell that raises him from the dead but the spell goes wrong and he is incarnated in a Christmas tree. Meanwhile, still haunted by her loss, Faith holds a Christmas party at her parents’ house, where her friends encourage her to have fun. However, the possessed Christmas tree makes its way back to her house, killing the partygoers and all in its way, as it comes after Faith.
Almost every Christmas season sees the release of some Christmas-themed film. There is now so many in the way of insipid Christmas-themed made-for-tv movies that I no longer review these. On the other side of the coin, there is a whole sub-genre of Christmas horror films. These include a bunch of Santa slasher films with the likes of the All Through the House segment of Tales from the Crypt (1972), Black Christmas (1974), Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) and sequels, To All a Good Night (1980), Christmas Evil/You Better Watch Out (1980), Silent Night (2012), All Through the House (2015) and Good Tidings (2016). There have been other Christmas horror films with the likes of Jack Frost (1997), Santa’s Slay (2006), the Finnish-made Rare Exports (2010), Santa Claus vs. the Zombies (2010), and recently the high-profile Krampus (2015) followed by a number of low-budget Krampus films, even two anthologies of Christmas horror stories with A Christmas Horror Story (2015) and Unholy Night (2019). (For more detail see Christmas Films).
Demonic Christmas Tree comes from British director Rhys Frake-Waterfield, also variously credited as Rhys Frake, Rhys Water and Rhys Waterfield. Not long before this, Frake-Waterfield made his directorial debut with The Area 51 Incident (2022) and subsequently had modest success with Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023). The film is produced by low-budget British producer Scott Jeffrey who has maintained a very prolific output in the 2020s, having produced some 40 films since 2016 and directed twenty. Frake-Waterfield has joined forces with Jeffrey and has produced a whole host of Jeffrey’s films, as well as delivered visual effects on some of these.
Although originally made as The Killing Tree, this was more widely known as Demonic Christmas Tree. This gives it a Deliberately Ridiculous Title that takes it into the realm of one of the Gonzo Monster Movies produced by The Asylum. In fact, The Asylum would probably have a field day with the title premise. The surprise in going in expecting another cheap, wilfully ridiculous monster movie is that Demonic Christmas Tree is actually quite professionally made. It has a cast that are taking the proceedings seriously where all four of the girls give not too bad performances. At no point is there the sense that the filmmakers are winking at the audience, telling them not to take anything seriously.
For what appears to be a low-budget film, the creature effects are surprisingly worthwhile. For many of the closer shots, the Christmas tree seems played by an actor in a suit, while for the larger scale scenes where it manifests arms and legs, these are replaced by digital effects. The only scenes that do not work are the climactic ones with the confrontation between demonic and good trees where the visual effects become decidedly ropy and are obscured by blowing snow.
Trailer here