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Ever since she has found a corpse, the victim of a Santa Claus-based serialkiller called the Toy Maker, transwoman Lola (Jeremy Moineaux) has become fascinated, so much so that she these days has a true crime podcast and does some amateur investigating of her own. Now Lola has long left the small town she has grown up in to live in the big city, but for this Christmas she has promised her sister Danielle (Dominique Booth) to pay her a visit. But returning to her hometown also brings back bad memories, and the narrow-mindedness of the locals hasn't changed too much since she has left. Soon, too, Danielle's flatmate Julie (Alyssa Peters) and her girlfriend Kat (Lewi Dawson) go missing, but the police isn't much interested since their reputation in the village hasn't been the best, what with them being lesbians - and then they turn up dead, murdered in a way that resembles the Toy Maker's m.o. - which is impossible though as the Toy Maker has died decades ago. The local police sergeant tries his best to sweep the whole affair under the rug and goes even so far as trying to silence Lola by implying she has to do with the murder. But Lola soon starts to investigate on her own since the police won't do it with the help of her sister's lesbian friends, a sympathetic young cop (Tumelo Nthupi), and Dave (Joe Romeo), her friend from back in the day who has since become the town's nerdy archivar. And the closer she gets to the new Toy Maker, the more dirt she discovers under the city's shiny surface. But the closer she gets to the Toy Maker, the closer he gets to her - and he's not onle to shrink back from a little bit of violence ...

Now the title Carnage for Christmas pretty much suggests a Christmas-themed slasher, and to a certain degree, this movie is that, there's a masked killer in a Santa-costume, some inventive killings and gore in all the right spots. However, this film is more than that, it also harks back to girl detective movies of old (and it's no surprise Nancy Drew is name-dropped several times throughout the movie), there are scenes that have a film noir vibe to them, and the queer undercurrents are of course unmissable. And this all results in a very enjoyable horror-tinged murder mystery, brought to life by a lively direction and a solid ensemble, and thus a film well worth a watch.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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