Killer Book Club is a meta slasher with a killer book hook. By which I mean it’s about a killer with a book, not a slasher film that’s particularly killer. It’s a Spanish film on Netflix that tries too hard to be something it isn’t… by which I mean Scream. It wants to be Scream. Only with books! What a hook!

The flick follows an I Know What You Did Last Prom Night slasher revenge plot. A bunch of college students accidentally kill someone and now a slasher is out for blood. A slasher with a gimmick clown mask and a second gimmick of posting fan fiction of his own kills.

In theory, I like the premise and meta-ness of the film… though it tortures Scream’s premise by trying to cram it into a commentary about writing. The genre commentary fits better with scary movies than it does horror novels though. On the other hand, the idea that a killer knows what kind of slasher subgenre he’s in and posts fan fiction about it is pretty good.

Unfortunately, the movie needed to up its game to make its ideas actually smart and clever. And it doesn’t help that the characters fall into a Cabin in the Woods pattern… there’s the Hero, the Emo, the Brat, etc. Cabin worked with its character stereotypes… this feels like lazy character writing pretending to be clever meta commentary.

I guess there are a couple of decent kills and, while familiar, the Big Reveal wasn’t bad. The denouement maybe was a meta joke too far… save it for the sequel, guys!

I guess, charitably, the movie tried. We should always champion clever ideas… but not so much failed attempts at them. This is a failed attempt.

Score: 68