Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
The Spanish horror film 2023 “Killer Book Club” (original title: El club de los lectores criminales) starts very true to its title theme – a woman is burnt alive in a library like room filled with books. The scene however shift to 6 years later, where eight college kids, who are part of a book club, become victims of a psycho clown killer. The clown writes and enacts their deaths, chapter by chapter.
Directed by Carlos Alonso Ojea and written by Carlos Garcia Miranda, the Netflix film “Killer Book Club” stars Veki Velilla as the primary protagonist, Angela – a published author and literature student. She becomes the target of a twisted, masked murderer, along with her seven other friends. These eight friends are all members of a college book club, united by their shared love for horror stories. Consequently, when an anonymous online user vows to end their lives while exposing their shared secret, they all begin to doubt each other. With an easy runtime of 90 minutes, the movie has a predictable plot which was like a mash of “Scream” and Netflix’s 2022 horror series “The Midnight Club”. And even though “Killer Book Club” does have a few well shot shocking violent murders, the overall effect is quite underwhelming.
Veki Velilla sports a distinctly “Girl Interrupted” style haircut in the film – an unruly Caesar cut that gives the impression she took the scissors to her own hair. Strangely, the cut doesn’t appear to complement her character, making it a bit difficult to envision Angela as the ambitious student and mildly successful author she’s meant to portray. In the movie, all eight characters receive nicknames, yet hardly any of them seem to embody their respective roles convincingly. In fact, the decision to introduce eight suspects within a 90-minute story wasn’t a great idea from the start. There isn’t enough time to flesh out their personalities, so most viewers wouldn’t care much about anybody’s death.
The cinematography is good enough for a horror flick, with quite a few night scenes which are dimly lit but still have enough illumination for viewers to understand what is happening. Surprisingly, the “Killer Book Club” has very few jump scares, and the background music doesn’t have much character or recall value. Staying true to its title, the movie has some scenes shot in a pleasant looking college library and there are tone of book appearances throughout the runtime. With a small roster of character and more seasoned actors, this could’ve been far more entertaining.
You can stream “Killer Book Club” on Netflix.
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