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Killer Book Club is Netflix's latest Spanish thriller, which premiered on August 25, 2023. The slasher film is a meager imitation of Wes Craven's Scream franchise. The film takes viewers on a horror-filled journey as eight university students are murdered by a bloodthirsty murderer wearing a clown costume. The plot and ending also seemed slightly predictable.
The film is an adaptation of author Carlos García Miranda's book of the same name, is directed by Carlos Alonso-Ojea, and joins a spot amidst other films of the slasher-horror genre like Friday the 13th, Prom Night, and The Babysitter.
An official synopsis for Killer Book Club, as per the Netflix Media Center, states:
"Eight young university students meet every week in a book club to share their passion for horror literature. After being accomplices in a costume prank that ends in a fatal accident and a pact of silence, the group of young people will be threatened by an anonymous writer who wants to reveal their dark secret."
It further says:
"Their stalker threatens to publish on social networks a bloody horror novel based on them. With every chapter published, one of them will die. While they distrust each other, the group will start a fight for survival in the middle of a university campus. Any one of them could be the next victim…. or the killer."
The film was originally released on June 7, 2022, before being adopted by Netflix. It stars Veki Velilla as Angela, Iván Pellicer as Nando, Álvaro Mel as Sebas, Priscilla Delgado as Virginia, Carlos Alcaide as Rai, Ane Rot as Sara, Hamza Zaidi as Koldo, and María Cerezuela as Eva, among others.
Killer Book Club on Netflix is an offhand and predictable slasher-horror film that imitates Scream V
The Spanish slasher-horror film Killer Book Club is a daunting preface to a plot that eventually seems a little too predictable and appears to be a meager and desperate imitation of Wes Craven's Scream. The franchise remains iconic, and nothing comes close to defeating it in the race, especially not Netflix's recent release.
The film takes place in a university setting and uses literature as a medium to deliver a rickety tale of eight horror-loving students who are being hunted by a killer who dons a clown costume. It kicks off on a suspenseful note, giving hope to viewers, before taking on a similar approach seen in Scream V, which starred Jenna Ortega in the lead and first premiered in 2022.
Killer Book Club started with a strange woman burning her mother in a library before flashing forward six years in time. The plot then introduces the eight main characters in a secret-ist book club setting.
It's even easy to spot a love triangle between Angela, Nando, and Sebas right at the beginning. Then there's the entire clown trend and references to notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy to give the plot a more sinister angle.
The group then plans to take revenge on their literature professor, who assaulted Angela after receiving a strange email from her. Things start to appear rather strange and planned around here, but the group chooses to ignore all obvious signs until the killer clown surfaces on an online publishing site and threatens to kill them.
As always, they all start pointing fingers at each other and ignore the obvious suspect, Sebas, who even manages to share a steamy exchange with Angela while there's a killer on the loose. Despite Sebas' character being too obvious, it also seemed predictable that there were two killers instead of one, similar to that in Scream V.
The two-killer theory is only confirmed at the end when the entire murder plot leads back to the incident that occurred six years ago with Angela at the center (obviously). While the actors are good at portraying their respective characters, the story is too plain and transparent for the audience to enjoy, except for the bit where Virginia turns out to be Alice, the girl from the first scene who burned her mother.
All things considered, Killer Book Club is a fun watch, but one would prefer to binge the Scream movies instead of trying to enjoy an offhand imitation that does little justice to the genre in terms of bringing something new to the platform.
Killer Book Club is now available to stream on Netflix in English.
