Christmas Massacre (PlayStation 5) review "Ho-Ho-Horror"

Actual interaction:

Wife: What are you playing?

Me: Christmas Massacre.

Wife: Are you Santa Claus? Wait, are you killing people?

Me: Yes.

Wife: As Santa Claus?

Me: Yes.

Wife: What the hell is wrong with you?

Yes, what the hell is wrong with me? I've loved horror movies since my childhood, which dates back to the '80s. It's honestly no surprise that I naturally gravitate toward low-fi horror games and those that imitate VHS films and “video nasties” of yore. In Christmas Massacre's case, it borrows elements from the once-controversial slasher “Silent Night, Deadly Night” and a handful of other Santa-themed flicks. In this piece, though, you aren't avoiding a killer Santa, you are him. You drive from one location to another to deliver a nice, sharp present to naughty adults.

You begin as an underwear-clad child with a Santa mask being told he can't attend a Christmas party at a Catholic school. That's when an ominous voice instructs him to sneak out, head to the kitchen, get a knife, and start carving. Part of that order requires you to remain in the shadows as you slip past a bunch of folks dancing to a slow, somber version of “Silent Night” like they're at a club, and you can't help but think they're the real villains here. You arrive at your destination and find a knife icon spinning on the floor. God bless gaming.

Cutter in hand, you return to the previous room, and who should be the first person you see except the nun who barred you from the festivities. Geez, this game is going balls-out on the heresy, I see. After you slash the sister, everyone else scrams to hide in dorm rooms. There, they wait for you to pick them off via pokes and slashes, with the last felled victim summoning the title card.

Years pass...



Our kid, Larry, is now a grown man donning a full-blown Santa costume. He keeps a talking Christmas tree in his living room that tells him it's time to venture out and punish the naughty. So you mosey on out to your car—yes, apparently Larry took driving lessons—and drive to your next location.

Okay, so it's not as though I didn't question what the hell I was doing. Or, as my wife put it, what the hell was wrong with me... I'm playing a game where I travel to random places and stab a bunch of innocent people to death, and I'm not morally objecting to it. It's not as though this title is trying to make any deep commentary, either. Yes, I derided the Atari 2600 version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for consisting of nothing more than wandering around and butchering bystanders. Why should my be criticism here be any different?

You see, the thing is this massacre isn't terrible and still portrays Larry's activity as unethical on some level. It also sports a delightful VHS-style presentation, complete with tracking imperfections and grainy camerawork. At its core, it's actually a pretty sound game of problem solving, stealth, and strategy.

And murder.



Entering the first official stage, you abide most of the usual rules for stealth. You wait until your target isn't looking at you, linger in the darkness, strike with precision, and don't let anyone see the killing or the body. Unfortunately, you can't carry any carcasses away in this one, so you have to learn to either dispatch your victims in a certain order or take out ones that could present a problem first.

You see, people don't like hanging around psycho killers who dress like holiday icons, nor are they keen on standing next to dead bodies. The instant they see you or their deceased friends, they split. A time limit lets you know how many precious seconds you have until they've bounced, resulting in a “game over.” In the meantime, you race to stop them literally dead in their tracks. Hell, in some cases you can use this mechanic to your advantage. If you leave a body where someone might find it and then wait by the exit, fresh meat will come right to you. Who needs sneaking when you can scare folks into your blade?

As levels pass, you gain the ability to throw infinite knives, which simplifies some of your tasks. This is a good addition because the challenge factor leaps decently around this time. You now have to bump off whole crowds of naughty-listers, dicing up folks in a grocery store and at punk band's gig. By this point, I thought I would object to such gratuitous butchery, but instead I found myself plotting and scheming, experimenting and finding the best and fastest ways to knock off the populace so I could score a better rating.



Let's face one thing, though: this title boasts a brainy, puzzle-like structure, but it's still nothing more than sneaking and killing. Even with more elaborate levels offered later in the campaign, it still grows somewhat repetitive. Ultimately, the affair ends before it can overstay its welcome, but the last few levels only serve to highlight how tiresome its content can be.

One stage throws you into a porno theater where you knock off all of the patrons and the staff. However, you've got a couple factors to consider. One, you find two janitors cleaning the first theater on the left, prepping it for another showing. Two, customers enter the concession area to watch some low-quality boning in that auditorium, so if you assassinate the janitors at that point, their remains will be spotted.

The janitors also patrol the area, so if you leave them alive for too long, they'll eventually find the trail you're leaving behind. You pretty much have to figure out how to snuff out the clean-up crew without alerting clients, but you also must off the clientele without alerting the cleaners.

Trust me, it's actually more irritating than it sounds...



In the final shebang, you grab a flamethrower and head back to some familiar grounds for a holiday roast. This segment proves to be the most aggravating because you can also catch fire and perish. On top of that, the hit detection for your flames acts a bit weird at times. During one encounter, I bathed a nun in fire and she didn't even catch and ended up escaping. She must've been wearing a fireproof habit... Thankfully, I did eventually warm her up, but only before I torched a whole crowd who ran into the corridor and caused the camera to go nuts, forcing me to burn to death because I couldn't see where I was heading.

As you can tell, the camera can be an issue, even sometimes before this section. Especially when chasing runaways, if you bump into a wall, the view zooms in and manages to confuse you. That allows your prey more time to egress while you struggle to get yourself sorted out.

Eventually, the fun has to end, but at least it caps off in fitting—if a bit groan-worthy—fashion. Christmas Massacre isn't an amazing title, but it's a decently little treat for fans of horror movies and gory films. This one isn't going to scare your socks off, but it might pass an hour or two if you're into gruesome stuff. You only have to abide some wonky camera work and your own self-reflection while you chop up nameless character models.

Staff review by Joseph Shaffer (December 26, 2023) Rumor has it that Joe is not actually a man, but a machine that likes video games, horror movies, and long walks on the beach. His/Its first contribution to HonestGamers was a review of Breath of Fire III.