Book Review: Candy Cain Kills by Brian McAuley

From cult classics like Black Christmas and Silent Night, Deadly Night to more recent offerings such as Krampus and It’s a Wonderful Knife, the holidays have long been a season for merriment, mischief … and murder. In that fiendish spirit, Brian McAuley—WGA screenwriter, college professor, and author of the nostalgic-yet-timely novel Curse of the Reaper—gifts readers the novella Candy Cain Kills, the newest installment in the Killer VHS Series from Shortwave Publishing. 

Despite what the song says, it’s not the most wonderful time of the year for moody high schooler Austin and his twelve-year-old sister, Fiona. They’ve been watching their parents’ marriage slowly disintegrate (while dealing with their own respective adolescent traumas) and are horrified to learn that the Christmas break has been commandeered for mandated family bonding. Soon, the station wagon is packed with baggage (collective resentments included) and the contemporary comforts of Los Angeles are lost in the rearview as they travel to a secluded cottage in the nearby mountains, where people are sparse and cell service is spotty. It’s only upon stopping at the local diner that they learn their lodging was once the site of multiple deaths.

Ten years ago: The churchgoing Thorntons—mother, father, and two daughters—perished in a Christmas morning fire. Officially, it was a tragic accident caused by faulty tree lights—a story that the Sheriff wholeheartedly endorses. But according to local legend (and the town’s drunken pastor), the family was actually murdered—and their killer, Candy Cain, remains in the wild. Regardless of assurances to the contrary, a sense of foreboding leads Austin to believe that the lore may actually be true; this is confirmed with the discovery of video footage that sheds new and nefarious light on what transpired that fateful day. Once again, a family is going to be punished as history repeats itself—and not all of them will survive the night.

McAuley easily creates a cinematic, 90s slasher vibe in all its gory glory. In addition to the requisite opening kill and a backstory that’s been largely buried only to resurface with a vengeance, he delivers a core group of conflicted characters with the potential for redemption, a secondary love or loathe them cast to stack the body count, and a remote setting that adds an extra layer of chill (literally). Then, there’s the escalation in torment and terror as Candy Cain slashes their way to a third-act plot twist that reframes everything. But it’s siblings Austin (grappling with his sexuality) and Fiona (struggling with a physical disability) who ground the narrative in an underlying goodness that transcends the gleeful gratuity. 

Candy Cain Kills is the perfect stocking stuffer for the scary movie buff(s) in your life, whether naughty or nice. Despite its scant page count, the author merrily unloads a Santa’s sack worth of inventive kills and a delightfully disturbing villain. But this dastardly darkness is offset by unexpected heroism, hilarity, and heart—not to mention a playlist of sweetly sinister Christmas carols that comprise the (internal) soundtrack to Candy Cain’s audacious killing spree. Once again, Brian McAuley proves that he didn’t just come to play—he came to slay!