The first slasher movie of its kind, Hanukkah defies the spirit of most holiday horror movies by adding immense amount of blood, gore, and violence. In one of Sid Haig's final roles, he portrays Judah Lazarus, who condemns those who go against the spirit of the holiday, especially women. While there are slashers in several holiday horror movies, Hanukkah depicts such severe amounts of violence that it defies the true spirit of the seasonal sub-genre and in doing so, makes its biggest mistake.
Bob Clark's Black Christmas isn't just the first slasher flick, it's also the first holiday slasher movie. Prior to the surge in the sub-genre's popularity with John Carpenter's Halloween, Clark introduced the eerie prospect of a man whose sole intent is to tear his targets to pieces. Once Silent Night, Deadly Night transformed the image of Santa Claus into one of violence and murder, other holiday horror movies began to center their stories around slasher characters as well. As a result, Jack Frost, The Gingerbread Man, and Red Christmas came to fruition. By introducing slashers to the sub-genre of holiday horrors, a majority of them took on the Christian holiday of Christmas, while other holidays, like Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, took a backseat. This is partially due to the fact that Christmas is the most celebrated and marketed out of them all, but doesn't make it any more important than others.
After years of lacking representation in holiday horror movies, Hanukkah arrived to define the festivities in the genre while also taking on the task of developing its first slasher. Its existence is an incredible feat in itself and highlights the importance of representation in every sub-genre of horror. As of this writing, there are only a handful of movies that feature Hanukkah, with most being part of anthologies like Deathcember, which also released in 2020. While they do exist, none have garnered as much attention as Hanukkah, especially considering the late horror icon Sid Haig's role as the slasher killer in this unique movie.
Sid Haig's character is known as the Hanukiller, due to his crimes involving the Hanukkah holiday. After he was gunned down by the police for attempting to kill his own son, he goes into hiding only to enact even more gruesome actions years later. He believes that he's been given extra mitzvot - commandments - that require him to kill neo-Nazis as well as "bad Jews." After he slays his victims, he etches the star of David into their flesh as a warning to others. While Haig's performance is nothing short of incredible, the movie hasn't been given rave reviews for the acting. Regardless, most fans and critics recognize the importance of a movie that depicts Judaism and Hanukkah when there's been a major gap in the specified subgenre of holiday horror movies.
Despite the movie's poor acting, it depicts an excessive amount of gore that's more familiar to movies like Eli Roth's Hostel and Rob Zombie's House Of 1000 Corpses, which are lumped into the "torture porn" sub-genre. While director Eben McGarr has cited Black Christmas, Christmas Evil, and Silent Night, Deadly Night as inspirations for his slasher character, the Hanukiller is far more gruesome than any of these other murderers. There's an abundance of torturous scenes where women are subjected to bodily mutilation, forced cleansings, and bathed in their blood and filth. Typically holiday slashers can be bloody, but it is very rare that they come close to Hanukkah's use of violence. In doing so, they retain an element of the joys that accompany their specific celebration, which becomes somewhat lost in McGarr's movie. The movie gets somewhat muddled when it establishes a firm foundation for the Hanukiller's origins, but does not fully expand on the characters as much as it does their deaths.
While Hanukkah had a lot to take on with the development of the genre's first Jewish slasher killer and most major Hanukkah horror movie to date, it doesn't fully capture the essence familiar to holiday horror movies. They commonly retain the essence of the holiday season, whereas McGarr's gets entirely lost by focusing primarily on a killer and his brutal crimes. Hanukkah does influence the murders, but the holiday is not present as much as it is in other holiday slasher movies. In doing so, the overly gory and violent activities completely take over the elements of the sub-genre that could've made Hanukkah better simply by sticking to tradition.
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