He Sees You When You're Sleeping (2024) - Christmas Horror Film Review

I have a soft spot for Christmas themed horror films, as the title of the Charlie Steeds' (Werewolf Castle, Death Ranch) He Sees You When You're Sleeping suggests, this slasher is one of those. While very indie like in nature, there was still plenty of fun to be had here.

As a child, Chester Van Buren witnessed his parents being murdered by an axe wielding maniac dressed as Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. The boy managed to escape and the killings were pinned on Henry Bates, a mentally ill man who had escaped from a nearby mental institute. Now, some seventeen years later and Chester (David Lenik - Mask of the Devil, Jekyll and Hyde, and who also wrote this) has returned for the first time to his childhood home, at the behest of his Aunt Marion (Caroline Williams - Halloween II, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) who Chester has allowed to live there and who has invited him to stay for Christmas. Unknown to him, she has cooked up a plot with the assistance of her son, Burke (Cedric Gegel), his girlfriend Melody (Natalie Veater), as well as Chester's girlfriend Afton (Nellie Spackman) to gaslight him into thinking he is going crazy, so that they can steal the house out from under him. The plan is perhaps going a little too well however as a mystery person has gotten themselves involved, someone dressed up as Santa who is on a secret killing spree. Could it be Henry Bates returned to finish what he started all those years ago?

This was an enjoyable indie horror that managed to sell its story despite an obviously limited budget. It starts off with a fun prologue, with Uncle Nick (Scot Scurlock - Death Ranch) stealing the show by telling the young Chester a Christmas themed horror story. In the present, I don't think Chester made for a great protagonist. The character is really bit*hy and sometimes this would make him a bit abrasive. It was fine when he was being like that to the people who deserved it, but after re-meeting childhood sweetheart Eden (Peyton Michelle Edwards - Goodbye Honey), he also has plenty of moments where he seemed a bit mean to her also. The cast were fun due to so many of them being over the top cartoon evil, especially with Williams and Gegel who both brought a lot of evil life to their characters. I loved how Burke was incapable of being nice to Chester, while Marion was so obviously fake in the way she acted, making for a deliciously nasty mother and son duo. Of course, when the Santa killer gets going, there were plenty of characters who deserved their comeuppance. 

There was a decent body count even if many of the kills were similar in look. The main weapon of the slasher is an axe, usually used in one or two blows to kill the victim. There were some other Christmas themed kills to be found, such as strangulation by Christmas tree lights and an ice skate boot to the face. There wasn't too much blood and effects were mostly kept to a minimum, but the kills still worked.
The plot was simple yet I did like all the gaslighting aspects of it, especially with the bad members of the family barely able to stop fighting amongst themselves. The eventual revelation of what had been going on was fun and silly, fitting the tone of the film well.

I do like Christmas horrors, and while this obviously had some budget constraints it was a movie that was fun to sit through. I might not have been too keen on the central protagonist, but this moved a long at a speedy pace with its one hour twenty minute runtime flying past. He Sees You When You're Sleeping became available on-demand and digital platforms on November 1st.

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