A Spanish Slasher Is Climbing Netflix Charts Despite Bland Reviews
Netflix has done it again. And by "it" I mean foisted another instantly forgettable streaming movie on us all. Sometimes Netflix can be a force for good, such as when the streamer reminded us all that David Ayer's pretty good 2008 film "Street Kings" existed. But sometimes, the company is one of the main culprits in contributing to the cavalcade of generic "content" that pollutes our contemporary cultural landscape. "Killer Book Club," for example, is a Spanish horror effort that, despite sitting at an equally horrific 14% on Rotten Tomatoes, has proven popular since its August 25, 2023 debut on Netflix.
Disclaimer: I have not seen "Killer Book Club." But according to the official synopsis it's about "Eight horror-loving friends," who have to "fight for their lives when a killer clown who seems to know the grim secret they share begins to pick them off, one by one." Sound familiar? It's "Scream," it's just a "Scream" rip-off.
As Bloody Disgusting wrote of the movie, "Writer Carlos García Miranda does 'Scream' but worse, foolishly begging for comparisons to a '90s horror classic because subverting expectations requires more labor versus copying someone else's homework." But perhaps the most telling line from all the seven reviews for this movie on RT is Digital Mafia Talkies' assertion that the film "isn't a really good movie, and it's not really a bad movie. It exists somewhere in between." That's a line that could apply to any one of the thousands of films made solely for streaming services with which we've been bombarded in recent years. It also might have something to do with why everyone is apparently watching this Spanish "Scream" pastiche, as an audience used to a steady stream of mediocrity has now embraced the latest helping. And it ain't just España.
'What's your favorite scary (streaming) movie?'
According to the official Netflix site, "Killer Book Club" hit number 3 on the global, non-English film Top 10 for the week of August 21-August 27, 2023. Though it failed to crack the Top 10 in the US, it appeared on the list in eight countries, including its native Spain, where it debuted at number four on August 26, before claiming the top spot the following day. And while the Spanish lapped up their home-grown horror fare, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland, France, and even Réunion, a small, French-controlled island off the eastern coast of Africa all got in on the action too. Meanwhile, Turkish audiences viewed the film enough to propel it to number nine on their list.
According to Netflix viewing data aggregation site FlixPatrol, the film has remained popular since its triumphant week in the charts, debuting in the Top 10 in a slew of new countries from Nigeria to Bangladesh since August 28, 2023. It's currently sitting at number seven in the U.S. at the time of writing.
Much like when the abysmal "The Snowman" debuted on Netflix and proved streaming audiences would watch anything, "Killer Book Club" has, unfortunately, once again made the case for "content" being a suitable label for the media we're all consuming — a real-world horror story if ever there was one.