Given its title (and a subtitle that’s not fit to print in a family newspaper), it’s pretty clear that “Let’s Kill Grandma This Christmas” isn’t aimed at the Rockettes crowd.
Or anyone else with taste, for that matter.
Brian Gianci’s comedy is set in the run-down, moldy old Victorian home of Cathy (Roxie Lucas), a pistol-packing, potty-mouthed 80-year-old.
Dilapidated though the house is, it’s coveted by the pot-smoking slacker Brett (Kevin O’Donnell), who’s married to Cathy’s granddaughter Jen (Brandi Nicole Wilson) and can’t wait until the old lady croaks. He’s more than willing to speed up the process, persuading his nebbishy brother-in-law Carl (James Wirt) to lace her tea with rat poison.
“She’s not a dog,” Carl protests.
“It’d be harder to put down a dog,” Brett replies. “Dogs are cute.”
Other characters include Carl’s sexy wife, Jen’s sister Leigh (Katie Webber), with whom Brett is having a torrid affair, and his wheelchair-bound, war-veteran brother Ray (Adam Mucci), whose disability doesn’t stop him from jumping into bed with the randy octogenarian.
Under John Dapolito’s aimless direction, the cast, apparently operating under the delusion that they’re in a modern-day “Arsenic and Old Lace,” try their hardest, particularly Lucas (“The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas”), who’s a hoot as the profane granny. But “Let’s Kill Grandma This Christmas” is an excellent argument for euthanasia.