A Family Christmas That Puts the “Die” in “Yuletide”
Ah, Christmas. The season of joy, togetherness, and unresolved generational trauma. Most families settle their issues with passive-aggressive gift exchanges and arguments about politics over turkey. The Milgrams, however, prefer a more direct approach: apocalyptic paranoia, technological mind control, and a TV that thinks it’s God.
Johnny Kevorkian’s Await Further Instructions is the kind of film that makes you grateful for your own dysfunctional relatives. Because no matter how much your uncle drinks or how many racist things your grandmother mutters between bites of ham, at least no one in your household is worshiping a homicidal television while bathing in bleach.
The Setup: Merry Dystopia, Everyone
The film begins like a twisted EastEnders Christmas special. Nick (Sam Gittins), a young man who’s clearly seen too many therapy sessions and not enough daylight, returns home for Christmas with his girlfriend Annji (Neerja Naik). Annji, bless her, has never met the family before — and if she survives this visit, she’ll probably never meet anyone again.
The Milgram household is a claustrophobic British nightmare:
-
Tony (Grant Masters), the father, radiates middle-management authoritarianism and the kind of smugness that could curdle eggnog.
-
Beth (Abigail Cruttenden), the mother, is a walking apology sandwich in a cardigan.
-
Kate (Holly Weston), the pregnant sister, is the sort of person who probably calls her MLM a “business opportunity.”
-
Scott (Kris Saddler), Kate’s husband, is a human protein shake with anger management issues.
-
And then there’s Grandad (David Bradley), who delivers racist one-liners like he’s auditioning for The Daily Mail: The Musical.
It’s all going splendidly until the next morning when they wake up to find that their house has been wrapped in a mysterious black membrane. Outside: nothing. Inside: panic. It’s like Home Alone meets The Twilight Zone, except instead of burglars, the invader is a sentient television set with delusions of divine authority.
The TV Will See You Now
The real star of Await Further Instructions is the television — a cold, glowing rectangle that starts sending cryptic messages like, “Wash your hands,” “Inject the vaccine,” and “Eat the bleach, it’s good for you.” It’s basically Fox News with better special effects.
As the family unravels, the TV’s commands grow increasingly invasive, and the line between technological control and human stupidity gets beautifully blurred. Tony, the patriarch, goes full authoritarian dad mode, barking orders like a suburban Mussolini. “The television knows best!” he insists, which is an excellent slogan for anyone who’s ever spent twelve hours binging Love Island.
The film escalates from mildly unsettling to full-blown apocalyptic carnage as the black wires — living tendrils from whatever alien or digital entity is outside — creep their way into the house, the bodies, and eventually, the baby. It’s grim. It’s hilarious. It’s a Christmas miracle.
Dysfunction, Served with a Side of Doom
What makes Await Further Instructions so perversely delightful is its commitment to realism — not in the science-fiction sense (let’s be honest, the logistics of living killer wires are questionable), but in the portrayal of toxic family dynamics.
Every character represents a facet of modern dysfunction:
-
Tony is authoritarian, emotionally repressed, and so patriotic he’d probably salute the toaster if it blinked twice.
-
Beth’s desperate need to keep the peace is almost admirable — until you realize she’d probably host tea for Cthulhu if it meant avoiding conflict.
-
Kate and Scott embody the Instagram version of domestic bliss — all smiles on the outside, pure rot on the inside.
-
Nick and Annji, the only sane ones, cling to each other like survivors in a particularly posh version of Saw.
When the TV begins issuing commands, the family’s collapse isn’t caused by the supernatural — it’s caused by them. Kevorkian’s real horror isn’t the monster outside; it’s the one sitting in your living room, asking for the remote.
The Social Commentary: Black Mirror, But British-er
On paper, this is a movie about aliens and mind control. In practice, it’s a scathing satire of obedience, nationalism, and our pathological addiction to screens. The TV doesn’t invade the Milgrams’ home — they invite it in, give it power, and obey its every word. It’s Black Mirror without the sleek futurism or moral restraint.
The symbolism is deliciously unsubtle: the black membrane sealing the house could represent social isolation, mass hysteria, or just the world’s thickest metaphor for bad Wi-Fi. The constant directives from the TV echo the media’s ability to dictate panic, loyalty, and moral outrage. And when the television commands them to “cleanse themselves with bleach,” well… let’s just say the film aged like fine wine after 2020.
The Horror: Come for the Bleach, Stay for the Brain Goo
Await Further Instructions earns its horror badge not through gore (though there’s plenty) but through escalating dread. The black wires that slither through walls and burrow into bodies are equal parts organic and mechanical, like H.R. Giger’s Christmas decorations.
Every scene ratchets the tension tighter, until by the final act, the house looks like a cybernetic womb of glowing cables and twitching corpses. It’s as if Videodrome and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation had a love child and left it unsupervised in a RadioShack.
The transformation of Tony into a reanimated puppet controlled by the wires is the perfect culmination of the film’s themes: blind obedience becoming literal possession. He’s the final evolution of the armchair fascist — now with Bluetooth capability.
The Ending: Merry Techno-Birth, Everyone
By the time the credits roll, nearly everyone is dead, the house is a biomechanical hellscape, and Tony’s corpse is cradling a newborn baby while a television screen names it “Ruby” and commands it to “worship me.”
It’s grotesque. It’s ridiculous. It’s poetic.
Outside, the camera pans out to reveal every house on the block wrapped in the same black tendrils, every family presumably undergoing the same techno-spiritual conversion. The apocalypse has come — not with fire or brimstone, but with a firmware update.
It’s one of the most chilling endings in recent sci-fi horror, because it feels disturbingly plausible. After all, if the world’s ending, wouldn’t most of us wait for instructions before doing anything about it?
Performances: The Joy of Misery
Sam Gittins anchors the chaos as Nick, delivering the right balance of panic and resigned horror — the face of a man who realizes he should’ve just stayed in his flat and microwaved a Tesco lasagna. Neerja Naik’s Annji is the emotional core, bringing intelligence and empathy to a film that gleefully punishes both.
But it’s Grant Masters who steals the show as Tony, morphing from mildly unpleasant dad to full-on messianic lunatic. Watching him pledge allegiance to the television while drenched in blood is both horrifying and oddly cathartic — like seeing every bad father-in-law fantasy fulfilled in glorious HD.
Verdict: A Brilliantly Bleak Christmas Comedy from Hell
Await Further Instructions is a small film with big ideas — claustrophobic, grotesque, and absurdly funny in that dry British way where everyone’s dying but still remembers to say “sorry.”
It’s a razor-sharp allegory for our technological servitude, our family neuroses, and our willingness to obey any glowing box that tells us what to do. Kevorkian turns domestic horror into social satire, gift-wrapped in tinsel and soaked in despair.
It’s not a feel-good Christmas movie — but it’s definitely a feel-something one. And honestly, that’s a rare miracle these days.
Final Rating: ★★★★★
(Five out of five living wires — for delivering a Christmas message we’ll never forget: family is hell, the TV is God, and bleach is not a skincare product.)
