Studio: Shudder
Director: Joe Begos
Writer: Joe Begos
Producer: Joe Begos, Josh Ethier
Stars: Riley Dandy, Sam Delich, Jonah Ray Rodrigues, Dora Madison, Jeremy Gardner, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Abraham Benrubi, Kansas Bowling, Graham Skipper
Review Score:
Summary:
A malfunctioning animatronic Santa goes on a killing spree in a small town.
Review:
Math can probably prove that the number isn’t as high as it seems, but it certainly feels like holiday horror is overstuffed with killer Santa slaughter. At a minimum, enough murderous Saint Nick flicks already exist that when another one appears, skeptical viewers are right to wonder, “What does this movie do that ‘Silent Night, Deadly Night’ (review here) didn’t do better in 1984?”
Well, what “Christmas Bloody Christmas” does differently is to turn its killer Claus into The Terminator, almost literally if official licensing wasn’t an issue. Instead of a maniacal man in the signature red suit, “Christmas Bloody Christmas” replaces the homicidal human with a rampaging robot, one built using military-grade technology developed by the U.S. Defense Department to create cybernetic super soldiers, but now used to create cutting-edge department store Santas.
How does it make any sense at all that an animatronic attraction could possibly possess the artificial sentience, not to mention the physical capacity, to carry out a brutal series of bloodthirsty attacks like some unstoppable yuletide juggernaut? It doesn’t, of course. That’s why “Christmas Bloody Christmas” immediately disarms disbelief with a pre-title montage of spoof commercials, whose comical content includes a family-friendly whiskey marketed as something to imbibe with your kids and a cannabis cookie baked with “a regulation-busting 2,500 milligrams of pure THC.” The film that follows isn’t played for laughs, yet these gags do double duty as initial instructions that if you take the premise with rigid seriousness, your frame of mind needs a refitting first.
You’d think any ‘Carnage Claus’ fright film would live or die based on the strength of its Christmas-themed kills. How well you respond to “Christmas Bloody Christmas,” on the other hand, actually comes down to how well you bond with its characters, because there’s a heaping snow pile of banal buildup to trudge through prior to Santa finally embarking on his slaughter spree.
The slim story has a strong anchor in Tori. A small town record storeowner, Tori gets streaked hard with “S” and “F” adjectives like sassy, sultry, flirty, and fun. Quick-witted, capably independent, and fiercely loyal to friends also apply to an overall appealing portrayal by Riley Dandy that could have been off-puttingly obnoxious in less charismatic hands.
But you’d better be into the nearly nonstop banter she has with her aspiring FWB/employee Robbie, as well as their friends Lahna and Jay, while waiting for Santa’s circuits to corrode so he can enter full Westworld mode. While Tori and company slam swigs of whiskey or snort lines of cocaine, they debate how haircuts led to the downfalls of popular rock bands, defend unpopular horror series sequels, and make copious comments about casual sex. Sometimes amusing, sometimes crude, their chatter technically counts as character development, though it chews up most of the movie’s first 30 minutes without much substance to show for it.
It would be insultingly reductive to say something as slight as “If you’ve seen one Joe Begos movie, you’ve seen them all.” What that really means is, if you’ve seen a Joe Begos movie before, I don’t have to tell you what kind of gunk-spattered neon nightmare he has in store. Love him, hate him, or anywhere in between, one thing reliable about the multi-threat filmmaker is he always remains true to his brand, with that brand being throwback thrills soaked in explosive effects, a synthesized Steve Moore score, and a style that’s heavy metal punk in attitude as well as approach. Surprising no one, “Christmas Bloody Christmas” proves that rule as another audacious indie from his underground grindhouse of grunge, grime, and gore.
The fact that Joe Begos has these telltale trademarks makes covering his movies relatively easy as consumer reports go. “Christmas Bloody Christmas” comfortably lands at an above average three out of five stars by most moderate metrics. You can then easily add another star if the middle finger-flipping flavor of his films generally tickles your tongue. But subtract one of those stars, maybe two, if spending 80 minutes on the scummier side of a small town populated by one malfunctioning mall robot and several sleaze-teasing slackers sounds like a horrible way to spend the holidays. If that’s the case, I’d recommend ingesting the same amount of drugs and booze as the characters do to make “Christmas Bloody Christmas” more palatable, except that would probably punch an express ticket to the emergency room for any ordinary person.
Review Score: 60
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