It is slightly a Christmas tradition of mine to be watching a Christmas themed horror on the day itself. Making the most of my recent return to Shudder, I thought I may as well pick a film from that. Christmas Bloody Christmas was written and directed by Joe Begos (Bliss), it ticks a lot of the typical boxes you might expect, blending parts of The Terminator into its mix as an added bonus.
It is Christmas eve and small town music store owner, Tori (Riley Dandy) just wants to get drunk, ending up to agreeing for a night of booze and good times with her employee and friend, Tommy (Sam Delich - The Marshes). Elsewhere, a local toy store was in possession of an animatronic Santa Claus (Abraham Benrubi - Bliss, Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series), a model that had been re-called by the manufacturers due to some reverting to their original programming as instruments of war. This one too has revertted to its original programming, solely existing to kill. Spotting a passing Tori and Tommy, the robot heads off in pursuit, determined to kill anyone it sees.
So, it doesn't take much to see where The Terminator references come from. Initially this starts off as more of a traditional Christmas slasher, the antagonist mute, hulking, and deadly with an axe. Later, for anyone who has seen that other sci-fi action film, it won't be a surprise to discover that it is going to take a heck of a lot more determination to stop a robotic killer than a human. The Santa look always goes well with murder and mayhem, and this Santa is certainly intimidating. What I found a little bit disappointing is that an early advert states how these Santa animatronics have thousands of lines of dialogue they can spout, yet this particular Santa barely talks at all. Outside of a few phrases at the start, the film is more happy to make him into a strong silent killer than a wise-cracker. It did feel a bit odd to make a point of referencing its ability to speak, and then completely ignore that side of things entirely. At first it does just look like a man, later on, there are some decent special effects to reveal the robotic endoskeleton within.
I had heard that this took a while to get going, but the kills start around fifteen minutes into the film, so really not that long a time at all. The first few were underwhelming, taking place from a first person perspective of robot Santa, but later you do get to see more. Many of the kills are axe based, but the robots strength means on occasion he flings people large distances. The kills get quite gory, with Tori spending much of the film caked in blood, it doesn't even shy away from children getting killed, which was an appreciated touch.
As a protagonist, Tori was fine, if a little cliche. An alternative music and horror film fan who spends her pre-horror time drunkenly debating what is good and what is not, while never more than a word or two away from swearing. I did love that Tommy references Bad Religion's Christmas themed album (an album I put on while wrapping presents each year), and I have to say, I did love it when Tori stated Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 was a great film, as that is un-ironically one of my favourite horror films of all time! Characters aren't treated that well, with a high body count made up of deserving and non-deserving people, with some key characters getting wiped out much earlier into the film than you may expect. I found the final third did go on a bit, I get the robot would be hard to stop, but it just keeps on coming over and over each time it seems that it has finally been defeated. I didn't like the abrupt way this ended either, not setting things up for a sequel, but not really ending the film in an interesting way either.
The movie is obsessed with day-glo colours, both Tori's shop and home are drenched in day-glo paint and lights, while neon green and reds pop up in nearly every scene, even the robot's innards are lit by a neon green glow. It made the many dark scenes stand out, even if the idea was a little overused.
Christmas Bloody Christmas was a decent enough Christmas themed horror. I wish the antagonist had more personality or reasoning behind its actions, as it did become surprisingly dull at times. The film also appeared to have lost some of its jovial feeling at some point. By the conclusion it had all gotten a little bit dark, with even the surviving characters doing so at a heavy price. Nonetheless, this was enjoyable for what it was, if not one that is going to be an essential Christmas horror.
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