Christmas Bloody Christmas

 I’m not even trying to bury the lead here. Christmas Bloody Christmas may be the surprise hit of the season.

I was fortunate enough to catch a advance screening of this on Saturday night. That’s cool because I’m not expecting this to hit many theaters (it’s a Shudder release), but nevertheless, Cleveland film scene knows what’s good and holy crap, this was good.

It begins with some trashy retro throwback commercials, culminating in an advertisement for a new robotic Santa that stores and malls can use to replace the ones they would hire for the season. They’re made from army surplus robots… Refurbished killing machines now designed to delight children of all ages. I sat back in my seat and looked over at my buddy Mark said “please let this be with the movies about!”. Chopping Mall with Santa robots? Yes, please.

We open with our main character Tori, heading into work at the record store that she owns (I think it’s a record store. There’s lots of albums there and she’s definately an audiophile. It could be a “Exchange” type store though too – I see VHS and comic posters around as well). It’s a nice bit of business with her saving her friends boyfriend from buying the wrong record as a present, and some pleasant banter with her employee Robbie. There’s some banter as they’re ready to close at the shop. But Tori is not feeling Christmas. She doesn’t like it, and really all she wants to do is hook up with a random Tinder date. No problem of course, is that this Tinder date is an absolutely horrifying douche bag and will only make her the mockery of everyone she knows. Robbie joins her as they head down the street to the toy store where Tori’s friends work. They’re staying over that night because they are great ambition is to schupt in their toy store… (Okay, I gotta admit. I can’t blame them. that sounds pretty great). The friends in the toy store just so happen to have one of those robotic Santa’s. They’re actually all on recall and things probably going out the next day, but for now it’s creepily watching them as they crack open a bottle of whiskey and pass it around. After washing their friends merry Christmas Tori and Robbie are off to the bar, while the toy shop people get busy on Santas throne.

That’s about the time that the Santa robot comes to life and hilarity ensues.

Look, I’m not even going any further with this synopsis because I want you to see this. I seriously want you to go see us very badly. It is everything that I wanted from this movie. We have a killer romantic Santa, the best terminator since Terminator two honestly. And we see it get progressively and progressively more robotic and damaged as we go through the film. We get good clean kills, plenty of blood, but we also get characters that we really enjoy. Quite frankly, I could do an entire movie just with Tori and Robbie clapping back at each other over music and film and boozing it up together. It’s just great stuff. I also couldn’t help but notice that every time I would think “man the only thing that would make this movie better was if this happened…“ About two minutes later, the very thing I was thinking about would happen. It’s intuitive, it’s organic, and it’s a brilliant bloody mess. I should expect no less from Director Joe Begos, who gave us the intense action packed thriller VFW. That one was a High Point and a real hidden gem. This is every bit as good… If not better. It’s just one of the best, freshest Christmas horror movies that I’ve seen in ages. Absolutely check this out on shutter or wherever else it may be streaming. 

Christmas Bloody Christmas hits theaters and begins streaming on Shudder December 9

December 5, 2022 | Categories: Christmas, Christmas Movie, movies | Tags: Christmas Bloody Christmas, Joe Begos | Leave a comment