Introduction
Christmas Bloody Christmas is a deliciously unholy union of The Terminator (1984) and Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984). With it, writer-director Joe Begos continues his run of grungy horror outfitted around a dark and playful heart. Christmas Bloody Christmas may not revolutionize the genre, but it delivers everything you want with impressive flair.
Synopsis
On Christmas Eve, Tori (Riley Dandy) wants to close up her record store and get hammered. Maybe even laid. Her co-worker Robbie (Sam Delich) convinces her to blow off a Tinder date and drink with him. On their way, they stop at a toy shop run by friends to drop off a Christmas whiskey gift. The shop features a special robotic Santa Claus adapted from a military project with the goal of replacing “degenerate” mall Santas worldwide. Yet, as often happens with robots, things go haywire. Suddenly, Tori and Robbie must contend with a killer robot Santa Claus on the loose. For them, the season is anything but bright and merry.
Ho Ho Holiday Horror
The Christmas horror canon is a healthy one. Even before dipping into the likes of Black Christmas (1974) or Better Watch Out (2016), the holiday has an eerie backbone behind all the cookies and joy. The many adaptations of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol ensure ghosts are a key part of the season. Christmas Bloody Christmas joins a subset of films that take holiday iconography and winkingly deploy it for frightful fun.
As noted at the top of this review, Begos seems to intentionally graft The Terminator and Silent Night, Deadly Night. The unstoppable robot of the former with the Claus-passing killer of the latter. The concept’s bare-knuckled simplicity is a major strength. Begos and company focus on executing the idea with a compelling clarity of bloody glee.
Holiday lights and neon signs from the opening downtown setting lend Christmas Bloody Christmas a neon, glowing, baseline. Where a Hallmark picture softens the edges for uniformity, Begos and cinematographer Brian Sowell ratchet it up. Paired with the entirely nighttime backdrop, the aesthetic is one of a grimy dance floor extended to the whole town. When the Claus robot enters the fray, Begos peppers in intentionally clunky POV shots of its spree.
Folded in with the broader atmosphere, it continues Begos’ run of horror films that marries a throwback style with modernized stories. It’s about lean as you can get from a screenplay perspective, but with far more interesting characters than some of the unmentioned Christmas horror floating out there.
Dashing Through the Carnage
A major part of that success comes from Dandy’s thrilling central performance as Tori. The film’s opening shot, after a series of satirical ads, is a oner that follows her into her record store. She lugs in a box while cycling through warm interactions with friends and customers. While she quickly asserts her hatred of the holiday season, the opening asserts her presence as a warm-hearted and beloved member of the community.
It underpins her and Robbie’s conversations trashing commercial music and film, wedding her cynical disposition with an affectionate soul. Dandy never overplays either side, using each beat to endear us to Tori. Once she’s fighting for her life, we are fully bought into hoping she pulls off a Christmas miracle and survives.
When the turn does come, Dandy is electric as Final Girl material. She perfectly matches the energy of Begos’ aesthetic and the punk-rock vibe that Tori requires to feel like a genuine version of herself. Dandy talks a little too loud when she’s excited. She throws back a series of whiskey shots that are both equally impressive and concerning and trades barbs with Robbie as easily as she wields a variety of weapons against the robot.
In one standout scene, Dandy smokes a cigarette in the stained yellow and flickering light of a police station bathroom. She is covered in blood and getting over the shock of the first proper bout with the robot. It is peak Final Girl image-making, and part of a sneakily subversive take on the archetype that Dandy owns from fade-in to fade-out.
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