Welcome to Knockout Horror. We are continuing our Festive Frights season of Christmas themed horror movie reviews, today, with a release from 2022 – Christmas Bloody Christmas. If you are looking for more Xmas scares, be sure to check out our Awful Advent category.
This movie is a Shudder exclusive which should be our first warning sign. Shudder has picked up a lot in the past year, or so, but they are still good for a whole bunch of ass wipe quality films every year. Surely Shudder bringing the horror viewing public can’t be a good thing?
And It Isn’t..
Full disclosure, I so badly wanted to turn this movie off within about 15 minutes of it starting. Getting through it was, legitimately, painful but I did it so you don’t have to. Christmas Bloody Christmas follows obnoxious record store owner Tori (Riley Dandy) as she battles for survival against a robot Santa gone rogue on Christmas Eve.
Yes, it is a dumb premise but that wasn’t a huge issue to me. Hell, the last thing I watched featuring a killer robot Santa was Futurama and all of those episodes are hilarious. I was fully onboard with some goofy, robotic, horror silliness. I just didn’t realise that it would be quite this bad.
This is a movie that does, just about, everything wrong. I always try and find things to praise when it comes to horror because I appreciate the work that goes in to making a movie but I just can’t do it with this. I can’t find anything to praise. Everything is just so bad but let’s start at the top.
Noisy, Bloody Noisy
The movie opens up with around forty minutes of the most obnoxious character interactions I have ever seen in a movie. Clearly, the actors were given basic script outlines to follow and told to improvise their dialogue. A task that is, very apparently, out of the question when considering the ability of said actors.
The result is a whole bunch of, very limited, actors shouting over the top of each other, dropping f-bombs as if they were commas, making constant juvenile sex references, despite them all clearly being in their thirties, and, generally, making you want to tear your ears off. I swear a lot; bad language is not an issue to me, but this is ridiculous. Every other word is an f-bomb or a reference to genitalia. It doesn’t help that the characters don’t take a single breath.
It is talking, talking, talking non-stop, throughout. Just a huge wall of noise as these detestable people attempt to act like they are actual friends. The conversations are horribly inauthentic, the references to metal bands and horror movies are eye roll inducing and the whole thing reeks of a group of people who think they are a hell of a lot more interesting than they really are.
This shit goes on for 40 minutes.. 40 minutes. We are even subjected to a noisy, clothed, sex scene between these freaks that acts as, simply, a momentary inhale before another 40 minutes of breathless screaming. It is horrible. I wish to Santa’s rosy red ass cheeks that someone would have told director Joe Begos, and the cast, that, in the case of movie dialogue, less is more.
Obnoxious, Bloody Obnoxious
I have harped on about unlikable horror protagonists in the past. Especially when it comes to males writing female characters. In the case of Tori, however, it seems as though actor Riley Dandy is, almost, entirely to blame for making her the most unlikable character ever. She screams non-stop; literally non-stop. She is infantile, obnoxious, poorly acted, loud, aggressive, unrelatable and irritating.
I say almost because a lot of this is in the hands of the director. You don’t hire an actor whose credits barely stretch outside of bit parts in Christmas movies and Hallmark romances and ask them to improvise an entire film’s worth of dialogue. Dandy seriously needed some direction and someone to dial her back a bit. She repeats the same annoying phrases, with the same inflection, all the damn time. Shouting over other characters at every opportunity which forces them to shout to match her energy. It’s like ear napalm.
As my fiancée put it, she screams so much throughout the entire movie that when she is screaming for an actual reason it has no consequence or impact. Improv is fine with an experienced actor. This is, clearly, not the case here. Dandy is out of her depth and it is almost impossible not to find yourself rooting for Santa to shut her up once and for all. I can’t help but feel like this is a real shame. Tori is a very atypical protagonist that had a lot of potential. It is just, sadly, completely wasted.
Problems, Bloody Problems
That’s not this movie’s only problem, though. There are, actually, far too many to list so I will briefly go over some of the most significant. The first of which being the fact that Santa looks horrendous. The only thing that indicates that he is a robot, and not a dude in a suit with a fake beard, is the robotic sounds he makes when walking. Other than that, he looks fleshy, moves like an overweight human, is completely unimposing and, generally, looks terrible. We get to see things through Santa’s eyes, here and there, as well, which also sucks and looks stupid.
Pacing is horrendous. It’s thirty minutes before anything of note happens and then another ten to fifteen before things pick up again. The last 40 minutes are just a bunch of screaming and horribly predictable Terminator Santa stuff. Director Joe Begos has stolen, liberally, from a bunch of other slashers and action movies to bring together something that is entirely unoriginal and derivative.
Camera work is nauseatingly poor. Begos has tried to incorporate a bunch of different visuals styles but the chaotic and spasmodic cinematography looks horrendous. He sure loves neon colours and blacklights, as well, which, I guess, is something. The score might appeal to some and it isn’t the worst part of the movie so that is a plus, I suppose. It is slightly reminiscent of 80’s horror.
Christmas, Bloody Christmas is, also, very repetitive and the final fifteen minutes, or so, feature the same exact scenario playing out over and over again four or five times which is quite frustrating. I don’t think I have ever seen quite so many false endings in horror, before. I just can’t think of anything positive to say.
Should You Watch Christmas Bloody Christmas?
If you love obnoxious hipsters talking about masturbation and dropping f-bombs every other word then there is plenty to like, here. The worst horror protagonist ever, a wall of noise that will make you want to mute the television, an unlikable cast, a terrible looking antagonist, no scares, repetitive action and horrible camera work make Christmas Bloody Christmas one to avoid. It is less a lump of coal in your stocking and more a huge nutty turd filled with corn that you don’t even remember eating.