Christmas Bloody Christmas 2022

Shudder gifted us with another one of those evil Santa Claus movies. Aren't there enough of those already? I put it on for background noise, but the vivid lighting and punky overtones got me invested from the get-go.

In the first minute of the movie, we're given all the setup that we need. A robotic Santa has been deployed for consumer purchase, and who gives a fuck about the specifics of his programming. I absolutely loved that this movie didn't bother explaining things any further than that. There's a killer Santa robot hunting naughty people. Probably just people in general. Anybody who crosses its path should die for some reason, just because.

Before the carnage lets loose, we're given quite a bit of buildup between our lead characters. One is the rebelious owner of a rock record store, and the other is a somewhat charming, but still pretty lame employee who's trying really really hard to get with this girl. I can see why she wants to put him off for so long, but put enough drinks in anyone and they'll come around.

So our two characters spend the first half hour drinking and rambling about music and movie references that they probably think are hip and unexpected, but to any self-respecting horror fan, they come off obvious common knowledge. Stuff like Clancy Brown being great in Pet Sematary 2. Yeah, we know that already. And stuff about Lemmy being badass. Yeah, we know already.

There's a lot of banter early on, and despite it coming across as basic fandom drivel, it does feel authentic. They bounce their dialogue off each other quite well, and it isn't some forced vulgar shit like Rob Zombie would write, but I feel like they had him in the back of their minds. And as that comparison was brought to my attention, a Rob Zombie alumni Jeff Daniel Phillips appeared on the screen. RZ's movies may be grating at times, but his actors have potential and I like to see them in other things. Except Sheri Moon, who only ever appears in RZ movies because her appeal is too niche for the rest of the world.

I was discussing with @ballz about how the Terminator franchise needs to ditch its overbloated T2 rehash entries if it ever wants to come back to life, and this movie is the key. I think a great way to reboot that series would be to take a cue from this movie about a random-ass killer robot who targets unsuspecting hapless victims for reasons unknown. He does it violently, and he takes a massive amount of abuse.

Director Joe Begos might be someone to watch out for.

#Review