Holiday Season 2022: Christmas Bloody Christmas Review

Christmas Bloody Christmas is the new Christmas slasher from director Joe Begos that is currently streaming on Shudder. The film takes place on Christmas Eve and follows record Store owner Tori (Dandy) who’s simply looking to get drunk, potentially hook up with an online date, and have a good time partying before the big day. While out for drinks with her employee Robbie (Delich), a robotic Santa Claus at a nearby toy store goes haywire and begins a rampant killing spree across her small town. Once the robotic killing machine sets its sights on Tori, she’s forced to go on the run and must do everything in her power to survive the night and defeat the evil.

Christmas Bloody Christmas gets off to a fairly rocky start with an opening act that will understandably test a lot of viewers’ patience and will even have some turning it off before the actual killing begins. The first act takes way too long to get going and moves at a very slow pace in comparison to the rest of the film. It mostly consists of dialogue and character development which would be totally fine if the writing was substantially better than it was here. Unfortunately, the writing was not the greatest as for whatever reason, the dialog often leans towards the most profane thing one can think of. Because of that choice, it makes the characters initially a bit unlikeable and hard to root for. Luckily, viewers are likely to grow more attached to them as the film progresses and moves beyond its first act.

Once the film moves beyond its first act, it becomes a highly entertaining and brutally satisfying Christmas slasher that clearly pays homage to a lot of 1980’s sci-fi and horror. Once the robotic Santa comes to life and begins his killing spree, the film instantly picks up and doesn’t relent until its final moments. The first kill is shocking in the best way possible and perfectly sets the tone for what is to come. While none of the other kills ever quite match it, they deliver the necessary carnage one would expect to see in a film like this and there’s no shortage of kills throughout its short 87-minute runtime.

Written and directed by Begos, it’s very obvious that he excels more as a director than he does a writer. His direction is honestly quite strong here, pulling off way more with what one would think is a fairly low budget. The carnage onscreen was beautiful as its strong usage of green and red throughout helps create that Christmas feel. None of the performances are anything all that special but they are all more than serviceable, especially Dandy as Tori. Dandy may start off a bit unlikeable, but she quickly grows on viewers as Dandy’s performance is ultimately what creates the attachment that will have viewers rooting for her survival.

At the end of the day, a more polished script and an improved opening act could’ve helped turn Christmas Bloody Christmas into a new Christmas horror classic but nonetheless, it is still an enjoyable experience that genre fans will undoubtedly eat up and have a blast with. For all its shortcomings in the writing and character department, it makes up for in the execution of its premise and kills. The film definitely is not something for everyone but for those who are fans of horror films set around Christmas and are interested by the premise, it is well worth a watch this Holiday season.

*still courtesy of Shudder*

If you liked this, please read our other reviews here and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter or Instagram or like us on Facebook.

Connor Carey

www.connorsmoviereviews.com/