’Tis the season for genre film-makers and distributors to cash in with horror-themed Christmas movies. So if current hit Violent Night sounds a little too classy and mainstream, then here is this shoddily made but tinsel-bright gift for you, the cinematic equivalent of a cheap soap and body lotion set bought at the last minute. It’s serviceable, but not a lot of thought went into it.
Adding to the corpus of films about Santas who are not just bad but positively evil (see also Krampus, Rare Exports et al), Christmas Bloody Christmas builds its plot around an animatronic toy-shop Santa Claus robot that suddenly develops a murderous instinct. Before the mayhem commences, however, the film spends time with record-store owner Tori (Riley Dandy) and her employee-friend Robbie (Sam Delich), two likable cool kids with opinions on all sorts of bands, movies and leisure activities that they ceaselessly bicker over. In fact, their fluent, lively dialogue and simmering flirtation feels surprisingly spontaneous and authentic, to the point where one rather dreads that the mayhem will soon start and all conversation will turn to various kinds of screaming. As Tori and Robbie visit some friends in a neighbouring shop and then make their way to a dive bar, the Robo-Claus comes to life and starts killing all and sundry.
It’s never clearly explained why this electronic Father Christmas is so intent on killing Tori and Robbie when surely there are plenty of other people to attack, but you get the sense writer-director Joe Begos wasn’t so interested in motivation and logic. Sadly, that makes the film less engaging, but it must be acknowledged that Dandy is outstanding in the role of the lead/last girl, showing off real comic chops in the early running and then screaming with terror like a champ in the later stages. She might go far if she can break out of doing Christmas movies. Also fun is the lurid lighting design, which looks as if the whole set was illuminated only by various hues of fairy lights.
• Christmas Bloody Christmas is available on 9 December on Shudder.
