Now on Shudder: Christmas Bloody Christmas
Every horror fan knows that Shudder is the best spot for horror movies on the whole internet. Each month they release tons of classic movies and hidden gems plus a slew of exclusives and original films. Way back in the VHS days, choices were limited but in the age of the internet there are so many movies to watch it can get overwhelming leaving us with just one question before spending two hours on a film and that is:
“Is it any good?”
The most recent Shudder Exclusive is Christmas Bloody Christmas, here’s what the synopsis tells us:
It’s Christmas Eve and Tori just wants to get drunk and party, but when a local toy store’s robotic Santa Claus goes haywire and begins a rampant killing spree through her small town, she’s forced into a battle for survival.
So….Is it any good? FUCK YES!
Robotic. Killer. Santa Claus. I mean really, is there anything else you need to know about the movie? Fine, it’s a Joe Begos film and if you don’t know what that means from watching his previous films Bliss and VFW let me fill you in; Begos’ gimmick is that he makes hard R rated horror movies, shot on film and under 90 minutes long. What that means for the view is that we're going to party like it’s 1989!
Although I watch and review tons of movies I have almost no idea about any of the technical aspect of film so when someone says “This was shot on 16mm”, you might as well be saying, “The flibnords are parceling the flabnibs on the square root of decembeth.” I don’t know what you are saying and honestly, I don't think you do either. That being said, I know Begos is working with little to no budget and perhaps being shot on film instead of digital makes the low budget disappear. Often modern low budget movies look a little too polished, like a daytime soap opera and perhaps being shot on film gives the film enough grit to not look cheap. Who knows, I aint no expert.
The other stuff Begos aims for is certainly here as well. In terms of hard R rating, there is tons of gore, sex, drug use and foul language. Now, I could go on about the fantastic gore displayed on screen when Robo-Santa splits people in half with an ax and I could criticize the sex scenes where Begos is somehow able to perfectly replicate mid-90s Cinemax aka Skin-emax, I want to take a moment to talk about the language.
There are a lot of people who gave this film low scores and most of those low scores revolve around the dialogue. People complain about “forced” cursing to sound edgy or comparing the film unfavorably to Rob Zombie films as if saying, “the cursing is like a Rob Zombie movie”, as somehow a derogatory remark, the man directed some of the best horror films of the 21st century, not to mention the goddamn Munsters and his band White Zombie. But I digress.
Look, I get it, if you grew up in the clean cut suburbia and went to some nice little college and you work in a tidy office building with an overbearing HR department and a dress code, it makes sense that the excessive use of the F-word would seem odd to you and I get it, I work in an office and calling it vanilla would be an insult to vanilla because it has an actual flavor and a cubicle filled office is basically a fate worse than death. But I hate to break it to you, this is how normal people talk. The main character, Tori, is a hard drinking, heavy metal enthusiast who owns her own record store and as someone who is or has been at least two of those things I can tell you that’s how people talk. Hell, I still talk like that, much to the chagrin of my wife when I’m saying fuck a little too loudly at parent teacher conferences. To me it’s just a bit funny that Santa can split people’s heads up, there’s a scene with ass eating, yet what has people clutching their pearls in the letterboxd review section is too many ‘fucks’. Relax Captain America, bad words are fine and perhaps you just need cooler pirate friends who cuss more.
Overall, this is a fantastic film. Begos seems to be tapped into exactly the type of stuff I like. Blood, guts and heavy metal. I immediately tracked down the soundtrack which is phenomenal, especially if you like grimey stoner metal. There is an awesome scene in the film where Robo Santa comes alive and murders a whole family and it is set to Uluru Rock by Earthless, I highly suggest you jam this tune and I highly suggest you check this movie out.
