A robot designed for the military (Abraham Benrubi) is now being sold for civilian use as animatronic Santa Clauses in shopping malls and stalls.
Unfortunately the machines have a funny habit of reverting to their original programming.
When the new store Santa goes on a rampage in her small town, local record shop owner Tori (Riley Dandy) and her friends go on the run to avoid the big red killing machine before it splits them up forever…
Written and directed by Joe Begos, Christmas Bloody Christmas arrives on horror streaming service Shudder to bring in the holiday shivers.
Led by an appealingly ball-busting performance by Riley Dandy as record shop owner Tori, and boasting some effective practical effects, Christmas Bloody Christmas should be great.
In its favour the movie is under a 100 minutes, and it gets the action going quickly.
Once Robo-Santa starts slaying, the excitement starts to dip.
The key problem is the visual style - the film is drenched in neon, which is not a problem in itself - but it is so omnipresent I was having trouble following the geography of the scenes.
There are times where it is effective - the shots of the battle-damaged Santa with exposed glowing circuitry (making him look like an intimidating Christmas tree) are creepy - but because the whole movie is drenched in neon, it gets harder to focus on what is important in each shot. There is so much neon, it starts to feel oppressive.
There is also a lack of cohesion with the editing - there are so many scenes where it is hard to figure out what locations look like, and where characters are positioned.
The movie has a take-no-prisoners approach to its characters which could be fun, but the characters are so thinly sketched and their deaths so haphazardly covered, it is hard to get that excited.
And while Dandy is solid in the lead, all the characters are constantly arguing. Some of these interactions are interesting, but there was a point about 20 minutes in where the constant sniping started to feel repetitive.
While it is vaguely watchable, it is easy to get tired during Christmas Bloody Christmas.
Watch it with friends - this feels like a movie that probably works as a backdrop for talking back to the screen while drinking.
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