Christmas Bloody Christmas

Christmas Bloody Christmas

christmas bloody christmas

Christmas is almost upon us. We decided to continue with the killer Santa theme this season and review yet another movie that is brand new and currently streaming online – this time, on Shudder! Check out Christmas Bloody Christmas – a no-holds-barred, you-get-what-you-paid-for kind of flick about a Santa animatronic gone amuck. Cheers everyone!

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Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022)

Episode 326, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig,

Todd: well, we’re going full steam ahead on the brand new Christmas movies. This is kind of an unusual year for us, isn’t it? 

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. It just seems like the horror genre is booming, uh, these days, and I, I really think that it’s because of.

All of the avenues that these filmmakers have today, primarily because of streaming. Even though the film that we’re doing today, uh, did release in theaters, it also released on shutter at the same time. And there’s just so many outlets for content these days that we’re just getting so much and it’s exciting.

Yeah. I love it. Well, 

Todd: this movie that you selected for us, uh, is premiered on Shutter basically the day we watched. . Mm-hmm. just like, uh, you know, earlier we did, uh, violent night and watched it the day it premiered. So, uh, you know, we’re two for two right now. How can we be more current and update and relevant to our audience?

Upgrading Two Guys and a Chainsaw. That being said, I feel like. This movie again, Christmas Bloody Christmas, felt like 2020 version of a bad 80’s horror movie like KBOs or something. . In fact, KBOs is referenced in the beginning. There’s like a couple fake ads on tv, which by the way led me to believe we were gonna be watching something retro.

You know, it led me to believe we were gonna be some watching some period piece set in the eighties, because that seemed to be the style of the TV ads. No, it takes place in modern day anyway. One of the ads says something about like a Kbo Christmas coming, you know, soon on channel 83 or something like that.

Oh, that’s funny. In that way. Anyway, in the feel of it, it felt a little bit like that, except minus the comedy minus. The ensemble cast and honestly for me, like sort of minus the fun, obviously most of those bad eighties movies that we review are a bit tongue in cheek, especially like that one with Jim Wynorski, who’s purposely making comedies, uh, and writing a lot of jokes and stuff in and silliness.

This one had an awful lot of silliness, but it was played quite straight, very serious. You know, sort of a self serious. I, I felt like this director, Joe Beos, who is, uh, new kind of, I mean, I don’t know. He’s done some other movies. He’s done a movie before this that I kind of would like to see that’s got all these old stars in it, like Fred Williamson and, uh, the dude from Cobra Kai, the, the bad guy.

But, um, He hasn’t really done much of note. He, 

Craig: well, he seems to be up and coming. He’s, uh, directed I think four, either three or four feature films before this. None of them are huge and I looked at each of them and I, I hadn’t seen any of them, but they all looked interesting. Yeah, they did. And, and he has, I think, uh, a growing fan base.

Is that right? Yeah. There are people who really, really, His style and who feel like he is just getting progressively. As he goes along, but I, I, it’s interesting that to hear your kind of lukewarm reaction to it, um, because I’ve been looking at stuff online and it’s just the reactions are on just complete opposite ends of the spectrum.

Like people think it’s absolute garbage or they think that it’s. The greatest horror movie to come out this year, and it’s gonna be, you know, a holiday tradition for the rest of their lives. Um, so it seems to be really polarizing and I am a little bit ambivalent, uh, about it because in some ways I feel the same way that you do.

On the other hand, I feel like it delivers exactly. What it promises like. 

Todd: Yeah, in a way. Well, yeah. I mean, it’s a killer Santa, right? It’s a killer, uh, animatronic Santa who goes crazy. What haywire, you know, whatever. During how, during Christmas night or. So is it Christmas night, Christmas 

Craig: Eve, Christmas E, that it’s Eve, it’s Christmas Eve.

Oh, okay. And that, that’s the thing. That’s all there is to it. You know, it’s, it’s this, um, in these, uh, eighties commercials, which I really liked. And I, I do think it was trying to establish a vibe. You’re right, it is set, uh, in modern day. But I do think it was trying to establish a vibe. Uh, and, and to be fair, I think that the movie delivers on the vibe.

It’s, it’s shot on 16 millimeter. So there’s, uh, a graininess to the film stock a lot. There’s a lot of like, bleeding colors, especially since this movie is just like, the whole thing is just dripping in neon. 

Todd: Oh yeah. It’s like neon red and 

Craig: green Uhhuh , which I actually love, like, um, because, because it’s all, it’s all Christmas light ambiance, like pretty much the whole movie is.

By neon Christmas lights. And because of the quality of the film, the, the lights kind of bleed. Uh, I don’t know how to describe it. You know, the way that, the way that Christmas lights look when I take off my glasses, Yeah, 

Todd: I know what you’re saying. It’s got a little bit of a halo around and whatnot. Yeah.

I I, I, I got the feeling like, do you remember when, when they’ve gotten a lot better, but I would say maybe two decades ago, maybe not even that long, when l e d Christmas lights, Coming out Uhhuh , right? Yeah. They, the, the multicolored l e d lights that you could put around before that. I dunno, it’s kind of hard for a lot of people to remember, or even to believe.

But l e d as a general lighting source for us has been fairly novel. Yeah. Uh, back then. And so it was like, oh my gosh, now they’re making Christmas lights in l e d, except they would put together these strands with all the different colors, including. Like what I think was supposed to be purple or blue uhhuh , but it would come off as this brighter than all the other colors kind of uhhuh purple or bluish purple.

And it was garish . Yeah. I have a tree strung with lights from there and it was very different from the warm. Multicolored lights of past and Right. I, I know, I, I didn’t like it so much, but, uh, it did look like, you know, the inside of a head shop or something like that. , I mean, yeah. Yeah. And that’s what this whole movie kind of looks like.

It looks like, you know, they’re hanging up velvet paintings everywhere and gonna be smoking doobies, but with maybe a little more red and green than usual it, uh, 

Craig: yeah, it really does. It really does look just like what you described, but it feels intentional. That’s one of the things. I, I think that this movie is really stylish.

It’s really stylized, and I give it credits for that. I, I, it was, uh, visually captivating. To watch, like visually it was stimulating, uh, to watch. And I really, I liked that. I think so. Like, I, like I said, I haven’t seen this guy’s other movies. I have a feeling that they’re pretty stylistic too. I, I feel like I’m gonna find myself defending 

Todd: this

I thought we might end up in this spot. . 

Craig: Yeah. And, and I think I’m kind of defending it to myself too. I didn’t love it either, but I read Okay, the, the reason you’re trying, I, right. I had two, uh, it was my turn to pick this week and I had two movies on in mind and, uh, like complete opposites, you know, this is, you know, gory out there, killer Santa.

And the other was more like of a heady kind of think piece kind of. And you said, well, this one sounds more fun. And then I read a, like a glowing review of it on bloody disgusting. And I look at bloody disgusting a lot. And you know, sometimes I agree with their reviews, sometimes I don’t. But I think that the people who write for them, who I think are mostly freelance, but the people who write for them, really, they love.

Uh, and, and they get excited about things. And even though ultimately the review that I read of it there, I think was maybe a little bit too glowing. First of all, when I saw the review, I just, I scrolled down to the bottom. They do like a five skull rating. Um, and it had four and a half skulls, which is really, really high for that.

Website. Mm. Um, and so I said, okay, it’s getting a great review on bloody list. Disgusting. Let’s do it. And then, but so, but I didn’t read it. I just looked at the rating and then we watched the movie and I went back and I read the review and everything that the review said was stuff that I had thought while I was watching it sometimes like to the word, like it was a little creepy.

Like they described things exactly the way that I was thinking of it. , the guy who wrote it loved it a little bit more than I did. Mm-hmm. , like all of the things that he appreciated about it. I appreciated about it too. He just, I was a little more excited than I was . 

Todd: Well, again, I agree with you very stylized, uh, on that note, uh, as, as a piece of filmmaking, like as you know, when we’re talking about cinematography, camera work, all of that is fine.

Uh, even the acting. Acting is fine, but I’ll tell you. Okay, so let me just, let me just pop, pop in real quick in the beginning. So, uh, we, we get these fake ads and one of these ads is advertising Robo Santa. Plus, the US Defense Department has spent over a trillion dollars on 

Craig: the most cutting edge robot technology deployed 

Todd: overseas for swift victory against 

Craig: America’s deadliest en Mae.

And now Sal Robotic Products is here to 

Todd: make that technology 

Craig: fun for the entire family.

Oh oh. Introducing Robo Santa Plus for the upcoming holiday season with a vocabulary 

Todd: of over 90,000 words, a full range of motion and built with military grade construction. 

Craig: Robo Santa Plus 

Todd: fully replaces your local degenerate 

Craig: mall, Santa, keeping you and your children safe exclusively this weekend at Midland Mall and GW Bonkers.

Todd: And that made me laugh. I thought, okay, this is cute. I, I mean, I feel like this is gonna be that again, like you said, that mall Santa kids are supposed to come up and sit on his lap and he is gonna interact with them and, and that sounded novel. No, it is really just the Santa, that they stuck at the beginning of the store that every now and then springs on and waves in a robotic way and says, hello, welcome to t w Bonkers, or Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas.

And that. Okay. I don’t know, maybe, maybe they do pull him back to the, to the throne, you know? And he has. Functions, but the, the movie really just makes him seem like not much better than the standard animatronic robot. Of course, we don’t get to see a lot of personality from this robot during this movie either, right.

So, you know, whatever. Okay, whatever. That’s fine. Then we get introduced to this woman named Tori, who is this young gal, smart ass, and then we get to meet all of her young, smart ass friends, uh, at the record store that I guess she owns. It’s like a vinyl store. And that’s when we first get the screen a wash in Neon because they just have lit this entire vinyl store with neon lights.

I, I don’t honestly know how you read the liner notes on vinyl under black light like that, but okay, fair enough. But I would say within 10 minutes. By the way, the first 10 minutes of this movie is nothing but her dialogue with. This, uh, worker of hers named Robbie, and they’re gonna be two of the people that for quite a while, were gonna be following the most.

Craig: It’s a, it is, it is a lot of talking. It is. 

Todd: So, look, here’s the deal, man. It’s not good talking. It. I wanted to, I wanted to kill these people myself after about 10 minutes. Oh, see, that’s funny. Oh, dude. After 10 minutes, I would’ve shut this movie off if we weren’t watching it for this podcast because it was this dumb smarmy.

Like ink, kind of fast, witty dialogue that like, I remember when I was a teenager and I thought I was cool talking about music and talking about this and talking about that. And then as it goes on, they’re half drunk and so then they’re half drunk talking about this. And look, I, I give them credit for the performance because, Once again, it brought me back to those days of being a teenager and thinking I was so cool by making all these little references.

Well, don’t you like, well, that album and this like that. Oh, but nothing beats the Crip Keep or whatever. Yeah. Do you 

Craig: wanna keep, keep complaining, or do you wanna just walk in silence? 

Todd: What do you wanna do? You’re the one who’s complaining all day about fucking Christmas. This Christmas down. Don’t want fucking hate Christmas.

Well, Christmas 

Craig: fucking sucks. Do you not agree that there’s no good fucking Christmas music? No good Christmas 

Todd: movies to fucking get it over it. I hate Christmas album. . It was good. There aren’t many albums that gimme that spirit of fucking Christmas. 

Craig: Well, that fucking religion ain’t it buddy. Gimme that.

I would go as far to say there’s like fucking two, two Christmas songs that are good. And that’s if you don’t count. If and only if You don’t count. Fucking Crip Keeping Christmas Wrap. Okay, love 

Todd: Tailing The Grip. That song sucks the fucking shit outta my ass asshole. 

Craig: This is coming from a guy who jits his fucking.

Every single time here. Buster Point, Dexter’s cover of, is that you? Santa 

Todd: Claus? Hey. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don’t like that cover. I like the version with the commentary from Beating and Butthead. Okay. 

Craig: Okay. Merry Christmas Ramones then. That’s 

Todd: mine. What’s your big fucking runner up? Uh, 

Craig: sorry to say, but Merry Christmas Ramones.

That’s some fucking runner up. Yeah. Fuck you. First place. First place is our Lord Savior Lemi with run Rudolph. 

Todd: Oh, it’s magic. Okay. It’s not like it’s Motorhead. It’s Lemy with the fucking Foo Fighters. No. All right. Pete. Oh, r i p. Also Lemy is fucking Motorhead. You idiot. Yeah, and you know, I mean, that’s fine for like, I don’t know, a scene or two, but it’s the whole freaking movie until the Killer Santa comes out.

Craig: Right? That’s what 

Todd: I was gonna say. Oh my God. I, I, they were driving me. 

Craig: You said, you said 10 minutes. It’s, it’s the first half of the movie. Oh yeah. The movie’s only an hour and 25 minutes long, and I would say the first 40, 45 minutes is mostly just them talking. Oh, yeah. But it didn’t bother me. It’s not interesting.

This stuff I, 

Todd: oh God. Did you, I’m sorry. Maybe you thought it was interesting. It’s fine. I don’t 

Craig: wanna, well, only interesting because the stuff they were talking about was the stupid shit that we would talk about. Like, you know, who’s the better band and what, what era is better of that band and you know, what’s the better horror equal now?

I thought that uh, Tori, the main chick had shit taste in movies cuz Yeah, she was saying like the best nightmare on Elm Street was Freddy’s Dead and Blair Witch book of shadow. Better than the original. And, uh, pet Cemetery two was better than, than the original. I at least appreciated that she explained why and her explanations made sense.

Like this is one of those moments where it’s obviously just a character spewing the writer slash directors viewpoints about things. Yeah. Which is fine. I don’t really. Problem with that. It’s just, but it’s like, I don’t 

Todd: know, annoying hipster type, counterintuitive type stuff. Or people you know, who try to make that argument.

The pets, you know, pet cemetery too is better because they’ve got, they’ve really thought deep about this and they, they wanna, they wanna be different from everybody else, you know? And I, I, I don’t know. And, and with the rapid fire delivery of it, everything, I had this feeling that majority. At least half of what they were saying was Adlibbed.

And the reason I felt that way is because there was an F bomb every 

Craig: other word, and people online were really upset about that. I don’t get it. Horror fans are so weird. No. Like they’re, they’re so fickle, uh, about things. Um, and uh, you know, I think that in a lot of ways horror fans, you know, are, are. You know, very accepting of other people and different ways of life and all that kind of stuff.

But when it comes to movies, man, we can be super critical. and, and some people, you know, were just ripping this movie to shreds and one of the things that they were ripping apart was how many F-bombs there were. And I noticed, but I’m, look, I’m not, who cares? Like, I’m a grownup. Like, look, I, I’m 

Todd: not offended by it, okay?

I wasn’t like, oh my God, if there’s another F bomb, I’m tatting this shit off. You know? It was just so. That it was dumb. Maybe also it’s, you know, my acting background. You know, I’ve directed actors and you’ve gone through ad-libbing and things like that, and that is what ends up happening when people who are not talented at ad libbing.

start ad-libbing. They feel like they need to keep talking. They don’t know what to say, but say they’re in a scene where they’re supposed to be arguing with each other and suddenly the cursing comes out because it’s an easy filler word. Yeah. And so I’m aware of that, and I guess I was so aware of that, that when I watched this, I was like, yeah, I feel like that’s what’s going on.

Like literally not. These people use the F word a lot. It’s that these actors. Are really trying to fill the space with this rapid fire dialogue, and the best they can do is throw a bunch of F bombs in there. And it’s just because it happens so often, it’s not that I’m offended, I’m just distracted by how stupid it sounds because.

Yeah, I know there are people who talk like this, but not 

Craig: that many. Well, and even there are people who talk like that. My goodness. I work in a high school. I mean, I swear to God walking down the hallway. I just want to turn to kids and be like, do you not know any other words like ? I, I agree that it’s.

It’s stupid in juvenile. Where I disagree is I thought that the performance between these two actors, uh, Tori and Robbie, uh, I don’t know. No, there was only one person in this movie who was familiar to me, and it wasn’t either of these two. Um, but Tori’s played by an actress named Riley Dandy, and Robbie’s played by an actor named San Deik.

As asinine as their conversations were, I found them to be really believable characters. Well, um, and. I thought that the two of them together had excellent chemistry and I thought that they had this and this, again, I swear to God I’m not plagiarizing this review that I read, but he, the reviewer said it and I thought the exact same thing.

I thought that they had an excellent will they or won’t they? Chemistry coming off. Yeah, that, 

Todd: I mean, it was clear that they were headed towards potentially hooking up, even though she seemed to be drawing some very strong lines in the beginning, and he was. y pushing them, but kind of respecting them, but in a very playful way.

It was very, yeah. By the time they do start bumping UGLi, I was like, yeah, waiting. Been waiting for that to happen. Uhhuh, , you know, and it felt, but it was good thought, 

Craig: completely natural. His sexual a tension and Yes. Oh yeah. I thought that the chemistry was really good. And I li I liked both of them. I liked him more than I liked her.

Uh, he seemed a little bit more fun. And I won’t go so far to say as these seem like people that I would be friends with. First of all, they’re much younger than me and. Don’t have it in me to party the way that they do anymore. Mm-hmm. . Um, but I can see how, you know, when I was in college, these might have been people, I don’t know that they would’ve been people in my innermost circle, but they’d be people that 

Todd: you encounter.

Craig: Yeah. They seem like, they seem like people would be fun to party with for a night or whatever. Look, it, it, 

Todd: I, I’m not saying the acting was bad, actually. I think it takes some skill to pull off what they did. I just think that it was annoying. , I feel like they were annoying people, and if I were drunk along with them and they were my friends and I was contributing to the conversation, this would all be quite fun.

But to sit. In silence and watch two people in this state having this com, this kind of what ultimately when you’re sober ends up looking like pretty stupid conversation for like almost 30 minutes is just tiring. And I was, I was tired of it after 10 minutes and it went on, like you said, until about 45 minutes.

I do think this 

Craig: movie would be, Maybe more enjoyable if you were chemically enhanced . 

Todd: Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. With the colors. And like I said, you’d probably be like, yeah, man, she’s got some good points about Pet Cemetery too. , the Tales from the K Crypt Halloween album is my favorite 

Craig: Halloween album. Oh, dude, 

Todd: when she said that, the Christmas album 

Craig: song, Christmas, Christmas album.

Christmas songs, like, yeah. And they were talking, you know, I, I don’t remember who all they were talking about, but they were, they’re more, you know, into kind of rock and roll. But she said that there’s nothing better than the Crypt Keeper Christmas rap, which I didn’t know was a thing. Oh, and I. I, I immediately googled it, praying that it was a thing.

It is, and it is, 

Todd: and it’s wonderful. It’s glorious. And Elvira pops in there too. . Yeah. I, I go, dude, you are way behind. I got that Crip keeper album, the, the, the year it came out. And it is in regular rotation for me. Oh man. It is a cornball thing, much like the Crip keeper himself, which makes it just 

Craig: wonderful.

Not that people aren’t capable of, you know, doing a YouTube search themselves, but you may need to post that video. Mm, up with this, up with this movie, yeah. It be appropriate because it was ki it was, it was just as fun to watch as this movie was . Uh, no, that’s not fair. I honestly, I enjoyed this movie, but I had to remind myself, I had to put myself in the mindset, like as I’m watching it, I had to say to myself, this is what you signed up for.

You knew exactly what this movie was gonna be, and it is exactly what it promised. It is a killer animatronic Santa. Just going around killing people and that’s literally all it is. Yeah. And no, there’s nothing more to it. There’s no why, why is he killing these people? Who cares? He 

Todd: just is. There’s no character arcs for anybody in here.

Nope. Nobody’s gonna like, you know, come closer together and, and anything like that. It’s actually the complete opposite of the of violent 

Craig: night, right? . Yes. And I, and I really thought that if we hadn’t just come off watching that, That I would’ve liked this better. Um, I think that that set the bar a little bit high for Santa movies for this season.

Um, and, and the robot, the, it doesn’t have any personality, but it’s not supposed to No, it is a terminator. Yeah. In a Santa suit. That’s all it is. That’s all It is. A terminator in a Santa. Suit. That’s it. 

Todd: Yeah. Much like Terminator, that’s, you know, that’s the horrifying thing about it. It has no feelings. It has no, you, you even question it’s motivation because it’s like, obviously with the, with Terminator, it, it’s, it’s trying to kill somebody in particular, and it’s, uh, taken out anybody who gets in its way.

With this one, it’s just like, looks like it’s out to kill everybody. Just indiscriminately for no reason, although it does seem to be honing in on her, um, because it ends up everywhere she goes. I, 

Craig: yeah, I think really that it’s just like vicinity like. She happened to be around, um, and it kind of followed her for a 

Todd: little, it’s like unfinished business or something.

Well, I guess, 

Craig: I think it just kind of, after it kills the first people that it kills, then it sees her and Robby walking down the street so it sees them and it follows them, but it doesn’t even like just pursue them. It kills off a couple of other people along the way. Yeah. So it just kind of seems like it’s.

You know, drawn to activity or whatever, and it’ll kill whoever is in its way. I was laying in bed thinking about this this morning and thinking about, you know, what am I gonna say about it? What are some good things I can say about it? And one of the things that crossed my mind is that everybody in this movie who’s not Tori, except, and then I was like, wait, except for the bartender.

Everybody else that’s in the movie who’s not Tori dies. 

Todd: Oh yeah. I guess you’re right. 

Craig: And it’s not a big, it’s not a big cast. Um, it’s actually like the, I don’t what there’s like maybe seven, eight people in it total. And that 

Todd: was one thing. I mean, I, I understand it’s probably not the highest budget film, but you know, at some.

And I don’t know, maybe the excuse is, whoa, it’s Christmas Eve. Everybody’s at home trying to do their own thing, but there’s all this mayhem going on. at some point. Oh, explosions. Yeah. I expected more people to be out there at least, you know, for a little bit more. So I thought that was. It wasn’t enough to be distracting cuz you get this in horror movies a lot and we ultimately don’t care.

You can look past it, but there should have been a little more involvement from a few extras , a few witnesses, a few people who would’ve noticed, you know, the giant ambulance truck that’s burning and on fire flying down the middle of, uh, the downtown and through a residential neighborhood and exploding against a couple police cars and Uhhuh , I mean, you know.

I thought, again, a little bit distractingly silent and focused on these few people. But then again, I think they’re also trying to portray this as a somewhat sleepy town because the police force, which gets involved later, which is more the sheriff’s office, I guess, is understaffed and undermanned, which were repeatedly being told, uh, by like three or four people who all end up dying.

Craig: Yeah, it, well, it actually kind of reminded me, um, you know, her shop. Downtown, you know, like a, a small city downtown, um, like a commercial, you know, where with lots of shops and stuff. And there’s also a toy shop down there that her friend owns, and that’s where the Santa is and, and comes alive and everything.

But at least for the first half of the movie, they’re walking around that downtown area and it’s all lit. By just dim street lights and Christmas lights. Mm-hmm. . So he’s got all that, you know, color saturation all around, but there is nobody because it’s late, you know, they’re, they’re closing up their stores.

Uh, it’s late at night, and when they were walking around down there, it reminded me of. Gremlins when Billy and Kate, when they’re walking around the downtown, like in front of the movie theater. Yeah. Like nobody’s around, you know, it’s just all the Christmas decorations and the snow falling and yeah, it’s, it’s a little bit, uh, remote and desolate, so it didn’t really seem out of place to me.

I would be willing to bet if I went out on Christmas Eve at 1130. Downtown part of my town. I bet it would be just as equally deserted. 

Todd: Oh, in the beginning, yeah. But then if, you know, you started setting explosions off and screaming and stuff, . Fair. Totally fair. People would, some lights would come on, some heads would appear in windows.

You know, I think , that’s true, but. That was just my point. I, they, they, I love, by the way, the name of this store, t w Bonkers. I thought that was cute. I thought that it could be the name of a store. It could be like a TGI Friday’s knockoff or something like that. , yeah. And they meet up with a couple friends and again, you know, they’re, they’re getting wasted in this store.

That’s where they’ve chosen to bang on Christmas Eve apparently. 

Craig: Well, the, they own it. It’s a husband and wife and I, it, it seems like the wife. Owner or the manager, whatever, but they’re both there. And I kind of liked, I don’t know, you just, you hardly ever see that, especially in horror movies. You know, they’re, they’re sexy young people, but she specifically says something about her husband.

Y you are, you hardly ever see representations of young. Married people, you know, they’re usually a bunch of young people banging whoever is That’s true in arms reach. Yeah, 

Todd: that’s, that’s a good point. So 

Craig: these people, you know, they get freaky. They’re like the toy store. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s pretty . 

Craig: I don’t, with their husband and wife, they love each other.

Good for them. 

Todd: Yeah. I mean, it is in full view of like the, the window at the front. Yeah. I mean, I know they’re not hiding. Thing there. I thought that was, I wonder how many customers, well, they’re really banking on it being a sleepy town, let’s just put it that way. Yeah. And, and that’s when the Santa wakes up.

And, uh, we see most of his carnage through his eyes, especially in the 

Craig: beginning. Lots of p o V, it looks like. You, you know the terminology better than I am, but the, the old video games, like doom, like yeah. Like a first 

Todd: person shooter, fir, 

Craig: first person shooter with the weapon right in front of the camera, like bobbing as it walks along.

Mm-hmm. . Um, in, in this case, the weapon is a big fire ax that, uh, he finds and he does, he kills them while they’re, 

Todd: Banging. That had to be traumatic, by the way, 

for 

Craig: her . Well, I mean, she’s dead in a few minutes anyway, but Yeah. But yeah, her husband is behind her and, uh, the Santa like raises the ax and brings it down and splits him into like the middle, down the head to the waist.

Yeah. Which is ridiculous, but. fun for a movie. Uh, and this movie is, uh, gory and violent. Um, and there’s a lot of, uh, up close gore. And it seems like to me, the majority, if not the vast majority of it was practical. And I liked that. I, yeah, I appreciated the effects. I liked the violence. I liked the gore. Um, and Santa, you know, he does, he kills them and then he.

Keeps on 

Todd: moving, pursues the Tory and, uh, Robbie, and they go to their plate. Finally, they bang. And, and that, you know what, I’ll say this was, um, that was a moment that needed to happen, right? Like you said, there’s all this will they, won’t, they kind of going on and finally in the kitchen, just in mid-sentence, pretty much, you know, she sets down her drink and just grabs him and just starts kissing him.

And it’s, it’s on right then and there. And they run upstairs and. You know, they, they have a certain kind of sex and it was hot it, it 

Craig: was, that’s was, see, that’s 

Todd: super hot. Like super hot. And I, I, I’ve got, I’m sorry, but I just have to say this, like, oftentimes in movies, especially by first time directors or in low budget flicks and especially horror movies, like the sex can be awkward or forced or weird or whatever.

This was. Naturalist could be, and very hot . 

Craig: Right. Well, and I feel like the, particularly in horror, but really kind of in general, sex scenes are for men. They’re, they’re, they’re more focused on the male gaze and the male fantasy. Yes. And uh, I really liked this. I really liked Robbie. I thought he was charming.

I thought he was cute. He was funny. He clearly, like he has puppy dog eyes for this girl who’s his boss. Who’s his boss, and. Guess probably at least a little bit older than him, but he’s clearly got eyes for her. Uh, and when the time comes, being the gentleman that he is, He takes care of her . Yeah. And that’s it.

Like his pants never even come off . 

Todd: Yeah. Well, to be fair, her underwear never really comes off either, which is a little unrealistic, but whatever clearly is an actress who didn’t want to get nude, which is fine. Uhhuh. . But yes. And then, and then like she gets up and she like starts putting her clothes back on and he doesn’t even seem to care.

Again, like you say, that’s very nice. Maybe not the way it would’ve really gone down, but, uh, uh, or maybe she was just, you know, getting ready for round two or something. Yeah, I, 

Craig: that, that’s the impression I got. They were just taking a break, like she was gonna go. Get a drink or something. Yeah, you’re right.

And he says, you know, I’ll be here when you get back or whatever, but while she’s out there, the killer Santa has gone into the house next door and just slaughters the whole family. One at a time. Yeah. Including the kid. Including the kid, which we don’t see. They don’t show it on camera. Not much. We just see, we see the kid standing in front of Santa, and Santa raises his ax and then it cuts back to.

Point of view from across, looking through a window from across the street and she sees the ax fall, but we don’t actually see the kid get it, but he does. And that’s when she screams and freaks out.

This guy just kill the kid next door. You’re telling fuck.

Now. Come on. Fuck. Have you seen my phone? Get my phone. Shit. Is your phone? Have your phone. Robbie Phone. Find the phone. She lives with her sister and her sister’s husband. They wake them up and this is where things took a surprising turn for me because they, the Santa comes into their house. Mm-hmm. and pretty much immediately dispatches first.

the sister’s husband, which I figured would happen. But then the sister too, which I didn’t think would happen, they, you know, they usually don’t establish these kind of relationships in horror unless. , there’s gonna be a reason for it. Yeah. And usually if there’s, if there’s like a sibling relationship, one is usually gonna be protecting the other.

Mm-hmm. , no, the sister gets it right away. And then Robi, she and Robbie go outside and, and try to get away in the car, but, Because he’s panicked. He keeps like crashing the car into things. Yeah. , 

Todd: which is another, you know, typical horror thing. But it, it made sense in the, I guess in the, in the process of this, I wanna step back really quick and just reaffirm that we’re 45 minutes into this movie and for me it’s finally getting interesting.

Yeah, that’s fair. The other thing is Santa bursts into this house through the window and it is, , it is like the director just took notes of every Dario ATO movie, Uhhuh and decided Uhhuh, he wanted to distill it into this one scene, uh, Argento, at least in some movies, right? Especially like Susperia, right?

It’s got that very stylish, colorful, uhhuh lighting. Uh, it’s very stark in it’s colors and things. And of course, that wonderful goblin soundtrack.

And when Santa bursts into the window, everything goes into slow motion. And, uh, we’ve got all these bright garish colors, even brighter and more garish than they were before. But a lot of. But something comes on that if it wasn’t written by Goblin, it was, it directly inspired . That just jolted me. I was like, whoa, this is like susperia.

Whereas, uh, I would say the rest of the movie, I feel like the director is, he’s clearly been inspired by, uh, Rob Zombie. I would say I, yes, I feel like there’s a, for sure quite a bit of that vibe in there with the characters and, and also with the, the, the type of just no holds barred, brutal violence without much stuff.

Craig: Graining. And cut. And the grit. The grit of it. Yeah. And these characters. Uh, are much like Rob zombie’s, characters in that they are grittier Yeah. Type characters. They’re not clean polished, they’re not Abercrombie 20 

Todd: somethings. They’re the goths and the, you know, the tattooed 

Craig: well and, and all. You know, all of the adult men have like long hair and, and handlebar mustaches and stuff.

Mm-hmm. Like, um, the, the sheriff, even the sheriff, sheriff Monroe, he was the only one who I recognized. His name is Jeff Daniel Phillips, and he’s worked with Rob Zombie, uh, in, in several things. I’m pretty sure he was in three from hell. But most recently he was Herman Munster. Oh. Uhhuh in the new, uh, Rob Zombies knew the monsters.

Um, so I think he’s worked with zombies, so I don’t know if this guy, uh, our director here, uh, Baygo. So I don’t know if he has any affiliation with Rob Zombie or not, but it seems to be an inspiration. Um, and the score that you mentioned, the guy who does the score is the guy named Steve Moore, and he doesn’t have a lot of credits, but he’s got at least one or two other credits with this.

So they must have a working relationship. And I thought the score was really effective. It was kind of, uh, rock synth. Um, yeah. Yeah. 

Todd: And it was continuous. I, I don’t think there was a quiet moment in the entire movie. There’s always music 

Craig: going and it highlighted the action really well. And from this point, it’s pretty action heavy until the end.

Mm-hmm. , no, it goes pretty hard. Um, and you know, they’re out there in the car and I feel. A cop shows 

Todd: up. Yeah. Cuz she called the cops. Yeah. Yeah. Uhhuh . And the cop A cop does show up. Yeah. 

Craig: And, and shoots. I don’t remember when it happens, but, um, Robbie gets killed, which really surprised me because I had, I, I thought that maybe he might get it, but later.

Yeah. 

Todd: and it would be a moment, right. 

Craig: Uhhuh . I thought that he would make it a lot longer that, that it would be kind of the two of them, you know, against the bad Santa or whatever. And that maybe in the end he might get it or have to sacrifice or, so no, he gets it right here in the beginning. He gets axed right in the face and the, 

Todd: and the movie doesn’t stop for it.

It just uhhuh keeps plowing forward. Right, right, 

Craig: right. And then the cop shows up and he shoots the Santa a bunch of times, which of course we know isn’t really gonna cause that big of. Problem. Um, that’s, if I’m gonna complain about the movie, that would be one of the complaints that I have, is that they keep taking Santa down, but every time it’s just for a couple of seconds, then he gets right back up, which I, I suppose is fine, but yeah, it just happens a lot, right?

It gets 

Todd: a little repetitive, you know, Uhhuh, , I mean, you expect this kind of thing in a horror movie. At some point you think he’s down then. Then. Then they turn around and he’s gone, or he’s gotten back up, but not like, you know, 10 times, which is exactly what happens. Yeah, and it does end up calling to attention to the amount of punishment that this robot gets.

Now, of course, it’s like Terminator, right? This is supposed to be military grade. It’s supposed to be able to take a lot of punishment. I think in one of the Terminator movies, I mean, the. The thing is like half broken down and, and, and, and in pieces, and the, the pieces that are remaining are still crawling towards her.

You know, that’s kind of the sense that we get with this Santa as well. Although again, it, I think it just happens so much that it mm-hmm. just, it’s j like you said, it’s just a little repetitive and gets a little distracting. It stops being, the movie stops really. There’s not a lot of emotion in it. Like I couldn’t get emotionally involved.

I couldn’t suspense. It really lacked suspense. Yeah, that’s true. And that was a big con contributor to it. I was never on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen. I just knew that this thing was just gonna keep plowing through and plowing through and getting up and whatever, and know that led me to really not care about.

Anymore. I just felt like just watching this thing unfold in front of me, I wasn’t really invested in it, so I was invested in Terminator. But that’s because, you know, you really get to know the characters and you care about them, and the stakes are high and right. And here it’s, it’s not at all like there was, I.

I don’t know. I mean, I cared about her, I guess just because we’d spent so much time with her, but I still felt like she was an annoying 

Craig: person. Yeah, that’s true. And there really wasn’t, like you said, there’s really not the emotional investment. Like if she had had a second to. Respond. I, I mean, I guess at one point, like when they first run out of the house, she’s like, I have to get my sister, I have to get my sister, or something like that.

And the guy’s like, no, she’s dead. And then it’s basically like, oh, okay, . Well, there’s, there’s just not, there’s not a lot. And, and the same thing when Robbie dies. Like if she had been. Horrified and screaming and in tears. I, I guess in real life, maybe you don’t have the time to Sure. If, if, if you’re all about self-preservation and surviving, maybe you don’t have the time to have an emotional breakdown in that moment.

But it did make it feel a little bit emotionally detached for me, even though, like you said, I was rooting for her. I, I did. Her to win. And I, and I assumed that she probably would. Yeah. But it’s just, uh, it’s just Santa in pursuit for the next 30 minutes, which wasn’t boring. And, and there’s big, like he, the, the cop shoots Santa, Santa goes down for a little while, the cop and, and uh, the Tori are like arguing about what they need to do next.

And they don’t see Santa get up in front of the headlights and start coming right towards them. Yeah. And the cop shoots Santa again, but then Santa kill. The cop, and then she runs Santa over with the cop car and drives away and ends up intercepting like a, an ambulance and another cop car. Yeah. Now it’s a lot.

It’s a lot. You know, it, it moves. It does, you know, from, from this point it takes a while to get there, but once it gets to the Killer Santa, it moves fast. But 

Todd: also the movie keeps creating, it’s one of these movies. The woman could just run away the, the Santa doesn’t move that fast and now the Santa can apparently drive a car.

Yeah, cuz he does drive an ambulance. Once again, like I said, to the very police station where she went to as though he is pursuing her still. But in, in any case, it just keeps finding these moments for her to like not do that and not really convincing. It’s just like at one point she breaks back into her own record store and just sits there and takes a cigarette practically waiting for ’em to come.

Yeah. I mean, there’s so much of that. Her and the cop arguing in the car was just dumb. Yeah. You know, no cop would sit there and argue with the person about why they can’t, you know, send a bunch of people out. It was just, It was stupid. And then this bit where you, like you said she drives off and then, uh, she encounters the ambulance and another two cop cars that are coming down the road to the scene of that crime.

And she stops and they stop. She gets out, she’s covered in blood and one of the cops there, I think his name was, uh uh, Jay. I don’t remember what his name was. I don’t know. Bobby or something like that. Bobby, I think was his name. He starts screaming at her, get down, put your hands down, put your hands on the ground, and he is just an asshole to her.

Mm-hmm. like she did all this. Now come on, he doesn’t know what’s going on. Right. Nobody knows what was going on, and this guy has already pegged her as a serial killer, is bitching her out, screaming at her, treating her like absolute garbage, putting her in the car, angry, and the guy doesn’t even know what he needs to be angry at yet.

Right. That was really irritating and the guy doesn’t let up on this. He’s the one note angry cop guy. Pissed off, I guess, at life and the world, and I, I thought that was stupid. And they even bring her back to the station, which is probably the one lull in the whole movie where she’s sitting in front of the sheriff and this guy’s ranting and raving.

Again, I’m really not sure what he’s ranting and raving about. This girl is clearly a victim. Everybody can see that he didn’t kill your friend. There’s no reason to think she did. You know, they, they already know people are dying at the scene and still he’s ranting and raving at. . And then when the ambulance comes up and, uh, crashes through the, some cars outside there, they go out.

It’s like, again, he’s like this crazy man on a mission. It’s like, are these people not trained police officers like ? 

Craig: They don’t really look like it. They 

Todd: don’t look like it at all. They, yeah. Uh, I thought that was dumb. Anyway, you know, he gets it real, real fast and so does the, uh, Tossed tossed in the air over the ambulance.

Uh, then that guy gets his own rifle, turned on his neck and gets his head blown off. Mm-hmm. . And then there’s just more of, you know, Santa pursuing her through the police station, DA back downtown, back to a record store, and then the final confrontation. Right. Which, yeah, was pretty cool. I thought that the final confrontation between her and this Santa, which is almost unbelievably mangled, yet still able, Walk and come after her?

Craig: Yeah. At this point, I don’t remember what I mean. He’s been run over. She blows him up, I think at, oh, he’s been some 

Todd: point shot at point blank times, several times. She’s stabbed stuff through his guts and things and mangled the wires. He’s sparking like crazy. 

Craig: Well, she, yeah, she, uh, she pinned him under a car somehow and then set, like 

Todd: dropped another car on.

Craig: Dropped another car on him and then, uh, put a cloth in the gas tank and lit it and, and like, so, and, and then the whole car, uh, exploded and with him underneath it. So at this point in the last, you know, confrontation, the, the machine underneath, which looks exactly. Like a terminator, um, is showing through, you know, like half of his face is gone, got half of his suit is gone.

Yeah. And um, this is where, you know, the machine eyeballs are shooting out these green lasers. . When I saw, when I saw the lasers in the trailer, that’s, that’s really what sold me on this movie, the Laser Eyes. That’s what sold me on the movie and ultimately it was a little bit of a letdown. Yeah. I thought that he was gonna be able to like shoot like le like weapon lasers.

Yeah. But it, it really seems like it’s more just kind of a detection thing. Like he swings his lasers around and if they catch her then he’ll know where she is. And she, she does a good job of, you know, avoiding the lasers and it’s, it’s kind of tense with her moving around, you know, crouched running around her shop and the Santa’s lasers scanning all around kind of tense.

Todd: Yeah, not really. I agree with you. It’s kind of tense, but not really. I mean, I thought the scene was creepy. I thought it was really well shot. I thought the robot was creepy. With those lasers, they’re not even like, they’re kind of a skew too, so like, you know, they’re going around Uhhuh , but. You know, we’ve seen him just take so much abuse by this point, and we’ve seen her crouch and hide and get away from him so many times at this point that I was just kind of waiting to see what’s the thing that’s finally gonna get him?

The water doesn’t do it. Sh the giant, 

Craig: enormous sword that she imp pails him with. Yeah, I mean, it takes him out for a second. Like sparks fly and he shorts out and his lasers go out and. 15 seconds later, they just come back on . Oh yeah. And he pull and he pulls the sword out. And like you said, she sets off the sprinklers.

And at that point, I feel like as she’s trying to set up the sprinkles, she like falls and breaks her leg, . And then, I mean, she takes a beating too. She like puts her. Hand up on a countertop or something and he chops her fingers off. 

Todd: Oh yeah, that’s right. She’s holding a bloody squirt and stump there for the rest 

Craig: of it and Right.

And dragging herself along the floor. At this point, they’re both, she’s like dragging herself away and the like the burnt up, shorted out. Terminator is like dragging itself behind her. Mm-hmm. . And she ends up getting, Counter, and she pulls an electrical wire out of the wall and, uh, like, I don’t know, shoves it in his torso or something, and he finally blows up and stays down finally.

Yeah. I, I feel like the, the filming changes, like it’s a new stylized kind of, it’s not slow motion, but, I don’t know. It’s weird. It’s a different style than has been used, but she hobbles out in the snow and uh, you know, to the silence of 

Todd: the falling on her of the town . 

Craig: Yeah. And it’s mourning and she collapses on the street and she’s just laying there in the street and it just freezes on her anguished face.

And then that. Yeah, that’s the end. But I mean, it feels like a suitable end. Like that’s a Sure. That’s what we were watching. We were watching this story of this, you know, killer Santa that goes after these people. There’s no happy reunion at the end. There’s, there’s no real resolution. It’s just, you know, she killed it.

It killed everybody. Yeah. Except. the 

Todd: end. I don’t need those things. You know, sometimes a horror movies freakier without it, but this movie I, I can see why people call it badass. You know? I can see especially why if, you know, if you were drunk or high or something watching this, you’d be like, oh my God.

Right. I just, I think most of it was a bit stupid. I’m gonna, I’m gonna fall on that camp again. All these things would be kind of forgiven if I think I was just a little more on the edge of my seat. I felt there was a little more tension. Uh, I was more engaged, especially in the beginning of the movie, but I was kind of none of those things.

Not to say again that it wasn’t what it. Promise to deliver. Not to say that it wasn’t 10 times better produced than most of the things we see. It just, it just didn’t hit my emotional triggers, and so I wasn’t really invested in it that much, and so I was just, just kind of watching the ride from afar.

Craig: Well, I mean, that’s it. I, I think that that’s what it’s meant to be. I think it’s supposed to be, not entirely grindhouse, but kind of, and I, I think. What we’re supposed to appreciate is the violence and the action, and I, I don’t think that story is, it’s focus. Uh, yeah, for sure. Do, do you wanna see a movie about, uh, a terminator in a Santa suit?

Okay, . There you go. And, and that’s, that’s it delivers, that’s what you get. I didn’t dislike it. I didn’t like it as much as I had hoped that I would. I, I hoped that I would really like it. I hoped that it would be really fun and really fun to talk about. I was 

Todd: really excited about it, honestly. So, yeah, I 

Craig: was too and I’d been looking forward to it for a while cuz I’ve seen, you know, trailers and I’ve, um, seen it, you know, talked.

In anticipation of its release. And, uh, it was, you know, kind of exciting that it just so happened to release the day before, you know, we needed something to do. And, um, I do like, you know, watching new things and, and I, I like tracking people’s response and it’s been interesting to track people’s response on this too.

Again, it’s just been so, uh, polarized. You know, one end of the spectrum either loved it or, or hated it. And I, I’m a little bit in, in the middle. Uh, I didn’t love it, but I, uh, still think, I’m still glad I watched it. It, it did everything that I should have expected and I shouldn’t have expected more. And if I did, that’s more on me than on the movie.

Mm. I I think that this guy, you know, I haven’t seen anything else that he’s done either, but I kind of want to now. Yeah. Um, I think that he, uh, has a really interesting. Point of view and uh, an interesting style. Um, and I like, you know, that he kind of pushes it with the gore and the violence. That was kind of exciting.

So I’ll be interested not only to go back and look at some of his earlier stuff, um, but to see where he goes from here. Cuz I think that this guy has a lot of talent and we may see some more good stuff from. 

Todd: Yeah, I, I think so too. In fact, I think, you know, much like we were talking about violent Christmas or violent night, you know, we were kind of arguing, is this really even a horror movie?

You know, it was more like diehard with Santa, I feel like this again was like Terminator with Santa. It was, except for the Gore and the violence, it was a lot more like, um, action movie. Yeah. Really. Heavy action. Heavy action without the, you know, the funny quips and the cool characters. You know, , right?

Talking about this, this, this director, he did a movie, the movie I was referring to earlier is called vfw Uhhuh. . It’s supposed to be about a bunch of old war veterans helping this girl out, taking shelter against. Some bad guy in a, their local VFW post, and that as a premise Sounds cool. And the, uh, actors in there are like Fred Williamson, you know, who’s, you know, total like, um, blacksploitation King, you know, shaft, we’re talking, uh, Martin Cove, who was the, uh, bad guy, you know, Cobra Kai, he’s the mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. , the main villain. Stephen Lang is in that, who? Uh, he’s the, he’s the evil general, I guess, in avatar. You know, and he’s been in a lot of stuff. Mm-hmm. , I mean, just the cast list and the premise from that alone combined with what we’ve seen right now from this director makes me wanna see that movie like Tomorrow,

Yeah. Yeah. So you’re right. It’ll be interesting to see what he comes out with after this. And it seems like he has at least one foot set firmly in the horror genre. Maybe another one, you know, in the action genre. And the action was well shot 

Craig: because this movie is so new, there’s not a whole. Of outside information to be found about it, aside from like the technical specs.

But one thing that I did read, I don’t remember where I read it, was this, this started as, um, a silent night. Deadly Night Remaking. Hmm. That’s what it was going to be. I don’t know if that changed because there already was another one, uh mm-hmm. or, or if it just evolved into something else. But I can see.

You know, silent night, deadly night, uh, the, yeah, I can see the influence for sure. Especially with, you know, the Santa with the ax, all of the stuff in the toy store. There was a lot of that in the original Silent Night. Deadly Night. Um, and it does have a similar feel. It’s got kind of that mean spirited feel that the, that the movie, the Silent Night, deadly Night was so criticized for mm-hmm.

You’re right. This kind of runs with that and, and I don’t know if celebrates it is the right word, but, uh, utilizes it like it is, it is kind of mean spirited and that doesn’t bother me. I think it’s kind of funny. It’s kind of ironic for the Christmas season. Yeah. It’s, it’s the total opposite of. Like what you just said, violent night.

Mm-hmm. violent night. We went on and on about how it’s got all this heart and at it’s core it’s a Christmas movie. This is kind of an anti Christmas movie. Yeah, very much 

Todd: so. , 

Craig: it’s, it’s dark, it’s gritty, it’s not wholesome and, and family oriented at 

Todd: all. It’s don’t watch this with your kid, , your young kids, 

Craig: you know?

No. No, but I can see how, you know, you and I are kind of sappy and I think we really were in, in enamored with violent night for those reasons. Mm-hmm. for the kind of sappy Christmas reasons. Um, I think that people who are more cynical than us might like this movie more. Definitely 

Todd: be, that could very well be.

Well, you know, we are so cutting edge. Having watched this, you know, basically I think the day it came out, and I remember a after last night. I watched it last night and I finished watching it. I went to imdb and of course there wasn’t even a trivia page there. Right now, as we are talking, I get on and you know, God bless the people on the internet.

Somebody’s put together a trivia page in the last like, you know, 15 hours. Oh wow. Speaking of how un family friendly it is and how I talked about the, the F word earlier, it says here somebody. God bless them. 487 uses of the F-bomb with an average of 5.6 F-bombs per minute. , I believe it. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode.

We’ve got one more coming your way for this Christmas season. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. Find us online at all the normal places. Support us on Patreon, patreon.com/chainsaw podcast. A few bucks a month will get you, uh, access to some mini sos It will get you, uh, access to our behind the scenes stuff, the things that we talked about before and after each podcast, as well as all the little things that I added out in the middle, most of which is just embarrassing, so makes us look bad,

Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

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