Christmas Bloody Christmas is a 2022 sci-fi slasher horror film written and directed by Joe Begos and starring Riley Dandy, Sam Delich, Jonah Ray, Dora Madison, Jeff Daniel Phillips, and Abraham Benrubi.
Record store owner Tori Tooms and her employee Robbie Reynolds close up the store on Christmas Eve to drink together and meet up with their friends Jay and Lahna, who work at a nearby toy store. The toy store has an unusual new item: a robotic Santa Claus, repurposed from ex-US Department of Defense robot soldiers. meant to replace the typical mall Santa.
Unfortunately, the Robo-Santas are being recalled due to reverting to their old combat programming… and as Jay and Lahna find out the hard way, so has this one. Leaving the store, Santa goes on a rampage, hunting down Tori and Robbie and killing those in its path. Can Tori survive the night, or will Santa leave her more than coal this year?
Christmas Bloody Christmas contains examples of the following tropes:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The driving point of the plot is the ex-military robots that have been repurposed as robot Santas have been reverting to their original, murderous programming.
- An Ass-Kicking Christmas: The second half of the film becomes this, as Tori faces off with Santa.
- Bittersweet Ending: Tori is able to put Santa down for good, but her friends, sister, sister’s boyfriend, and several other people are dead, and she’s left severely traumatized from the ordeal.
- Boom, Headshot!: Santa kills Officer Davies with his own shotgun this way, and later forces Officer Smith to do this to himself as well.
- Car Fu: Tori runs over Santa with Davies’ squad car. It only puts him down temporarily.
- Extremely Short Timespan: The movie takes place over several hours, starting on Christmas Eve night and ending just after sunrise on Christmas Day.
- Made of Iron: Santa takes an absurd amount of punishment throughout the film. Justified, as he’s an ex-military robot and built to withstand a lot.
- Neck Snap: Santa kills Liddy this way.
- Shout-Out: The entire third act is a long one to The Terminator, complete with Santa being reduced to his robot endoskeleton in his final showdown with Tori.
