Christmas horrors have proliferated like Black Friday deals – but unfortunately, they’re often associated with a lot more buyers’ remorse.
Typically pun- and kill-filled, there’s frequently little in the way of atmosphere or foreboding – witness the aggressively terrible It’s a Wonderful Knife or Santa’s Slay, a clear nadir for poor James Caan, who at least had the good sense to be uncredited so people could scrub Sonny Corleone getting offed by a ‘roided up WWE grappler in felt from their memories.
But let’s give credit where it’s due.
Christmas Bloody Christmas
With a title like this, you’d probably think straight-ahead slasher.
However, working in its favor is its Robocop/M3GAN/new Child’s Play-styled corporate liability / tech-gone-wrong conceit.
In the film, an animatronic Santa is the subject of a nationwide recall. Not before long, one of the jolly fat men malfunctions and begins acting naughty, if you’ll forgive the anthropomorphism.
Soon, vinyl collecting too-cool-for-school types are given a Kris Kringle comeuppance as the snow falls and the blood flies.
Christmas Bloody Christmas is a dumb as they come, but has a strangely endearing quality and DIY indie sensibility.
P2
Frenchman Alexandre Aja is basically a stamp of approval when you see his name in the credits, whether he’s donning a writer, producer or director chapeau.
While hardly an indisputable genius like a Cronenberg or Carpenter, he’s as dependable as they come: Aja gave us the wildly creative Haute Tension and the better than it ought to have been remake of The Hills Have Eyes, not the mention the fun creature feature Crawl. He also produced and co-wrote the solid Maniac reboot, and did the same for P2.
P2 is set on Christmas Eve, where a Manhattan cubicle drone is pulling a late night at the office. She ventures into the parking garage – the key-clutching cliché locale for victims to be menaced. And sure enough, she finds herself prey to a security guard hunter.
Better Watch Out and Violent Night
If you really think about it, the whole premise of Santa Claus is basically a home invasion.
Considering the cheap holiday slasher cash-ins that comprise the bulk of Christmas horror features, give these two films some kudos – maybe in the form of a gift card – for tackling the idea, albeit in very different ways.
Better Watch Out is a cute capable inversion of the home invasion film, with a babysitter defending a young charge against intruders and way more Home Alone than Straw Dogs. Violent Night, meanwhile, features Santa Claus mounting a defense against a group of mercenaries breaking into a wealthy family home.
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