Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022) **

Joe Begos very much comes from the Rob Zombie/David Gordon Green school of filmmaking where there’s a preoccupation with ultra dirtbag characters who don’t have much of a vocabulary outside of the F-bomb and where mean-spiritedness abounds. 

It’s difficult to care one iota for a single character in Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022) when they are all this obnoxious and dispensed with so casually. When characters are this scummy and underdeveloped it somehow even robs the joy out of seeing them get offed. I honestly can’t tell if Begos is going for Tarantino-cool or if he intentionally writes his characters as total douchebags.

As he does in every one of his movies, Begos riffs on other, better-made ones. In Almost Human (2013) (review) it was Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978) and The Thing (1982) (review); in The Mind's Eye (2015) (review) it was Scanners (1981) (review) and The Fury (1978); in Bliss (2019) (review) it was the films of Abel Ferarra and Gasper Noé; in VFW (2019) (review) it was siege flicks like Assault On Precinct 13 (1976). In CBC it’s The Terminator (1984) and Hardware (1990) (review). 

Steve Moore reliably provides a strong score that is far better than the material deserves. Aside from that, the best I can say about CBC is the gritty Super 16 mm visuals and lighting choices look nice and the finale is solid (though I could do without the level of shaky cam present). What I thought would be an entertaining romp ended up being my least favorite Begos picture.

Joe Begos Feature Films Ranked