Metacritic reviews

It’s a lean, efficient, no-frills film, and that’s as it should be. Begos rejects pretense. He’s making his version of a psycho Santa flick, no more, no less. But the logline’s comic absurdity and the execution of his premise is so straightforward that Christmas Bloody Christmas feels fresh among the season’s horror canon. It’s a Christmas miracle.

Christmas Bloody Christmas is a lot of fun. As someone who didn't love his drugged-out Bliss but did enjoy punks-versus-veterans bloodbath VFW, I was looking forward to what writer/director Joe Begos had in store for us with his take on Santasploitation, and he delivers.

There's something near-magical about the strands of multicolored lights that occupy nearly every frame of the film, offering a winter wonderland contrast to all the carnage.

Christmas Bloody Christmas makes two promises in its title: it’s going to be about Christmas, and it’s going to be bloody. It succeeds on both fronts to create a fun, fast-paced Christmas horror that is all style, very little substance – but when it works this well, it's totally fine.

So if current hit Violent Night sounds a little too classy and mainstream, then here is this shoddily made but tinsel-bright gift for you, the cinematic equivalent of a cheap soap and body lotion set bought at the last minute. It’s serviceable, but not a lot of thought went into it.

The overall vibe here ends up being less “good dirty fun” than “foul-mouthed teenager trying to look cool.”

It begins badly and turns progressively worse before rallying, “Terminator” style, in a test of human against machine that will-not-die in a movie that does not want to end.

It’s a plodding, vague fantasy about the way things could be that gets interrupted by a rote chase/body count pic.