Christmas Bloody Christmas  ★★

JOE Begos is certainly a trier.

The low-budget horror film-maker has delivered five releases since 2013 but none have managed to put him in a box seat with any of the major independent horror houses.

He nearly got there with V/F/W in 2019 and Bliss, released the same year, also attracted some good reviews.

Perhaps Begos has been offered a Sinister, Conjuring or Annabelle but is happy to trundle along doing his own thing.

I’ve only seen three of the five and the common problem is their cheap, video-style look. Crowds will put up with basic stories they may have seen before, but they aren’t going to sit through ugly-looking films.

Begos’ fifth and latest feature, 2022’s Christmas Bloody Christmas, follows inner-city record store owner Tori and her friends who are terrorised by a n animatronic Santa Claus that malfunctions and goes on a killing spree on Christmas Eve.

The only real explanation we get for why the malfunction causes it to pick up an axe and shove it in the nearest head come during a short news item about the malfunction and recall that states the Santas are reverting to their original programming from the US Defense Department.

Why the Defense Department was programming Santas isn’t clear as well as the answers to other questions such as why doesn’t he pick up the nearest firearm?

Riley Dandy is okay in the lead role and there is some decent gore and a couple of scares, but the look of the film, poor lighting and camera placement won’t be to most peoples’ taste.