It’s December 24th, and disenchanted record store owner Tori Tooms (Riley Dandy) is about to fight an evil robot Santa (Abraham Benrubi). Before that happens, Tori closes her store for the night with help from Robbie (Sam Delich), one of Tori’s employees. Robbie wants to make it with Tori; Tori knows and simultaneously is and isn’t thrilled. So they go drinking together.
Tori and Robbie enjoy trash-talking each other because they see through each other, and that’s this movie’s idea of romance. They have the sort of emphatic, un-sober banter that you’d probably have to be there to find funny. She thinks there are no good Christmas movies or music, which explains why she refuses to watch “A Christmas Story” at home alone, “like everything other ****in’ douchebag in America.” Robbie thinks Tori’s ridiculous for making an exception for Lemmy Kilmister’s “Run Rudolph Run” cover since it’s not even Motorhead, but rather Lemmy with Dave Grohl, misidentified as his band, Foo Fighters (ZZ Top’s Billy F. Gibbons is also prominently featured on that track).
There’s a believably tedious edge to Tori and Robbie’s pronouncements, which are over-scored by writer/director Joe Begos and his poor man’s Rob Zombie aesthetic of neon glow-in-the-dark spray paint and over-saturated Christmas lights. Tori and Robbie are young, loud, and full of unsolicited opinions. Also, there’s a killer Saint Nick in this movie. Begos’ film does not, however, improve once the deadly elf shows up for a programmatic series of muddy-looking action and kill scenes. Most of “Christmas Bloody Christmas” was shot with 16mm cameras, a gimmick that doesn’t enhance the movie’s credibility.
Instead, Tori and Robbie’s early establishing hangout comedy scenes are the best reasons to watch “Christmas Bloody Christmas.” Begos (“VFW,” “Bliss”) has great affection for his characters, and in this movie, he struggles to make their seasonal disenchantment seem more real than their high-concept circumstances. That, frankly, is a hard sell.
Tori and Robbie curse about one to three times per sentence. They also talk defensively about their favorite music and horror movies as a way to compensate for, uh, some things. They drink too much and snort cocaine with Tori’s keyed-up friend Lahna (Dora Madison) and her hipster boyfriend Jay (Jonah Ray). Lahna and Jay are the first to be slain since Benrubi’s Santa escapes from Lahna’s KB Toys-style chain store. These notch-raising deaths are as perfunctory as the swears, pop references, and counter-cultural poses that define Tori and Robbie’s relationship.