Admit it: you’re sick and bored with watching cheerful vacation films. We’re three weeks into the vacation season, and also you’ve heard sufficient Christmas carols, and been compelled to look at too many Hallmark films, to offer a rattling about mistletoe or gingerbread homes. It’s possible you’ll want an escape from all the vacation cheer and a reprieve from sweet canes and searching for items.
Joe Begos has the remedy on your vacation woes. The director, whose new movie Christmas Bloody Christmas is now streaming on Shudder, has made a nasty horror film that actually slices by the vacation mundanity with a killer robotic Santa Claus who terrorizes a small city. In a dialog with Digital Developments, Begos opens up about what drew him to make a “vacation horror” movie, how The Terminator and Gaspar Noé impressed him, and if he has any sequel plans for the film.
Word: This interview has been edited for readability and size.
Digital Developments: There’s a nice custom of holiday-themed horror films with Black Christmas and Silent Night time, Lethal Night time, to call only a few. What does Christmas Bloody Christmas contribute to that subgenre?
Joe Begos: Effectively, I believe that it’s sort of like an anti-Christmas Christmas film. I don’t have a household of my very own. I don’t have children, I’m not married or something like that. So my Christmas custom, as soon as I grew up and was away from my precise blood household, is simply going to a celebration as a result of every little thing else is shut down. I just like the aesthetics of Christmas and I just like the custom of hanging out with my buddies round that point.
I wished to make a film that’s from a standpoint of dirtbag metalheads who don’t have any household as a result of I’ve been in that place for a decade. I convey my very own sort of sense into [the genre]. And in addition, we haven’t had a killer robotic Santa film in a long time except you depend the Silent Night time, Lethal Night time sequel.
I don’t assume anybody counts that one. [Laughs] The film has loads of brutal and artistic kills. Which one is your favourite and the way did you pull it off?
My favourite kill is when the neighbor comes out and sees his automobile has been crashed into by Tori. I made a decision to forged myself in that function as a result of I wish to give myself a bit of cameo. And I figured why not have the good kill?
I wrote the screenplay with the intention of making an attempt to up the ante once I was doing the kills as a result of the Santa robotic has an ax and I didn’t need him to randomly choose up a chainsaw simply to have some selection within the deaths. All the things needed to keep fairly near him simply having the ax and utilizing the weather round him. And so, I obtained to be part of the good kill within the film.
You pay homage to not solely previous vacation horrors, but in addition to sort of different style masterpieces like The Terminator, Assault on Precinct 13, and even Contact of Evil with that opening, unbroken shot. Was {that a} acutely aware choice in your half?
Yeah. In my first couple of flicks, I believe I leaned too closely into references to different films. And I believe that’s as a result of I simply didn’t have actually any life expertise. I used to be so younger and now, I’ve skilled different issues in life that lend themselves to my films.
However there’s at all times going to be the factor of pulling from a higher cinematic language. I like Contact of Evil and I like Abel Ferrara and Gaspar Noé, however now I’m simply taking cinematic issues that I like and leaving different issues I’ve seen and absorbed behind. I make horror films, however I attempt to do one thing totally different every time. I don’t wish to repeat myself.
Christmas Bloody Christmas has two leads: the ultimate woman Tori and Robbie, her co-worker and occasional lover. Do both of them replicate features of your life?
Tori and Robbie are undoubtedly each extensions of me and my buddies. You already know, folks complain that everyone in my films talks the identical. In fact they do as a result of I hang around with people who find themselves like me. Like, should you come and hear on my social circles, we’re all going to speak the identical as a result of that’s what buddies do.
Tori could be very a lot me and all the opposite characters possess some attributes of my different buddies or folks from my life. Robbie undoubtedly has some traits of me as properly. Riley [Dandy] and Sam [Delich], who play Tori and Robbie, are each so good at their job that they realized that they have been taking part in sides of me they usually began to look at me. They have been each like a sponge absorbing my conduct.
Would you come to direct a sequel to Christmas Bloody Christmas? Prefer it might be the identical Christmas setting however in a distinct location or there’s a killer leprechaun robotic for St Patrick’s Day or one thing like that?
Effectively, I’ve by no means wished to make sequels to any of my films, however his one I 100% do. I hope it’s profitable sufficient to warrant one and I hope I can direct it. They might undoubtedly be set round Christmas time once more and presumably use the seasonal lead-up of Halloween to Black Friday to Christmas to have some enjoyable. However we’ll see how profitable this one is. We’ll see if folks wish to see a number of killer robotic Santa films.
The world doesn’t have sufficient killer robotic Santa films. Thanks for speaking with me, Joe.
Thanks.
Christmas Bloody Christmas is now streaming on Shudder.
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