Inside the Making of ‘Christmas Bloody Christmas’ – Don’t Be Frightened by All the Noise on the Island of Misfit Toys!
The holidays are a difficult time for many people. They pull at what has been lost or what was never there to begin with. Smiles become practiced, and joy feels harder to reach instead of easier. There is a heaviness that settles in the chest, quiet and cold as untouched snow outside the window.
Christmas presses in from every direction, in stores, on the streets, on television, and on the radio. For some, there are no stockings hung by the fireplace and no cards written with care, only the hope for a reprieve from the season. In Joe Begos’ film Christmas Bloody Christmas, Tori Toom represents these people. She heads to a bar with her friend on Christmas Eve instead of going home; her friend’s partner becomes the warm hug of the holiday instead of a siblings’, and the loud music fills the empty spaces and makes for better company than any relative could. A character like this comes from the mind of someone who understands the spaces between here and there, and how real life often happens in that gap.
Christmas Bloody Christmas is the estranged relative of holiday horror films, the one who shows up to pay their dues and leaves before the plates are cleared. A film like this does not come from a studio executive calling the shots. It comes from someone like Joe Begos, who has lived out these nights and who, along with much of the crew, lived out more of them while making the film.
“I don’t have a family or kids. Christmas doesn’t mean anything now except horror movies and getting messed up with my friends,” said Begos in a sentiment that quietly shapes the film’s outsider identity.
The festive film originally began as a twenty-page treatment for a Silent Night, Deadly Night remake. The executives eventually felt it deviated too much from the original and turned it down, saying the fans would not want a film that strayed so far from the established concept. Recognizing himself as the very fan the executives assumed would not like the movie, Begos decided that if it was too different to be accepted as a Silent Night, Deadly Night film, then nothing stopped him from making it as an independent feature. He wrote the script over the course of four days, using the rejected treatment as his foundation. Once the script landed back in the right hands, Begos finally had a small budget to work with.
The film follows Tori, a hard-headed record store owner, as she spends Christmas Eve drinking and killing time with her co-worker, waiting for the night to pass. When Riley Dandy was first given the script for the film, the idea of a robotic killer Santa sounded ridiculous to her, but once she started reading it, the ways she differed from Tori drew her even closer to the role. After several callbacks, she and Joe met for coffee, and her hope of getting the part intensified. “I really, really wanted it.” Dandy said that earning Begos’ belief before they had ever met meant a great deal to her. “I was able to convince Joe that I was Tori without him even meeting me, and that made me feel confident in what I can do.”
Much to Begos’ surprise, Riley had never seen films like Halloween or The Terminator, but her delivery was so sharp and instinctive that he knew she could take it even further. She recalled watching the classics to prepare and realizing what she had been missing. “I was like, holy shit, I’m missing out on such good cinema and fandom.” He saw immediately that she could absorb everything Tori loved and make it feel like it belonged to her.
Christmas Bloody Christmas was shot in Placerville, California, over the course of eight weeks in July. The production took over nearly two blocks and wrapped them in neon lighting and fake snow. All of the bars, shops, and storefronts seen in the film are functioning locations that lent themselves to the production. Shooting in real spaces meant the cast and crew were constantly working around real people, real weather, and real chaos. It was a film made by people who were used to carving out space for themselves inside places that were never designed for them, and the isolation of the town helped Riley slip even further into Tori’s headspace.
Begos explained that Christmas imagery itself draws him for this reason.
“There is so much texture and layer to everything. The snow and the glowing lights let you push the aesthetics to the brim without losing realism.”
Filming began around 7 p.m. each night and wrapped near 8 in the morning. Due to the hours and the lack of much to do in Placerville after dark, Riley and her co-star Sam Delich found their off-screen lives slowly mirroring their characters. They met for the first time the night before shooting began, and their very first scene together was the playful argument about films and music. The unconventional schedule pulled them closer. On nights off, they stayed on their altered sleep cycles by hanging out in the lobby of their hotel or by closing out the one bar in town.
Riley laughed, “I don’t think I’ve ever consumed so much alcohol and gotten as little sleep as I did for that month of shooting.” She also recalled a moment early on while filming the sex scene, when the adhesive from her modesty sticker began to melt from Sam’s breath. “I kept telling him, that’s not me, I swear that’s not me,” she said. The embarrassment dissolved into laughter and helped bond them even further.
When Jeff Daniel Phillips arrived on set for the first time, Begos asked if he wanted to see something cool. Moments later, an ambulance came barreling down the street and exploded in a cloud of smoke. “I walked on set thinking, ‘What’s this shoot going to be like?’ And suddenly, this crazy ambulance comes barreling down the street and then explodes. It was insane.”
Though Jeff was only on set for one week, he quickly absorbed the film’s world. “You try to slowly adjust your brain to the night shoots because you’re in, you’re out, you’re back in, and the whole place is covered with Christmas stuff. There’s fake snow everywhere. It’s the middle of July. You’re sleepless, and it puts you in this weird state.” Between the camaraderie of the sleepless nights, the grueling physicality of everyone’s stunts, and the sheer chaos of the shoot, it was the kind of set where the outsiders felt right at home.
Begos’ excitement about finally having a budget had nothing to do with comfort and everything to do with what he could build with it. He had never strayed from his devotion to practical effects, but now he could play on a much larger scale. This included designing and constructing a robotic Santa from scratch. Working closely with a storyboard artist, Begos described every detail of what he had been envisioning for years. “VFW is much more of an action genre propulsive piece, where Bliss is much more of a vibe piece, and it was like, well, what if I combine those together? It wasn’t a single-location siege movie where you are following one character. It’s an actual existential threat. Since The Terminator is one of my favorite movies, I just always wanted to make a killer robot movie.”
Initially, there were supposed to be three robotic Santas to accommodate the fire and water stunts, but only one was completed in time for production.
Alongside Begos’ devotion to practical effects is his love for shooting on film. “I think it just elevates the movie. It automatically looks better. It makes effects look better, and honestly? It makes performances better because it doesn’t have that sterile look like reality TV. It feels more dreamy and fantastic. It makes the movie more timeless.”
Shooting on film also brings a loud mechanical whir and clack, adding to the already chaotic atmosphere. It is costly, unforgiving, and offers far less room for error. With digital, the camera can roll endlessly if something goes wrong. With film, every second counts.
Riley had done theater and thrived under pressure, but this was the first time she had been shot on film, and she found the experience thrilling, as if what they were creating was more sacred. Jeff Daniel Phillips, who got his start on film, feels a nostalgic attachment to it. “There’s no looseness and not a lot of improvising, which I really dig. It creates this high energy.”
Despite the strict demands of shooting on film, the set itself was convivial. Begos has strong artistic visions and sees them through, but his visions happen to be a lot of fun for the people inside them.
What defines a Joe Begos set is not chaos but immersion. While Riley gripped the steering wheel and pressed her foot to the gas pedal, Begos was hanging onto the side of the car moving sixty miles an hour, camera in hand.
“Everybody felt like they were kids making movies,” he said, “which is the element I like to bring out of people.”
That looseness carried into the rest of the shoot. Some moments of Christmas Bloody Christmas were written the same day they were filmed. A four-minute one-take where Robbie and Tori discuss Black Christmas was scribbled onto the back of sides during lunch and shot an hour later. The camera subtly buzzes in and out of focus as it wakes up, unaware that it would be shooting the scene that day. The film’s liveliness comes from the fact that life was being breathed into it as it was being made.
Begos explained that operating the camera kept him connected to the actors. “The camera is right in your face, it feels raw and personal in a way I love.”
Jeff Daniel Phillips describes the electricity of the set as a direct result of Begos’ proximity. “When he’s working, he’s actually shooting too. He casts people he knows will deliver. He’s not sitting at a monitor, he’s watching through the eyepiece.”
That closeness shaped even the most potentially awkward moments. On their second day of shooting, Riley and Sam filmed their sex scene despite having known each other for only two days. Sam spent nearly four hours with his head between her legs, but the trust and intimacy required of the scene tightened the bond between the actors and Begos.
The set’s scrappy energy extended into the fights and stunts. Riley had to perform more physical work than she had in previous roles and found it fun despite her nerves. She wanted to do even more, including the donut stunt in the cop car, but safety concerns prevented it.
Riley said the toy store owner welcomed them warmly, even during the gory sequences. “He told us we could have whatever candy we wanted, like it was our place for the night.” Riley took home a stuffed rabbit from the store. “It felt like a silly bloody winter camp,” she said.
Accidents added to the bonding. On the third day of filming, Riley and Joe were talking beside the old station wagon used in the film, a car that was difficult to close. As they discussed Tori’s intricacies, Riley slammed the door shut without realizing Joe’s hand was between the door and the frame. “So much of this crew had already worked together,” she said. “Being a new person to this group and feeling not nearly as cool as all of these people, and in the first couple days of shooting, slamming your director’s hand in the car door is not great.” The pain passed quickly, and the embarrassment became a bonding experience.
As the shoot neared its end, the residents of Placerville began gathering to watch. The massive ambulance crash was filmed in front of an audience. Riley, covered in bruises with her skin stained orange from dried blood, watched alongside them and found herself getting emotional. Taking stock of the chaos, exhaustion, and joy of the production, she realized how lucky she and her coworkers were. She remembers that night as a magical one. She said, “I felt like a crash dummy version of myself by that point, but watching that ambulance crash reminded me how special it is that we get to make movies.”
The climax of the movie involves a brutal showdown between Tori and the robotic Santa inside her record store. As the fire sprinklers go off, the room floods, everything drenches, and the store is torn apart while Tori fights for her life.
Riley said the chaos extended far beyond what made it into the frame. “Our art department was so incredible. After we completely wrecked the record store, they had to dry everything, put everything back, reset all the pieces. Everyone was working like clockwork.”
Begos operated the camera himself, which meant he was soaked alongside Riley in the freezing water. The crew repeatedly offered him chances to dry off or warm up between takes, but he refused to leave her in the misery alone. “I’m gonna be in the water with you,” he told her, “it’s just gonna be me and you getting covered with water and fire and sparks, and I’ll be down there with you.”
Despite how cold and miserable the conditions were, Riley found the shoot exhilarating and loved learning what went into a sequence like this. Jeff Daniel Phillips praised her endurance. “She was there with those guys every day, every night. She’s in almost every scene and never complained. She’s tough.”
Riley echoed his admiration back toward Begos. She remembers that he never once abandoned her in those hours, and it was during that night that she decided she would work with him anytime he asked. She hoped he would ask again. Riley said, “This shoot was transformative. I learned so much about myself, and that was because of Tori.”
To some, the holidays mean warmth, gratitude, and love. To others, they are painful and hard. Christmas Bloody Christmas is a film that makes room for everyone. It was made by a tight-knit filmmaking family that welcomed new members as their own. The film received the blood, sweat, and tears of everyone involved, both real and practical. What came from chaos, long nights, and the physical toll of the shoot can be watched in place of the soft glow of a fireplace and can fill the empty seats around a dinner table. In its own rough and unruly way, it offers yuletide comfort for anyone who has ever felt out of step with the season.
Christmas Bloody Christmas can be streamed everywhere this holiday season, including Shudder, and can be purchased on Blu-ray with your gift cards.
Categorized: Interviews News