Sleazy Night, Deadly Night: XXX-Mas (2023)

XXX-Mas (2023)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Drew Marvick, Felissa Rose, Morrigan Thompson

It's the Christmas season and Santa Claus is winding down in his home before the big day, with his beloved Mrs. Claus serving him milk and cookies as the jolly old man decided to watch his copy of Santa Claus Conquers The Martians (1964). However, things aren't right with the tape and what he finds there sends him on a demented spiral of rage and murder, which we see early on when he decided to crash a small Christmas party and ends everybody in attendance.

We then shift our focus to hotshot porno director Johnny Duckett who has assembled a tiny cast and crew to shoot his latest smutty cinematic masterpiece, a full feature Christmas horror porn! (Complete with an end credit scene and a leprechaun for some reason...) His stars, though, doesn't share his enthusiasm or ambition for the sleazy project and would rather just shoot through by it like any other porno job they did before, especially when some of them aren't comfortable with the fact that the film is produced by an accused sexual abuser. 

Soon enough, things would escalate for the bloody and brutal when Santa finds his way to their set, tagging along a deranged meat-munching elf to spread some holiday fear in this not-so-holy night, leaving body parts a-plenty and dismembered all the way!

A silly premise for an indie production, XXX-Mas (2023) works well with the vibes and sensibility of your typical shot-on-video film to deliver the sleazy, cheesy and violent goods, even if it does take a little while to get going and the scripting can be hit-or-miss. I guess in an attempt to build character within the cast, the movie tries its hand on topical dialogue and comedy, but the unfocused acting and rushed writing meant a lot of it disappointingly stumbled. Fortunately, it all pick up in the third act as our killer Santa slices and dices his way into the picture, bringing in frankly the best performance in the flick and a fun dose of manic slasher energy.

And for an estimated $85,000 budget, the practical gore effects here are damn impressive with highlights including a very grisly punch, death by boiling water and a head getting gorily squeezed like an egg. As for the saucy bits, XXX-Mas (2023) undoubtedly dishes out the sexy scenes with both men and women being in multiple stages of undress throughout the movie, though nothing too hardcore as it's mostly played for laughs, In fact, the whole porn shoot premise ties in pretty well to why the massacre is happening to begin with. It's silly, yes, but there's a thin layer of grimness to it which makes this film all the more enjoyable.

Decking the halls with shlock and guts, XXX-Mas (2023) is the gory holiday midnight movie done alright!

Bodycount:

1 male beaten with a hammer

1 male gets a thrown knife to the forehead

1 female strangled with a length of fairy lights

1 male had his head crushed open

1 female decapitated with a snow shovel

1 male punched through the head

1 male and 1 female skewered with a fire poker

1 male had his throat bitten open

1 female stabbed in the gut with a prop candy cane

1 male had his groin bitten off, killed

1 female had her face melted off with boiling water

1 male found with a prop candy cane shoved down his throat

1 female found murdered, method unknown

1 female slaughtered

1 female had her neck snapped

1 male knifed in the head

1 male shot on the head with a shotgun

1 female beaten to death with a hammer (flashback)

Total: 19