Things Will Be Different

 Siblings Joseph (Adam David Thompson) and Sidney (Riley Dandy) abscond to a safehouse after stealing some money. It's a particularly safe safehouse, too: By performing a ritual with the abandoned farmhouse's clocks, the fugitives can jump out of time into a sort of isolated time loop and wait out two weeks without any fear of anyone finding them.

 The catch (of course there's a catch) is that they're not supposed to be there. As Joseph and Sidney end their stay outside of time, they discover that the loop is run by a shady outfit which are unwilling to let them out. They give our protagonists an ultimatum: either get rid of another intruder who's been meddling with their timeloop, or get erased from existence. So the siblings are stuck, unable to return to their lives until they deal with a menace that may not exist.

 It's an original, compelling setup with well-written, likeable characters and some good tension. The biggest and most distinctive thing the movie has going for it, though, is its inscrutability - it's spelled out explicitly that some things will not be explained to the characters (and by extension, the audience). The plot does end up making sense, but only just about, and it leaves a lot up in the air. In that I don't think it's wholly successful, despite some clever ideas and a solid, emotional ending. Much better handled is the weirdness and sense of mystery behind the Vise, as the organization running the time loop calls itself.

 Writer/director Michael Felker has been filmmaker duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead's editor for more than a decade now (starting on their V/H/S segment; They produced the film through their Rustic films imprint, and Benson makes an appearance as one of the operators of the time loop.) Felker's chilly, quiet style complements the material well, and the soundtrack by Jimmy Lavalle (of the great post-rock band Tristeza - highly recommend their album En Nuestro Desafío) and Michael A. Muller is excellent.

Christmas Bloody Christmas

 Indie director Joe Begos has been on a bit of a roll lately. After starting out with some fun but pretty derivative 80's throwback films, he upped his game considerably with the impressive one-two punch of Bliss, a movie about an artist with an addictive personality and what happens when she's turned into a vampire, and VFW, a supremely badass take on Assault on Precinct 13 with a great cast of veteran character actors. Both pretty damn essential viewing, as far as I'm concerned.

 And now we get his take on the slasher genre, and a Christmas-themed one, no less. Ho Ho Ho!

 Pitched somewhere between Silent Night, Deadly Night and The Terminator, with a thick sprinkling of loud, brash, frank sex talk, it keeps Begos's penchant for moody eighties' stylistic choices, working-class characters, sparse, simple stories and abundant gore

 Going from the trailers I was afraid it was going to be a comedy - and it does start with a jokey set of cheesy TV ads, including one that acts as the premise for the movie: The US government built an extremely sophisticated, human-looking series of soldier robots, at least some of which were later repurposed by a private company to "fully replace your local degenerate mall Santa". So...
 a) ...what could possibly go wrong? And...
 b) ...OK. It's a stupid, stupid premise, but come on, that quote is very very funny. I'll allow it.
 Anyhow, thankfully those are the only real jokes in the movie. There is a lot of humor, but it's organic, character-driven, and it's dropped completely when needed. Very well managed.

 The action picks up as we're introduced to our protagonists, small-town indie record store owner Tori (Riley Dandy) and her long-time and long-suffering employee Robbie (Sam Delich). Their dialog is brash, horny, natural and very very funny, consisting of explicit sex talk, friendly ribbing and the type of hipster-ish banter you'd expect from young people who spend all their free time listening to music and watching movies. It turns out, young Tori has some hot takes on horror movie sequels, and is not afraid to deploy some deep knowledge of Pet Cemetery 2.
 Tori had a hot Christmas Tinder date all set up, but a horrified Robbie recognizes her prospective beau and manages to talk her out of that, and from there they go out on a booze-filled 'not a date' as he tries to talk her out of the rule she has against going out with employees. The back and forth is a bit abrasive but pacey, charming as hell -kind of sweet, even- and most importantly it got a few laughs from me.

 Unfortunately for any prospective hookup plans, one of the degenerate-mall-santa-displacing robots (Abraham Benrubi) is on display on a local toy store. And, wouldn't you know it, someone's set it to Evil.
 So it grabs a fireman's axe and off it goes on a festive murder rampage. No christmas-themed kills, though; it's all business. Things begin with isolated folks getting butchered in their homes/places of work, but soon it's going after Tory and Robbie, laying siege to a police station, and, well behaving like your regular hunter-killer unit.

 Poor Robosanta Plus PR people, they probably aren't going to get to enjoy a long holiday weekend.

 The film looks and feels great, with an eighties-inspired lurid color scheme that maybe is a bit overused these days, but that is generally justified by the script - green and red lighting for this scene? Well, it's because the house next door has a lot of Chrismas decorations up! It's even been commented on! And so on. And it gets an impressive mileage from its tiny budget - there's a lovely explosion/car crash, some great, disgusting gore, and some impressive puppet work as the robot starts falling apart, all lovingly rendered in practical effects and directed with an eye for impact.

 The cinematography might be a point of contention for some - it's overtly dark and grainy, even if it tends to light its characters well; I thought it gave the film the scuzzy quality it's going for, but it can be a bit much.

 Other than that, mark this down as another impressive indie horror outing from Begos and his team.