HORROR BUSINESS Episode 127: Don’t Open Till Christmas & Christmas Bloody Christmas w/Brian Sowell

Greetings, and welcome back to Horror Business. We have one awesome episode in store for you guys because not only are we talking about two Yuletide horror movies (Don’t Open Till Christmas and Christmas Bloody Christmas) but we’re joined by Brian Sowell, longtime friend and cinematographer for Christmas Bloody Christmas.

We start by talking about some of the stuff involving horror recently. Brian talks about some of the films he’s worked on recently as well as the Disney + series Andor. Liam talks about seeing the film Blood Relatives, and Justin talks about the films All Eyes and Chest.

            We start with Don’t Open Til Christmas. We talk about the film’s troubled production history and how that affected the somewhat stumbling final product.

Liam talks about how despite the tonal and editorial mess the film was he still found it to have a certain charm, whereas Justin talks at length about how the film makes almost no sense even based on the simple rules of a slasher film and it does little to set up any believable red herrings.

Brian talks about how the films feels like the script kept getting changed mid-filming and how it was a touch too long despite only being 80 minutes long. Justin talks about how film clumsily attempts to check off the boxes needed for a typical slasher and how it seems to be attempting to rip off Christmas Evil at times.

Liam talks about the film misses the “lurid and sweaty” mark it aims at.

            Up next is Christmas Bloody Christmas. Justin begins by talking about how the “Kevin Smith” style banter in the first act was a bit too much and the abundant use of the word “fuck” kind of took him out of it, but he still enjoyed the film overall.

Brian talks about how there was some criticism of the dialogue but how the actors nailed the writer/director’s mannerisms. Justin talks about how the “will they or won’t they” dynamic of the two main characters was strangely endearing and realistic. Liam talks about how the performance of the main character brought an extra dimension to a film that could have just rested on the laurels of violence.

Justin talks about how a certain aspect of the robot design reminded him of something from Alien, and Brian likened this to the barrels from Jaws that heralded the arrival of the shark. Brian elaborates on the process of filming the robot and making it frightening. Justin talks about how he appreciated that Riley Dandy didn’t fully emulate Linda Hamilton’s performance from The Terminator. We talk with Brian about how his band Deth Crux recorded a song for the film.

First and foremost, thanks to Brian for coming on to chat with us and provide some rad insight into the filmmaking process. As always thank you for listening and to everyone and anyone who donated on Patreon, checked this episode out, or shared a tweet/shared a post on FB/gave us love by recommending us to someone. We love you forever for listening and donating. Any questions, comments, suggestions for movies and guests, or if you yourself want to join us for a movie viewing or even an episode, can be sent to thehorrorbiz@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you! Thanks always to Justin Miller, Jacob Roberts, Paul Sharkey, and Doug Tilley for their technical contributions and fliers, Mike Smaczylo for the shirts and fliers (you can check more of his work out at here), and also thanks to Josh Alvarez for the theme song, Chris, Brad, and LVAC for the support and buttons (check them out at www.xlvacx.com and on Twitter), Essex Coffee Roasters (www.essexcoffeeroasters.com) and a HUGE thank you to anyone who retweeted us or shared something on Facebook that we posted. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @thehorrorbiz666, like us on Facebook at facebook.com/thehorrorbiz66, check out our Spotify account at Cinepunx, and remember to rate, review, and subscribe to us on ITunes. In fact, if you write us a review, email us with your mailing address and we’ll send you some free pins and stickers!  Check out www.cinepunx.com for more info on some of our other podcasts, some ultra stylish Cinepunx related merchandise, and how you can donate to our Patreon! Until next time…thanks!

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