Netflix’s sci-fi anthology Love, Death, & Robots features a strange, scary Christmas special in its second outing, the creepy short story adaptation “All Through the House.” Volume 2 of Love, Death, & Robots just arrived on Netflix, and the eight-episode outing brings with it the show’s first Christmas episode. Well, as close to a Christmas episode as this twisted series can get, at least. Based on a short story by Joachim Heijndermans, “All Through The House” is episode 6 of Love, Death, & Robots volume 2.
The five-minute episode, which is a stop-motion animated offering from Blink Studios, sees a pair of cute kids waiting up late in the hopes of seeing Santa Claus arrive with their presents on Christmas Eve. Sure enough, soon the pair hear the sounds of the gift-giver arriving — only to be faced with something more akin to the lethal Xenomorph than old Saint Nick. The kids are horrified to find that "Santa" is actually a terrifying alien creature, a clawed, fanged eyeless beast that smells its way through their living room. At first, the children succeed in evading the thing, but soon they're cornered — only for the monster to survey the duo, appear to think for a second, and then utter: “Good.” With that, the pair are granted their Christmas presents, which are promptly regurgitated by the monster who then leaves moments after.
The episode ends on a blackly comic note as the two kids lie in bed staring at the ceiling and one asks the other what they think becomes of the children that the monstrous Santa-thing they just encountered does not deem sufficiently “good." The silence that follows the reasonable inquiry, along with the adults-only rating of Love, Death, & Robots, could be seen to imply that those unfortunate children become sentient snacks for the monstrosity. However, the slavering monster doesn't actually attack the kids and, while this holiday horror may be scarier than most conventional television Christmas specials, “All Through The House” does not kill off either of its young protagonists. Therefore there is a chance that children deemed less than "good" simply receive a piece of coal, albeit one coughed up by a terrifying monster.
The question of why the kids survived their encounter and were deemed "good" is a harder one to answer, as Love, Death, & Robots never clarifies whether the monster was a bonafide man-eater or just a very creepy Saint Nick. It may be because they chose not to attack the monster upon encountering the beast in their home, but then again, the kids did not have much opportunity to do so. It could also be because the pair were well-behaved all year, although this seems to up for debate since they did stay up to try and catch a glimpse of Santa (which is generally frowned upon in most culture's interpretation of the legend). What "All Through The House" is more concerned about, though, is the kids learning a familiar Christmas lesson, that gifts are less important than family (even if they learn this lesson via an encounter with a monster that makes Stranger Things' Demogorgon look like Rudolf).
Although it may seem unlikely, this five-minute episode does pack a pretty clever comment on Christmas-time consumerism into its very brief runtime. Like the recent Yuletide horror Krampus, this Love, Death, & Robots episode begins with the young heroes more interested in their presents than how good or bad their behavior has been in the last year and, like the hero of that earlier Christmas-set scare-fest, the pair soon learn there are more meaningful (and toothsome) reasons to be good all year round than the chances of earning a fancy model train set. The duo might not discover the meaning of family, but they do have to work together to evade the beast, and the siblings are no doubt brought closer by their encounter.