Satan Claus (1996) Horror Killer Santa

Satan Claus (1996) - Straight to video and with good reason for this poorly done meaningless kill fest from the 90s. Listen, I try to give every film I write about the benefit of the doubt. I figure someone wrote, organized and made the film and that takes effort. You just don't wake up and make a film you have to work at it. I just wish the makers of this film had tried a bit harder. Mostly I wish they had hired someone to do lighting; someone who appreciated that the audience will need to see the picture to enjoy it. I know a lot of transfers to DVD loose some of their brightness but it is damn near impossible to see things filmed at night in this movie and it almost all set in the night.
Its a story of a serial killer dressed as Santa Claus who is decorating his Christmas tree with the body parts of  the victims. All the while calling and taunting the police who sit around in the dark waiting for calls instead of actually doing anything. It sort of like the set of Barney Miller, where people come in and there are conversations and then they leave again, but the cops never do much just talk and talk. Except in this film the conversation is not funny and poorly delivered for the most part. I think what the writer Simonetta Mastarda was going for was something like this: " A cop driven to the edge by a maniacal killer struggles through his personal grief to avenge the murder of his wife before more victims pile up." Its not what was delivered but at least there is some basic plot beyond the laughing killer Santa.
  The film starts with a woman doing some sort of ceremony to Satan. I say woman because the only thing you can see in the shot is just the smallest bit of outline on her arms as she waves them around, other wise being fully robed it would be difficult to know. Director Massimiliano Cerchi masks the voice so it sounds like a man. From there we get right into the killing. A woman is walking home at night and a bit nervous looking around as she goes. Santa (Robert Cummings) come up fast and talks to her, she is nervous but answers his pleasantries with confusion. He pulls out an hatchet and chops her head off, off screen. A neighbor screams, then we hear Santa singing Jingle Bells as he leaving. The next scene we get introduced to the three cops who sit in their dark office, Captain Ardison (Barie Snider), Lt. Lisa Red (Daisy Vel) and Sgt. Todd miller (John Romanelli), the victim we learn is Ardison's wife and this starts the game of cat and mouse where the cops almost never leave the room and the killer runs amok on the streets to kill at least three more people.
The subplot concerns the second victim and tangentially connected characters. Steve (Robert Hector) is a nice guy who works doing charity work and lives with Maman (Lauretta Ali) a (possibly Haitian) woman who is psychic and feels something bad brewing. Steve while collecting money for charity sees the girl he has a crush on Sandra Logan (Jodie Rafty) and her boyfriend right before, off and away from him the boyfriend is killed by Santa. Running to the noise he comforts Sandra becomes a witness.Steve also happens to be good friends with Lisa so it ties him in more.
  There is more plot to this but at its heart it is Santa calling the Capt. and harassing him and then promising to kill again. With each kill the killer puts some more body parts onto a Christmas tree and upping the ante when not getting enough attention from the police. The big twist is out of no where and I guess that is really all you should watch this film for. There is really no predicting it and in the end it all feels about nothing. One of the strange things about this film is that to establish the police station they have this shot of two police cars on the street. Not strange in itself, establishing shots are common in movies, what is strange is that every time we are going to have a scene in the station we get that same shot. They must show it seven times in the film. The acting is very amateurish with the possible exception of Rafty who seemed to be trying. Still she and most everyone else in this film only have this as a credit on IMDB. Now I won't be recommending this film, in fact I had some thin places in my notes and thought I should take a second look for the details but could not bring myself to actually watch this again. So if you choose to see it, don't blame me.

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) Horror Christmas

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) - So this will be the last of the Christmas themed horror films covered this December. If there is one thing I have learned this month it is that Christmas is traumatizing to a lot of people. This final entry is the much ballyhooed film from the 80s that had parents up in arms. Imagine Santa on an advertisement for a movie with an axe in his hand. How Shocking! I can't say I remember this one, it came out a couple years after I graduated high school and I think I was living in Jamaica Plain (Boston) and if the is one thing about JP it has no movie theaters. I would have to travel if I was going out to the movies and with all the drugs and alcohol abuse of my youth I can't remember a single trip to the movies. This film was remade this year and titled Silent Night. I watched that version also but I will save that review for next year. It was pretty much the same film in principle but instead of learning of the trauma of poor Billy you find out he was the killer just at the end of the film. Also the focus in that film shifts from the killer Billy and how he got to that point to the cops trying to stop him. It is a quality horror film relying on great gore effects to make up for the lack of background on the killer. The predecessor is what I am here to talk about today though. It is all about the events leading up to Billy flipping out and killing.
   Billy,  traumatized as a boy when his family was killed by a man in a Santa suit on Christmas Eve grows to be a big strong young man. Through his childhood living at an orphanage the harsh Mother Superior (Lilyan Chauvin) reenforced his trauma. The good Sister Margaret tries to get him the help he needs but can not do enough. When a young man working at a local toy store Billie has a mental break when he is forced to play Santa Claus for the store setting off a killing streak. Dressed in his Santa costume Billie moves through the town and punishes those he sees as naughty.
  First off let me say things have changed since this movie was made. The opening scene is of a family traveling through a countryside, Jimmy Chapman, his wife Ellie, little Billy at age 5 and little infant Ricky, Billy's brother. They are driving in a big old station wagon in 1971 and not one person is wearing a seat belt. Billy is in the middle of the back seat asking about Santa Claus and could he stay up to see him. The beauty of the scene though is when the pan to the front seat and Mom is holding the infant in her arm. No baby seats here, just Mom holding baby Ricky. Now I remember the 1970's and I have to say this scene is pretty accurate. I remember many days driving with my Mom and sisters in our station wagon. Me and my sisters all laying in the very back of the wagon playing games. It was so common to just move about the car. Lucky for us we never had the bad luck this family has though.
  They head out to visit Ellie's Dad who is a patient at the Utah Mental Facility. He seems pretty comatose just staring off into space while the family tries to engage him. The family leave little Billy with the old man while they go off to talk to the doctor. This is another strange happening. This is a mental institution and they leave a 5 year old alone with a patient. Immediately after the adults leave Gramps shows us he was just faking and looks right at the poor little boy and says, "Santa only brings presents to them thats been good all year, to them that haven't been naughty. All the other ones, all the naughty ones he punishes. What about you boy? You been good all year?  Scary as shit to a little boy, poor little Billy has to shake his no to Grandpa, so the old man continues to terrify. "You see Sants tonight boy you better run. You better run for your life." So we have the first foreshadowing of the horrors that are to come for this family. The first incident with Grampa does save little Billy's life though because when the family is driving home everything changes.
 Little does the family know there is a killer Santa on the streets. When the creep robs a gas station he kills the cashier when the cashier went for his weapon, but the director  Charles E Sellier Jr. makes a point of showing the guy as heartless. Killer Santa finishes his kill with a bullet in the brain. Now he just happens to flag down the Chapmans while they are driving home. They try to drive out of the situation but he shoots killing Jim. Billy runs from the car and hides in a ditch where he can still see the car. I guess Grampa's advice really saved his ass. Unfortunately he watches as Santa pulls his Mom from the car with intention to rape? Ripping her shirt open so that for years any time poor Billy sees a woman on her back with exposed breasts he flashes back to this scene. When Mom struggled Santa killer slits her throat and so the trauma for Billy the murder of his Mother and Father are burned into his being.
  This film takes its time to make sure we see that Billy does not recover from this incident either. We join him four years later living in a Catholic orphanage. He when asked to think about Christmas only thinks of death, and since a religious Christian organization is running the place they can't get enough of the holiday. Forced to participate little Billy is not doing so well. He has a healthy fear of Santa Clause and a negative state during the holiday. Considering his passed this makes total sense and you would think his care givers would be cautious around him this time of year.  Sister Margaret (Gilmer McCormick) notices his struggles and how each year it gets harder and harder for him. She advocates in his behalf but Mother Superior is a believer in facing your fear and continues to re-traumatized the poor kid by making him participate in everything including sitting on Santa's lap.
  We flash forward having established Billy's deterioration around the holiday and rejoin the story when he is eighteen years old. He gets a job with the help of sister Margaret at a local toy store working for Mr. Simms (Britt Leach). He works in the back room with lazy coworker Andy (Randy Stumpf) and has taken a fancy to female coworker Pamela (Toni Nero). All seems to be going well and then the holiday season arrives. Now next to the North Pole the worst place to work if you hate Christmas has to be a toy store. Poor Billy (Robert Brian Wilson) now a big strong young man, but he gets depressed and his work suffers as the holiday closes in. When asked to play Santa after the first guy is injured he does it but is not the jolly old soul we all know and love. It is the first step in his downfall.
  When the shift comes it is at the drink filled Christmas party the store has on Christmas Eve. Billy already far down the road  to crazy sees the lovely Pamela being roughly groped by his jerk off coworker Andy and all hell breaks loose in his head. He knows now like his old grampa told him as Santa the naughty must be punished. His killing spree is everyone he works with and then he heads back to the orphanage where he grew up. At the same time Sister Margaret is trying to find him with the help of the police. The practical effects are good in this film but the one tone acting of Wilson as the killer is a bit off putting. Like so many slashers the killer eludes the police long enough to do some serious damage to the community but in the end he must go down. I have to say I liked the bit in the film where the police shoot down the deaf preacher dressed as Santa at the orphanage. Poor guy just could not hear the cop yelling at him. This film is also great in that it sets up a whole troupe of kids to be the next Santa killer as they all are traumatized and re-traumatized in this film.
Rating (5.9) 5.0 and up are recommended, some more recommended than others

Bikini Bloodbath Christmas (2009) Horror Christmas

Bikini Bloodbath Christmas (2009) - So we have made it to the third installment of this micro-budget film series. Let me take a minute to reflect on how I have viewed them so far. Since each has basically the same story a group of hot girls and some guy characters end up at a party where they are attacked by a killer named The Chef. There is a lot of running and screaming, gags, tits and self referential humor and pretty good music. The thing is I had two very different reviews of the first two films. I stated I loved watching the cheesy fun of the films but in Bikini Bloodbath only rated the film 1.1 of a possible 10. I was sure that although a sit amused and entertained there is only a very small audience that will view it that way. The satire will totally be lost on most and so I rated the film not how much I liked it but by how well done of a movie I thought it was taking into account the audience that may see it after reading my review. I believe this was a mistake mostly because the hundred or so readers I get in a week can pretty much tell from the right up what this film is and don't need me filtering for them.  So in my review of Bikini Bloodbath Carwash I just wrote about the experience for me and that film got a high recommended rating of 5.6.
 With the holiday season I am now covering the next in the series Bikini Bloodbath Christmas and it really is more of the same.
  The opening credits of the butcher cleaving liver and creating packages with the credits on them was cool but how freaking long did that go on. They really could have fast forwarded a bit on that. We open with a series of people waking up from nightmares, the lead Jenny and her friend Sharon (Niki Ruben) pop up in bed after Jenny has a nightmare about The Chef, the killer they both have survived in the two prior movies. Although the characters have survived the actresses have changed. The original Jenny was played by Leah Ford, but in the final two films by Rachael Robbins. The character Sharon has been played by three different actresses, Anna-Karin Eskilsson, Natalie LaSpina and now in Christmas, Niki Rubin. Sharon has the unfortunate ongoing gag in the films of being insulted about her weight repeatedly. Not that any of the actresses have weight issues but that is what makes it a gag. The waking from a nightmare, scene is repeated with a couple other characters from the film for comic and shocking effect. The one with Gena Davis (Phil Hall) is shocking but this is a Christmas movie after all so lets keep the Christ in Christmas.
  The storyline is this There are two stores that share a courtyard, the Snotlocker, which is where Jenny, Sharon and there friends work. It is like Newbury comics if it was also a head shop. It is run by Mrs Johnson the English sister of the Miss Johnson (Debbie Rochon) from Bikini Bloodbath Carwash, The Mrs. is played in drag by Dick Boland. Next door is the Underground Deli run by Gena Davis which has a group of "foreign" girls working there headed by William Defoe (Margaret Rose Champagne). They have dueling Santa Claus displays where people can come and sit on Santa's lap outside their respective stores and apparently have some tension about the courts use. At one point there is a Santa fight between the two. How does any of this tie into the main plot which will include killing and running and screaming?
  Well if you have seen either of the first two movies then you know the killer is the Chef and he went after Jenny in a big way. Being the survivor of the films she is a bit traumatized by it so the mean William Defoe challenges her to meet at the Chef's grave at night. That way we get the killer back in the picture. Now the only thing missing is a party, and wouldn't it figure that the duel holiday party of the two shops will be held that night at Miss Johnson's house. Why miss John's house, because her sister is watching it while she is in the hospital of course. We visited the hospital with Jenny and Mrs. Johnson and see her in a coma, apparently from having her intestines ripped out in the second film.
  The film follows the tried and true formula of raising the killer from the dead and him showing up at the party and killing most of the guests. Many of the gags in the first two films are reprised for us in this movie. Mostly though there are lots of flashbacks to the first two films, and they just happen to be the flashbacks to women without clothes. Yes this third film goes out of its way to work in almost every boob shot from each of the first two films. As if that was not enough the beautiful women in this film also expose themselves on multiple occasions and everyone works in bikinis. Like I said in each of my last two reviews, I find the ridiculous slasher satire hilarious and really like these films. They are not for most people but are a fun sidebar from the horror I normally cover on this blog.
  This film although following a pattern established in the first two films has its own personality and a wonderful twist at the end. There are decent practical effects in the kills, again the music is good and there is another cameo by Lloyd Kaufman which include special effects.
Rating (5.0) 5.0 and up are recommended, some more recommended than others.

Don't Open Till Christmas (1984) Horror Christmas

Don't Open Till Christmas (1984) - A bit of a mess of a movie from the incomparable Dick Randall, it is a Christmas slasher film hoping to ride the coattails of the some what successful Pieces (1982) but had problems right from the start. The director and Actor Edmund Purdom only took the role because he was also given the directors role. Unfortunately he was not particularly successful at the directing part; So Producer Dick Randall had screen writer Derek Ford assist him. This still did not work so they were both scrapped from that role and Editor Ray Selfe and Writer Alan Birkinshaw co directed a film that was already a mess. Too tame for a Randall film they rewrote a good portion of the script adding in some very gruesome kills. They also inserted the strange stage performance from the lovely Caroline Munro near the end of the film. It is more noted for seeming completely alien to the film more than any performance Munro gave. When all was said and done the film really is a strange combination of parts. Some solid eighties synth  music by Des Dolan accompany some very tense and wonderful stalking scene. But the film is riddled with strange plot twist and dialog and the very violent deaths that sometimes come out of no where and end too quickly.
  The quick and dirty plot seems to encompass the film, a maniac is loose and is going around killing anyone dressed as Santa. The New Scotland yard is reeling from the events and the pressure to solve the case falls on Inspector Ian Harris (Purdom). That sums up the basic plot but boy, it is so much more than that. The masked killer has these crazy brown eyes just like many of the male characters in the film so guessing who the murderer is will be tough. Also hooded so no hair color is ever seen makes it that much harder. There are some people to consider though.
  The first obvious red herring is Cliff Boyd (Gerry Sundquist), the boyfriend of Kate Briosky (Belinda Mayne). They have the misfortune of watching Kate's Father (Laurence Harrington) be speared through the face while performing as Santa at a night club. Cliff who pan handles with Kate, playing the flute for his income is low on cash and could be in line for some inheritance if Kate ever calls the damn lawyer back. Because everything early on gears towards him as a suspect he can't be the killer. It is a bit ham handed how fast and hard the script points the finger at him. When you make someone obviously the killer the audience can generally figure out it is a dead end. A dead end even though the writers worked to have reasons to suspect this character. You have to know that money is not the motivating factor for this killer, everything points towards a psychopath just because of the brutality of the crimes.
  Then there is reporter Giles (Alan Lake) who shows up spouting cryptic things about Inspector Harris. He thinks Sgt. Powell (Mark Jones) could more easily solve the case  and get a promotion. He is strange and brown eyed and very definitely could be a suspect. Not to the characters in the film he is barely in it. Its just that the scenes he is in his personality is so strong and slightly off that he is definitely to be considered. The character of Giles really does not get fleshed out until the end of the film and by that time you are probably just wishing the film is over. He does have those crazy brown eyes though.
 As the film goes on even Inspector Harris becomes a suspect, well at least for the audience. He shows signs of cracking under the pressure to solve the case. He off camera is being berated by his higher ups and seems to become dour thinking he is going to be fired. When it becomes known that his last name is not Harris and that secretly he has been visiting the Parklands Mental Institute he is suddenly a real possibility. What is he doing at Parklands? Was he once a patient?
Hell, all of this leading towards the real killer is so clumsily done that it is frustrating to watch. Really its just a couple of scenes that are really done well in this film and those and the added elaborate fast murders make it interesting at all. The first kill scene in the very beginning of the film although not original is classic Giallo slasher type scene. A guy dressed as Santa comes into an abandoned alley to meet his woman. They go to the car they have thee and start to make out in the back seat. We get a point of view of the killer as he closes in on the car. The sound is the breathing through what must be a mask. He circles the car and annoys the man inside who thinks he is a voyeur. The man gets out and confronts our unseen killer. The killer's hand stabs out a long blade into the abdomen of the Santa. The woman screams and panics trying to get out the far side of the car. Through the killers eyes we watch her trapped in the alley looking desperately for a way past the killer. She backs against the wall of the alley and the killer again lashes out killing her.
 The other longer, and maybe too long scene to note is the cat and mouse between the killer and a drunk Santa who realizes his plight and flees into a the London Dungeon wax museum. There is quite a suspenseful scene before he fails to escape.Also in the scene is the poor woman working there, played by Paula Meadows who has an interesting career in real life as an erotic artist by the name Lynn Paula Russell
  There is a wide variety of Santa damage being done in this movie. Most are sudden and violent and gruesome, spear through the head, Long knife stabbing, burned in a fire, shot through the head, stabbed through the neck, it really is quite an amazing collection of deaths they added into this film. Overall though the film fails to really tell a consistent story, with Kate sort of becoming an investigator on her own and Harris suspended and a suspect in Kate's mind. It all gets so strange at the end with the revelation of who the killer is and his absolutely strange behavior.
  Similar to Christmas Evil (1980) The trauma that set the killer off totally has to do with an event on Christmas involving Santa and sex and in this case the death of his Mother. Walking in on Dad dressed as Santa, having sex with a blonde hottie is too much for the kid and his Mom to take. Unfortunately Mom falls down the stairs and dies forever setting Santa in the kids head as someone to hate. The very last scene too is unexpected but considering how strange the whole thing is it is not unreasonable.
I can't really say this is a film you should seek out unless the practical gore effects are your main interest. Even if that is the case they are things you have probably scene before. It is a remarkably underwhelming film and You can totally understand why the violent brutal attacks were added. If they had put this film out without them it would be a plodding psychological thriller.  So no recommendation will be made here.
Rating (3.2) 5.0 and up are recommended Some more recommended than others.

Saint (2010) Horror Christmas

Saint (2010) - original title "Sint"  "Your Parents have told you that he doesn't exist" Maybe something was lost in the translation but I thought they told us he does exist. Of course thatg is the happy Santa here in USA. This Movie's Christmas gift giver has a whole different scene over in Amsterdam and giving gifts ain't it. The legend as seen through the first scenes is that Saint Niklas is the head of a band of pirates. We see their ship in the harbor near a small village. He riding his horse and carrying his crosier he leads his men into the village, Amsterdam 1492. The people of the village have left out goods for him to collect but he is there for more than provisions. His men slide down chimneys of locked houses and knock in door. They pillage and kill and most of all steal children to take to Spain. I don't know why Spain? its just part of the story. Accept it so we can move on please. In the scene we are watching the villages rise up and fight back. They set the ship on fire and it seems that the bishop and his men perish. Still they didn't get the kids off the boat so...hmm. The curse that now comes from this has to do with the date of the uprising. It is said on any December 5th that falls on the full moon brings back Saint Niklas (Huub Stapel) and he and his men (called"Black Peters" because of the soot from sliding down chimneys) takes his revenge on Amsterdam.
  Its December 5th 1968 and its a full moon. Four kids stand around their wooden shoes by the stove chanting a Saint Nick poem. Mom and Dad are busily preparing for Christmas and it is a very nice scene. The pigs out in the barn are making a lot of noise though so Dad send the oldest boy Goert (Neils van den Berg) out to check on them. On his way back he see old Saint Nick on his horse and on his roof, unfortunately for Goert his whole family has been murdered. I am normally put off by two establishing time periods in a row but here it works, the first showing the antagonist and establishing the revenge curse. The second establishing the trauma of the protagonist setting up his motivation for the modern day story.
  Our Main characters are Frank (Egbert Jan Weeber) and Lisa (Caro Lenssen)are in the same class in high school. Permissive sexual attitudes are on display when the secret Santa gift giving includes many dildos. Boy I guess things have changed since I was in high school. Poor Frank get his gift a Dear John letter from his now former girlfriend Sophie (Escha Tanihati) who kicks him to the curb with a poem and a box full of his things. Some things apparently never change.  It appears that Frank had sex with another girl and Sophie found out. Little does she and her friend Natasha (Madelief Blanken) know that Lisa is the girl Frank cheated with. The three are friends and their dialog is very interesting as they walk home after class. This background is to establish that Frank and Lisa are in "Like" and there is an interest between the two. Also a conversation about it being December 5th and a full moon lets the characters do a modern retelling of the legend of Saint Niklas. The other character development is to bring us back in touch with Goert (Bert Luppes) who is a cop for the Amsterdam Police department. This is the first December 5th full moon since his family was slaughtered and he is trying to convince a strangely reluctant police chief to do more to protect the city. Goert has prepared a detailed report of what to expect but it is apparent from the reactions of the other cops that no one takes him seriously.
  We come back to Sophie who is an unwed Mother? (Maybe it could be a little brother?) We see that although an atheist she is not safe from harm from the Saint. In an effective scary scene we start off the movie proper. It is a shame that she has to die too soon.
  With the players in place all we have to do is wait for sundown and the arrival of the esteemed Saint. Frank who is dressed as he for the Christmas celebrations heads our with his black face painted friends for a night on the town. The party they are supposed to get to seems impossible to find even with a GPS. A bit of commentary on the endless nature of construction of Amsterdam's streets leads them to an encounter with the real Saint Nick. It is a good thing about this film, there is a tongue and cheat social commentary running through the film that is interesting and effective. Light and on the fringes it does not beat you over the head but it is present throughout.
  The run in with Saint Nick and his boys highlights another important part of the film, it is not afraid to use gore. Both of Franks friends are killed in this encounter and Frank while escaping some some pretty gruesome damage to the Black Peters. These effects are great including cutting one in half at the waste. As he drives away from the bad guys he is surrounded by cops responding to the ruckus and since the arm of a pirate is still attached to the door of his car, and he is wearing a Saint Niklas outfit he is mistaken for the killer and arrested. Complicating his plight is that Sophie is dead and little Timmy missing and since she so publicly broke up with him that very day he really looks rather guilty.
  All of this action and scary fun is mixed with the story of Goert as he tries to kill the immortal Saint. His story arc that intersects with Frank is to blow the bastard up on his ship ending the plague of deaths. This is no easy task though and before the end there is some scary scenes and action to be had. The best bit is Saint Nick showing up at a pediatric ward of a hospital. The kids react with such excitement before the terror sets in. It is a nice scene and one of the failings of the film is that there was not more of that. The scares that are in the film are great and I found myself wanting more of them. Instead we get a giant CGI set piece of the cops chasing Saint Nick as they speed through the streets of Amsterdam he rides across the rooftops of the city. When he finally comes crashing down, oh I loved the twitching arm it ends up just a way to bring Frank and Goert together and set up the climax sequence.
  Mixed in with the action are these little bits about the city government. The first thing I thought watching it was if the Saint and his men came back every December 5th when the moon is full that boy that's a lot of killing over time. Since the first time the event happened was 1492 it leaves a lot of dates that could be visiting days. How does nobody know this is happening. How many full moon December 5ths have there been in that time period? I could not let that go so I investigated so and was disappointed to find out that the dates used in the movie were not full moon dates. Since they were establishing characters I get why but still. Recent Dec. 5th dates with a full moon wwere in 1949, 1987, and 2006. The next two though are pretty far out in 2063 and then 2082. Enough of this side track though, even with the dates used in the movie there is no way that December 5th body counts would have gone unnoticed. Lucky for us writer / director Dick Maas explains it as a cover up.
  The final plan to do away with Nick is also not particularly well thought out by the characters. It is a decent idea but the line establishing the destruction of the ship Niklas arrives in and his death are not really established. So even when the climax happens you are left wondering, at least for a bit, if it will do the trick. Set up for a sequel in 2063 I am looking forward to seeing.
  I really enjoyed the film it had humor and at times was scary, decent action pieces although some of the CGI was a bit suspect. When all is said and done this was a fun Christmas movie to watch.
Rating (6.5) 5.0 and up are recommended, some more recommended than others.

Christmas Evil (1980) Horror Christmas

Christmas Evil (1980) - aka "You Better Watch Out" is a story about Harry (Brandon Maggart), an adult who was traumatized as a child when he discovered Santa was not real. Now a man in his forties he builds up to the snapping point because no one seems to want there to be magic in Christmas anymore, and the consequences of his breaking are deadly.
 The film starts with a Norman Rockwell like scene of a Mother (Ellen McElduff) with her boys sitting on the stairs on Christmas Eve. They are watching Santa, his Dad (Brian Hartigan) of course as he goes about his business in the living room. The kids are happy to see him eat the treats they left out and after a wink from Santa he goes up the chimney and the kids are sent to bed. Later that night young Harry hearing sounds downstairs goes to investigate. He is shock and traumatized to see Santa on his knees playing with the lingerie around his Mother's private parts. Santa is a fraud and he was a fool ever to think differently. Poor little kid runs up all the way to the attic. He is devastated and when he drops his snow globe while flashing to the scene downstairs and then cuts his hand he has a physical trauma to go with the psychological one.  This is the extent of his problems and although I think, everyone who watches this film will consider this a small harm the writer & director, Lewis Jackson  sees it differently.
  Now most of us realized long before we were told that Santa was not real. Living in a reality based world we did not believe in flying reindeer and magical men giving toys. Harry here must have been nine or ten when he discovered it. It seems a bit old but that is where the story has us so we will just accept it. I know for myself and growing up poor, either I was not very good or Santa was a guy in a suit with a fake beard at the VFW Post, who smelling of scotch had one present each year for us poor kids. The magic was not there for me. Nor for poor Harry who spend the rest of his life trying to find that Christmas magic again. He by the time we join him in the present is a middle manager in a toy factory the Jolly Dream. Not respected by his coworkers he is living a dreary life, no spouse or girlfriend, a dead end job, and little prospects for change. Still he strives though to make Christmas a special time. He surrounds himself with decorations, sleeps in a Santa hat and so wants to capture that special holiday feeling. He makes a beautiful authentic Santa outfit, and paints a red slay on his creeper white van, he really wants Christmas to be special again.
  There is something not right with the man though, and the picture shows us that right away. We see him with his binoculars looking into the houses of the neighborhood children. He is keeping a book with each kids name and listing their deeds both good and bad. Its really creepy him sneaking around houses, hiding in bushes and peeping through windows. He is particularly displeased with a mean little boy named Moss (Peter Neuman) who you have to be concerned may only get coal if Harry has his way. Since we know this is a horror movie we know this is the year he will snap and the first forty minutes is setup and then all the things that build up to his break.
  He hears the humbugs at the toy assembly line talking about how Christmas is the hardest time of the year. His bosses let him in on a scheme to get media coverage for giving toys to sick children but the details mean they get the coverage but the kids may not get the toys. He is bullied by a coworker, Frankie into taking a shift on the line only to find out later that the reason was a lie. He starts to lose it as we see because the director keeps flashing the scenes of his break just so we won't forget the reasons why. The snap comes at the company Christmas party and hearing about the hospital toy scam. He goes into the  warehouse and collects a bunch of toys to deliver to the hospital. Dressed as Santa he breaks into the neighbors houses and puts or takes toys from them.
 Eventually he is bothered by the memories of the people who sort of tried to spoil the season for him and he goes to hunt them down. He kills the executives from his company as they come out of church. He sneaks into his bully coworkers house and kills him. Word of the killer Santa is now all over the television. The subplot is of his relationship with his brother Phil (Jeffrey DeMunn, of recent Walking Dead fame). Phil has watched out for hi all these years and is the humanity trying to pull him back from his madness.

  The ending of the film is a bit crazy. After a confrontation with Phil harry heads back out into the night, only to have his van get stuck in the snow of a strange NY neighborhood. Here the people have been watching the news and when the children run up to Santa, the parents become concerned. Eventually the confrontation leads to Harry fleeing for his life, from torch wielding townsfolk. I am serious it is a lynch mob chasing Santa. The fantastical ending has to be seen to be believed. Overall I thought this film was a slow burn with too small an initial shock for any lasting damage to the main character Harry. It does not make a lot of sense that 35 years later he is just getting to the breaking point. There was the funny as shit bit where the cops are having a suspects line up with a line full of Santas. Still the movie was not very good in my view and I am not going to recommend it.
Rating (4.0) 5.0 and p are recommended, some more recommended than others.