Review #360: Christmas Evil (1980)
Twelve More Slays of Christmas #2 - Christmas Evil (1980)
Christmas Evil is a film about a foreman of a toy factory named Harry, who has a complicated relationship with Christmas. When he was a child, he learned that Santa Claus wasn't real by watching a (presumably) lewd encounter between his parents while his father was dressed as Santa, and ever since then he has been obsessed with becoming- or at least acting as- Santa Claus. He's watching the local children and keeping tabs on which ones are naughty or nice, he's making his own high-quality Santa costume- he's even taking toys from his workplace and delivering them to local orphans. But when some people push him just a bit too hard, he pushes back- and Harry ends up putting himself on the Naughty List.
I'll get this right out here: this was a fairly slow and dull movie. The first half moves at a glacial pace (no pun intended) and even once the action gets going, it still goes on for way longer than I would have liked. Santa goes to one place, then another, then another, then another, then he kills some people, then another, then another, then another... and each place he stays at for quite a while. I really think the whole leadup and payoff of the rampage could have been streamlined significantly (with fewer stops along the way) or sped up (with each stop being one single scene and then move on to the next), or both. I can't remember how many times I was looking at the clock throughout this film and that's never a good sign.
Much of the film had a cozy vibe, though, and I definitely appreciate all of the sights and sounds of 1980 Thanksgiving and Christmas. I almost feel like this could have been a better film if they removed all of the slasher elements- maybe just have Santa kill one person at the very end or something- and instead just focus more on this man's descent into madness as he learns that nobody really cares about his failed expectations of Christmas. There were a few scenes fleshing out a subplot between Harry and his brother, with his brother wanting to be able to look up to Harry but Harry being emotionally stunted and unable to move past this Christmas obsession. While I'm not really crazy about how it padded out this film (much like Harry's Santa suit, this movie had quite a bit of padding already) I do think it should have been a more significant part of a non-horror version of this movie.
According to the IMDB trivia the director views this movie as less of a slasher and more of an adaptation of Frankenstein; this comparison makes a lot of sense when you watch the scenes of Harry being chased through the streets by men with literal torches. But even with this in mind I still can't help but feel like something in this film fell short, and it really could benefit from a modern adaptation that picks one lane and sticks with it.
Overall I think this movie had some good bones but is just too dry and too slow for its own good.
Overall Rating: 5/10 Children Guarding Santa With Their Lives
Best Bit of IMDB Trivia: After Troma Entertainment released their DVD of the film, director Lewis Jackson stated that this release "was done under false pretenses. I thought that Troma owned the rights, but of course Troma never does what they say they're going to do. It turned out they'd bought the rights in a fire sale-there was literally a fire, and the people who owned the rights were bankrupt and Troma walked into the rubble and picked up whatever was lying around".
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