Release Year: 1980
Country: United States
Starring: Brandon Maggart, Jeffrey DeMunn, Dianne Hull, Andy Fenwick, Brian Neville, Joe Jamrog, Wally Moran, Gus Salud, Ellen McElduff, Brian Hartigan, Peter Neuman, Lance Holcomb, Elizabeth Ridge, Chris Browning, Tyrone Holmes.
Writer: Lewis Jackson
Director: Lewis Jackson
Cinematographer: Ricardo Aronovich
Producer: Pete Kameron, Burt Kleiner
Alternate Titles: You Better Watch Out, Terror in Toyland
Availability: Buy it from Amazon

I love Christmas. Sure, everyone says they love Christmas, but I really love Christmas. I wish it came once a month. I wish I had a fireplace, just so I could look up it every now and then to be sure Santa can get down with my treats. The last hour of “It’s a Wonderful Life” can play me like a cheap violin. And when they get to that part about the “richest man in town,” I’m probably bawling in my eggnog. Plus, I live in Florida, where Christmas is generally around 80 degrees, so I have to fight for my Christmas spirit.

Tied with Christmas for fun is Halloween. Of course, those are really the only fun holidays anyway. While my local government representatives seem to be ignoring my proposal to merge Thanksgiving with the Fourth of July, so that we can have a day where Americans can eat a lot and blow stuff up, luckily here at Teleport City, we get to combine the good aspects of Halloween and Christmas, in the form of Evil Santa.

1980′s Christmas Evil is, I believe, the first of the Killer Santa Claus movies, which is odd if true. Used properly, Santa can be almost as creepy as a clown or a ventriloquist dummy, yet is sadly underutilized in popular culture. Maybe Santa is still too powerful a symbol. Luckily, maverick writer/director Lewis Jackson decided to blaze a trail by creating one of the first psychotic movie Santa Clauses, opening the floodgates for killer leprechauns, Uncle Sams, and perhaps, one day, cupids (By the way, Christmas Evil had one of the greatest taglines ever: “He’ll sleigh you.”).

On Christmas night, 1947, two kids spy on Santa coming down the chimney. While one brother feels the jolly man is really their father in disguise, the other believes they have actually caught ol’ Santa in the act. Speaking of catching Santa in the act, the kids stick around just a little too long and catch Santa giving mom an extra special present, if you know what I mean. This freaks out the older brother so much that he runs up to the attic and starts cutting his hand on a Christmas ornament.

We cut to the present and observe a grown Harry go through his daily routine. That few minutes of Santa and mom really must have affected Harry, as he now sleeps in a Santa suit in a house full of creepy Thomas Nast Santa lithographs and evil looking toys. While shaving he makes a Santa beard out of foam and starts “Ho ho hoing.” Only thing is, for a guy obsessed with Santa Claus, his “ho ho hos” come out more like a loud “Hah,” sounding more like Mr. Magoo. Next he spies on the neighborhood children and marks them down into his bad or good children books.

And what better job for a man with a severe Santa fixation than middle management at a toy factory? Harry works at the Jolly Dream Toy Factory, a factory that churns out those cheap plastic toys that you find in the Dollar Store. One of Harry’s co-workers is a slob who hates Christmas and pressures Harry into working his shift while the slob goes to a bar. After taking abuse at work, Harry goes home and scarily hums “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” After this, he makes up a new Santa suit and paints a sleigh on the side of his van.

Walking home, he engages the neighborhood kids in conversation. He asks the kids what they wished for that day. All the kids have innocent little-kid wishes, except for Moss Garcia, the local bad kid, who wishes for a lifetime subscription to Penthouse magazine. This infuriates Harry, who takes the bad book out and reviews Moss’s file. Among his crimes are throwing rocks at dogs, using profane language, picking his nose, having impure thoughts, and poor body hygiene. Later that night, Harry sneaks up to Moss’ house on an intelligence gathering mission. After watching him be a generally shitty little kid, Harry coats his face and hands with mud, and leaves a mark on the side of the house. I never heard of the real Santa doing this, but hey, Harry oughta know, right?

Harry attends a Christmas party at work, where he intently watches a PR video explain how the company is donating toys to the local “Hospital for the Retarded.” The boss comes up and introduces Harry to the mastermind behind the video. Harry grills PR guy about the specifics of the toys for the hospital. Ad guy admits that he doesn’t really know anything about the donation program, he just worked on the video as a ploy to get some publicity for Jolly Time. Which sounds pretty reasonable to me, except it seems like a toy factory wouldn’t really have a problem with publicity around Christmas, unless they’re one of the companies that constantly ends up on those “Top Dangerous Christmas Toys” list.

Christmas Eve, Harry loads up bags of toys and puts on his new Santa suit. He breaks into houses and leaves toys for the good kids, while leaving a bag of either mud or coal for Moss. After that, he drives to the hospital and gives bags of presents to the kids and staff. Before handing out the presents, Harry practices his “Merry Christmas,” stressing different syllables to get the best effect. For a guy who is obsessed with Santa, he ought to know that Santa stresses the first syllable of Merry. Has he never watched a Christmas special? He finally gets it right, and everyone loves Santa. At this point, I was practically screaming, “Where’s the Christmas evil?” I mean, other a couple of scenes establishing Harry as psychotic, he seems alright to me.

The Christmas evil finally picks up as Harry drives to a church, apparently looking for his boss and Ad Guy, who are inside looking bored. As church lets out, two guys start messing with Santa, so Harry stabs one in eye with a tin soldier, axes the other one, then takes off in the van.

He gets pulled into a celebration at a bar, where he dances with some kids, and leaves them with the creepy message, “Now I want you to remember to be good boys and girls, respect your mothers and fathers and do what they tell you. Obey your parents and learn a whole lot. Now, if you do all of this, I’ll make sure you get good presents from me every year. But if you’re bad boys and girls, your name goes in the bad boys and girls book. And I’ll bring you something horrible.” Pause. “Hahahahahahah.” That speech would have scared the crap out of me as a kid, and in fact, when he starts in on his Mr. Magoo laugh, a little girl does an unscripted jump, which would be the least of my reactions.

Next on Santa’s list is the Christmas hating co-worker. He tries to smother the guy with his toy bag, then stabs him with a star. News is getting around about the church stabbings, and an anchorman tells citizens to avoid anyone dressed as Santa, or turn in anyone they know dressed as Santa (remember, this is Christmas Eve). This leads to a police lineup of Santa Clauses, which would make a great Christmas card (speaking of great Christmas cards, a friend of mine downloaded one of those topless Molly Ringwald photos from her “erotic thriller,” enclosed it in a clip-art wreath, and mailed it to friends. Pure genius).

Harry continues through different neighborhoods, much to the delight of the kids. He makes an impassioned speech to some assembled parents to explain the kids’ love of Santa: “They want someone who notices who’s good and who’s bad. They want someone to take responsibility so they don’t have to make those kinds of decisions.” The parent’s ain’t buying it, and an irate dad tries to stab St. Nick with a switchblade, but ends up on the wrong end of the blade. The parents start chasing him with burning torches, which is either an homage to “Frankenstein,” or just really weird. Why would they have torches in a city?

Harry goes to his brother’s house to clear up some sort of long-standing family conflict. His reception from the parents is weighing on him. He can’t believe that adults don’t want Santa Claus anymore; that they don’t believe in anything. His brother chokes him and dumps Harry behind the wheel of his Santavan. Harry wakes up and delivers of those “right turn, Clyde” punches to his brother, which would be my second choice for this year’s Christmas card. He drives away crying as the torch-wielding citizens chase him. He crashes through a guardrail, and then the van flies to the moon. Yes, you read that right, the van flies to the moon, as Harry recites the last phrase of “The Night Before Christmas.”

Jackson could have explored several different paths that would have made Christmas Evil a much more entertaining film. He could have done a straightforward tongue in cheek slasher movie that would have Santa going after the “bad” people in new and inventive ways. He could have played up Harry’s frustrations at work more, turning it to a character study of a man only able to relate to people as Santa Claus. Instead, it seems like both ideas were considered, then sort of grafted together, leaving a weird, disjointed movie.

Christmas Evil is full of those “Hey, wait a minute” moments. For example, why does Harry not know how to laugh like Santa? If seeing Santa and his mom together freaked him out so much, wouldn’t he think that kids who see Santa killing their parents would be even more traumatized? And wouldn’t his childhood trauma cause him to kill Santas instead of emulating them? And why the hell does his van suddenly gain magical powers and fly?

Although a pioneer, Christmas Evil never really delivers on a great premise. It’s not a bad movie, although the fast forward button certainly helps. As stated before, if the movie had gone a little more towards slasher territory, it would probably be a lot more amusing. A serious study of Harry’s frustration and alienation would have been more interesting. The fact that Harry just wants people to believe in something is kind of interesting, too, but it isn’t really stressed. By jamming all these different elements together, Christmas Evil ends up just mediocre, although it does have its moments, notably that jaw-dropping final scene.

What it could really use is a midget sidekick dressed as an elf.