I was 12. Plus I was a major anti-Reagan mini-liberal who despaired the way Russians were always portrayed as villains throughout 80s cinema, and I felt honour bound to support a film that set out to break that mold. Did I mention I was 12? Blame my Uncle Doug--he paid for the tickets.
Not everything I've written for FLICK ATTACK has made it to the show. Mr. Lott insists that these rapidly aging reviews will be posted eventually, but until then I'm just going to assume that they have been:
Rejected By Rod(?)
The Convent
(2000)
The Convent is one of those horror movies that was made with such obvious affection by its filmmakers I’m able to forgive the fact that it literally plunges a knife into the heart of its least hateful character 30 minutes into its running time and then makes us wait another 20 before Adrienne Barbeau shows up to kick some serious demon nun ass.
The movie begins memorably with a hot young brunette in a Catholic schoolgirl uniform walking into a church and batting away at the assembled sisters (and father) with a Louisville slugger before setting them ablaze and blasting them with a shotgun, all to the sweet sound of Lesley Gore’s classic “You Don’t Know Me”.
It then cuts to 40 years later, where the location of this massacre is the destination of choice for a trio of truly obnoxious fraternity assholes, their virgin pledge, two girlfriends and the super cute, sarcastic goth girl who’s just like the woman I imagined I’d end up marrying back when I was 14 (which obviously didn’t happen).
The trouble starts when super cute goth girl is sacrificed by a quartet of pathetic Satanists, which causes the demons that necessitated the previous massacre to rise up from wherever they went the last time this all went down. In the end, the only person who can stop the demons from raising the antichrist is the hot 50-something version of the hot schoolgirl who took care of the problem the first time.
Needless to say, Adrienne Barbeau is truly awesome as the foul-mouthed, liquored up, tight jeans wearing demon slayer and is—along with the film’s sly sense of humor—the main reason to ignore the its obvious deficits and give it a chance.
Clearly inspired by Night of the Demons and Evil Dead II, The Convent is better than the former and nowhere close to the latter, which is exactly how it should be in a fair and just world such as our own.
For some the capsule review comes easy, but for me it’s an exercise in pure frustration. As a means of self-discipline I have decided to confront that which tortures me through this continuing feature—B-Movie Bullsh*t in 50 Words or Less.
Pyun’s recent attempts to beat out Ed Wood and Al Adamson for the title of All-Time Worst Director make it a real shock to discover that his first film is actually pretty decent. Horsley plays Talon, a prince/merc who gets embroiled in a complicated plot to oust tyrant Lynch.
Not everything I've written for FLICK ATTACK has made it to the show. Mr. Lott insists that these rapidly aging reviews will be posted eventually, but until then I'm just going to assume that they have been:
There are many thoughts that leap to mind while returning to Red Sonja decades after you’ve last seen it, but the one I kept focusing on was, “Where the heck did Brigitte Nielsen’s breasts go?”
Now, I do have an admitted tendency to over-focus on this sort of thing and I should probably get some help and talk to someone about it, but I’m not wrong in noticing that the international 80s Amazon’s dimensions here in her cinematic debut are somewhat less Amazonian than those found in her later films, which to my mind suggests a direct correlation between getting enormous implants and subsequently starring in a series of shittier and shittier movies.
I may be alone in expressing this, but I think Nielsen actually showed some (unmet) promise here in her film debut. Sure, she’s often flatly unintelligible, but then so is her co-star and that didn’t stop him from starring in Batman & Robin (and becoming the governor of California). As an action heroine, though, she’s entirely credible and was probably the only actress/model of the period with a build both substantial and sexy enough to take on the role of Robert E. Howard’s most famous female character. She was just missing the breasts, which she must have noticed and decided to correct for her future work (which sadly never included that proposed big screen adaptation of She-Hulk she was born for).
The rest of the film manages to serve as a solid example of 80s sword and sorcery silliness. Not as memorable as Cozzi’s Hercules films, but still better than Conan the Destroyer and its many low-budget clones (none of which were foolish enough to copy Milius’ superior original), Red Sonja is a serviceable timewaster lessened only by its distinct lack of a D-Cup.
For some the capsule review comes easy, but for me it’s an exercise in pure frustration. As a means of self-discipline I have decided to confront that which tortures me through this continuing feature—B-Movie Bullsh*t in 50 Words or Less.
After she inherits a creepy old house, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark becomes an unwanted neighbor in a conservative small town. Cassandra Peterson brings her iconic character to the big screen in a fun, cheesy comedy whose dependence on boob jokes is so blatant it would make Dolly Parton blush.
Giorgio Fini is the world’s greatest opera tenor, but the thought of returning to perform at the Metropolitan Opera House—the site of his most humiliating disaster—is enough to turn him mute before a public performance in Boston. His loyal manager, Henry, finds the city’s best ear, nose, and throat doctor, who just happens to be a gorgeous blond named Pamela Taylor. At first Fini refuses to be treated by a “nurse”, but submits when Henry makes up a story about a tenor he managed who lost his voice when he refused to be examined by a non-Italian doctor. Dr. Taylor quickly diagnoses that Fini’s laryngitis is psychosomatic and “cures” him by painfully stabbing him in the butt with a B-12 shot. Fini is so grateful he begins to court the beautiful doctor, even though he is a married man with two children. He eventually convinces her to join him in San Francisco, where they embark on a bittersweet love affair doomed from the moment of its conception. Having been convinced by Dr. Taylor to return to the Met, Fini deals with his heartbreak by giving the greatest performance of his life.
Okay, I know what you’re thinking—“What the fuck is Allan on? Does he have a fever? In what universe is a light mainstream romantic comedy about fucking opera anything even approaching a B-Movie?”
And here are my answers to all of those questions—“Mostly Nyquil. Yes, but it’s not as bad as it was yesterday, where it forced me to miss my family’s X-Mas celebration. This one.”
Y’see, despite being made by a major studio with a $19 million budget (which those of you who read my Megaforce entry know was a very significant amount of money at the time) and its classical music setting, Yes, Giorgio is as perfect an example I can name of one of my very favourite sub-genres of exploitation movies—the starsploitation flick.
It’s a very simple concept that dates back all the way to the silent era. Take a non-acting celebrity whose fame and name recognition is off the charts and throw them into the movie with the hope that their legion of adoring fans flock to the theater to see them. I’ve already mentioned the amazing Viva Knievel! on the blog, but other classic examples include such disasters as 1955’s Sincerely Yours (in which Liberace played a totally heterosexual concert performer whose sudden deafness compels him to stay at home and change the lives of the strangers he sees suffering outside his apartment window), 1980’s Can’t Stop the Music (in which The Village People play totally heterosexual dudes who come together to form a gay disco group called The Village People), 1980’s The Jazz Singer (in which Neil Diamond plays a wannabe rock star whose father, Laurence Olivier, is so over-the-top Jewish it actually borders on being anti-Semitic), and 2002’s Crossroads (in which Britney Spears did something with some people in a movie I’ve never seen).
That’s not to say that every starsploitation effort is a failure. A Hard Day’s Night is one of the greatest musical comedies of all time, despite starting out as a way to make a quick buck off of the Beatles’ “fad”; Jailhouse Rock led to Elvis Presley becoming one of the biggest stars in Hollywood; and 8 Mile gave us the wonderful sight of Barbra Streisand forced to announce Eminem’s name at the Oscars.
In fact, the world of starsploitation is so rich there are examples of the genre that actually starred genuine movie stars. For example, 1978’s Sextette was made to capitalize on the popularity of Mae West, despite the fact that anyone with eyes or ears could have told the producers that the film’s octogenarian star had no business returning to her role of alluring sexpot. And then there’s 2010’s The Expendables (and its upcoming 2012 sequel), whose whole raison d'etre is to excite action fans by giving them glimpses of their favourite movie tough guys on screen in one cinematic experience.
So, given this rich history of Hollywood trying to make a buck by exploiting a celebrity’s non-acting fame, it was probably inevitable that someone would try and turn Luciano Pavarotti into a movie star. He was, after all, the most famous opera tenor in the world—capable of selling out arena’s everywhere he went. Imagine how much money could be made if those same fans flocked to movie theaters to see him sing!
When Peter Fetterman, the producer of Yes, Giorgio, decided to approach Pavarotti his dream project was a bio-film about Enrico Caruso, but the great tenor had no interest in taking on a potentially difficult role for which he’d probably receive mostly negative comparisons. He insisted that he wanted to play a romantic lead, so Fetterman bought the rights to Anne Piper’s novel, which told the story of the love affair that developed between the world’s greatest tenor and the beautiful doctor who cures his vocal problems.
This decision led to some obvious problems. Pavarotti was known for his voice, but not his physical attractiveness. Would audiences balk at watching the large man romance a much more conventionally attractive actress? Plus, the native Italian speaker didn’t have the best grasp of the English language, and would end up having to recite many of his lines phonetically throughout filming.
To face these dilemmas Fetterman hired Norman Steinberg (then best known for his contribution to Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles) to write the screenplay, and Franklin J. Schaffner, the Oscar-winning director of Patton, to oversee the production.
Schaffner was definitely an odd choice for the director’s seat. His reputation had been made as a serious director who tackled historical subjects (Papillion, Nicholas and Alexandra), politics (The Best Man) and intelligent science fiction (Planet of the Apes, The Boys From Brazil). Steinberg’s screenplay turned Piper’s novel into a lightly comic musical romance with a bittersweet ending, which made it unlike any movie project the talented director had tackled before. The best explanation for why he agreed to do it can be found in the previous year’s Sphinx, his expensive Egyptian-themed thriller that flopped mightily at the B.O. In all likelihood Schaffner bought into Fetterman’s assertion that Pavarotti’s millions of fans would flock to theaters in record numbers and help restore his Hollywood reputation.
For the role of the doctor who falls in love with the singer, the filmmaker’s hired Kathryn Harrold, a knockout blond best known for her role as Albert Brooks' on-again, off-again girlfriend in the classic comedy Modern Romance. In the end she would prove to be the film’s one saving grace.
Unfortunately for Schaffner and Fetterman, Yes, Giorgio didn’t cause Pavoratti’s admirers to run to movie theaters. The film only earned 1/10th of its budget back in domestic gross and was savaged by critics. Much of the blame rested on the fact that the audience most likely to appreciate its light hearted comedy were put off by the thought of lengthy opera sequences, while serious opera fans were put off by seeing their idol in such a flimsy vehicle.
Viewed today (or more accurately, yesterday—Christmas Day, 2011) Yes, Giorgio, lacks the misbegotten excess of such classic late 70s/early 80s musical disasters like The Apple, Xanadu, and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (itself another classic example of starsploitation), which is ultimately to its detriment. Without the benefit of extreme bad taste to turn it into a guilty pleasure, the film forces us to take its characters seriously, which is a huge mistake, since—as written by Steinberg and portrayed by Pavarotti—its title character is an unlikable, sexist man-child whose cavalier attitude towards adultery makes him one of the screen’s least likely romantic comedy protagonists. With his boyish speaking voice and round body, Pavarotti’s Fini is less a romantic lead than a big enormous baby.
Which is a huge problem for Kathryn Harrold, who is faced with the insurmountable challenge of making us believe her smart, funny, likable character would so much as touch Fini with a 50 foot pole, much less declare her love for him in one of the more painful scenes the genre has ever produced. The film ends with her running out of the Met, supposedly unable to face the heartbreak of seeing him give his career-defining performance, but for the viewer it feels instead like a sudden spark of sanity—as if she’s suddenly realized what’s going on and decides to get the fuck out of Dodge.
But, ironically, the thing that hurts the film the most is its reliance on Pavarotti’s famous voice. He sings a lot in Yes, Giorgio, but there’s a cheesy “greatest hits” aspect to the opera scenes (“Hey,” you say to yourself, “that’s the one from that Bugs Bunny cartoon!”), and his brief attempt at a pop standard like “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” only serves to highlight his inability to perform outside of his wheelhouse. I try my best to never fast forward through a movie I plan on giving a B-Movie Bullsh*t analysis, but during the final 1/3 of the film I gave in and sped through all but the very last of the musical sequences. Truth is, I probably would have done so sooner if I wasn’t already doped up on cough medicine.
I admit it probably takes a fever and the calming narcotics of green Nyquil (it tastes like Sambuca!) to truly consider a $19 million dollar movie about opera an exploitation B-Movie, but the truth is that it isn’t all about sex, violence, monsters, and car crashes. Sometimes it truly is about fat, bearded opera singers speaking a language they don’t understand in a movie whose limitations were set in stone by their own ego.
I originally wrote this 5 years ago and reposted it last Christmas. What you call laziness, I call TRADITION!
A few years ago I decided to take a look at the movies I considered to be my all-time favourites and try to figure out what they had in common--what exactly it was about them that I responded to the most. Eventually I concluded that the kinds of films I love are ones that aren't afraid to acknowledge the dreamlike nature of the medium without sacrificing emotional verisimilitude in the process. That's why, for example, I love the films of Wes Anderson, but have never felt much affection for the work of David Lynch. Both are talented auteurs who strive to bring their unique visions to the screen, but for all of Anderson's whimiscal touches, his films are still grounded in an emotional reality I can understand and connect with, while the characters in Lynch's films are completely alien to me and--as a result--much more obviously artificial. All of my favourite filmmakers (Bob Fosse, Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, David Fincher, David Cronenberg, Robert Altman, Milos Forman, P.T. Anderson, Peter Weir to name nine of them off of the top of my head) implicitly understand that great art should invoke empathy and that as long as that is accomplished, they are then free to do whatever the hell they like.
I bring this up because the scene I have chosen to name the #1 most memorable moment in Christmas holiday horror history impresses me as much as it does because it is a dreamy, sweet ending to what has otherwise been a very dark and discomfiting picture. After spending the entire movie watching the gradual mental disintegration of a hopeless individual, we are at the very end allowed to escape from the darkness in an instant of pure fantasy. It doesn't matter that the moment makes no sense and isn't explained (is it a dream or did it really happen?), it simply is and it is wonderful.
The film is 1980s You Better Watch Out (or, as it is better known, Christmas Evil) and though the film bears a superficial resemblence to the more infamous Silent Night, Deadly Night, they are actually as different as two films about homicidal maniacs in Santa suits could be. You Better Watch Out is actually closer in spirit to films like Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and Roman Polanski's Repulsion than it is to a traditional slasher movie. Rather than being a movie about a madman's killing spree, it is instead about what has led that madman to go on that spree in the first place. Stylistically it is the kind of raw and dirty movie that defined the cinema of the 70s. It's one of those movies where its obvious low budget and grainy cinematography adds to rather than subtracts from its sense of realism, which only makes its surreal ending that much more thrilling to watch.
The only film written and directed by Lewis Jackson, the movie tells the story of Harry Stadling (Brandon Maggert, a familiar character actor best known these days for his having sired the pale white songstress Fiona Apple) a middle-aged man who works as a low-level manager in a low-rent toy factory. Its the perfect job for the quiet, lonely bachelor, since--unbeknowst to the rest of the world--he harbors a unique fixation for all things Clausian. The roots of his obsession go back to when he was young and he saw his parents engage in some mildly fetishistic foreplay in front of the fireplace while his dad wore the Santa suit he had donned to surprise his two sons earlier that night. Beyond filling his apartment with every Santa artifact he can find, Harry also indulges his passion by sleeping in Santa Claus pajamas, listening to Christmas carols and--more disturbingly--keeping track of the activities of the neighborhood children in books labeled "Naughty" and "Nice".
It comes as no surprise that Harry's strange hobby wrecks havoc on his social life. He has no friends and is mocked as a loser by his co-workers. The neighborhood kids are charmed by his own childlike demeanor, but he wisely keeps his distance from them. His only real contact with the world comes from his brother's family, but as the film begins Harry has already started the inexorable journey from eccentricity to madness and he starts avoiding them as well. At work he becomes angry when he discovers that the owner's pledge to donate toys to a local hospital for disable children is purely a publicty stunt and very few toys are actually going to make it into the children's hands. Having already started to design his own ornate Santa Claus costume, Harry decides to correct his company's fraud by stealing toys from the factory floor and giving them to the hospital himself. To add authenticity to his delivery, he takes the time to paint the image of a sled on the side of his van.
Having taken care of the nice part of his list, Harry decides it's now time to address the issue of the naughty. To that end he stands outside of a local church after the end of a Christmas Eve mass. There he is ridiculed by a quartet of obnoxious yuppies. He quickly shuts them up when he stabs three of them to death with one of the toy soldiers he made himself. After he escapes from the murder scene, he finds himself the center of attention at a private Christmas party, where he gets to truly enjoy the status that comes from being Father Christmas. After this brief ego-boost, he goes back to his Naughty-punishing mission and goes to the house of a co-worker who has previously taken advantage of him. There he gets a uncomfortable glimpse at reality when he briefly becomes stuck inside the house's chimney and is forced to get inside using a window instead. When he finally gets into the house, he uses the same toy soldier as before to kill his co-worker.
The news quickly spreads that a homicidal Santa is rampaging through the streets of the unnamed city. The police organize a lineup of suspects, but Harry is not among them. Armed with a sackful of toys he returns to his neighborhood and starts handing out presents to the kids, which immediately arouses the suspicions of his neighbors. One of them threatens Harry with bodily harm, but he is stopped when the kids intervene and allow their benefactor to escape in his van. As he drives to his brother's house, a mob (complete with torches!) forms and begins to search the streets for him. His brother is horrified to discover that Harry is the madman responsible for all of the mayhem being reported on TV. They end up coming to blows and his brother strangles Harry until he is unconscious. Afraid that he has killed him, he puts Harry back into the van, only to discover that Santa still has some life in him yet.
It is at this point, as Harry escapes from his brother while being pursued by the (torch-wielding!) mob that the jaw-dropping moment that ends the film unspools before the audience's disbelieving eyes.
That, my friends, is pure genius.
And thus endeth the House of Glib's countdown of the most memorable moments in Christmas holiday horror history. While I doubt it was at all enlightening, I know I had a good time, which is all that matters to a selfish bastard like me.
Not everything I've written for FLICK ATTACK has made it to the show. Mr. Lott insists that these rapidly aging reviews will be posted eventually, but until then I'm just going to assume that they have been:
Rejected By Rod(?)
The Redeemer: Son of Satan!
(1978)
It seems appropriate that what ultimately saves this obscure late 70s proto-slasher is a memorably theatrical performance by T.G. Finkbinder as the title character. That’s right, The Redeemer redeems The Redeemer, but it’s a close call, because the filmmakers commit more than their fair share of cinematic sin before the end credits roll.
In a plot that predates the similar SlaughterHigh by 8 years, a group of six assholes are tricked into attending their 10-year high school reunion, only to discover that they have actually been gathered together to be fatally punished for their supposed sins against humanity—specifically their avarice, vanity, gluttony, haughtiness, licentiousness and perversion.
Unfortunately, as written the victims are all so clearly guilty of their “sins” it’s hard not to assume that the filmmakers are on the killer’s side, which is especially disturbing when you consider that the “pervert” The Redeemer punishes is simply a woman in a normal (albeit clandestine) lesbian relationship.
But what confuses the film’s potentially ugly moral stance is the revelation that the killer is actually a priest working as the personal hand of the sub-titular Son of Satan. What are we supposed to make of this? Is organized religion really a front for the Devil? Is the idea that the victims’ supposed “sins” are so minor and commonplace any one of us could find ourselves at the mercy of The Redeemer? And why is the adolescent antichrist busy punishing earthly sinners, instead of encouraging them like a more typical antichrist would?
Thinking about it all makes my head hurt, but—as I mentioned in the first paragraph—the film’s confused themes are made bearable by the presence of its antagonist, who manages to walk that fine line between campy fun and genuine creepiness. Both ahead of its time and unfortunately retrograde, The Redeemer is a highly flawed, but interesting film that deserves a place in the slasher canon its obscurity has previously denied it.
For some the capsule review comes easy, but for me it’s an exercise in pure frustration. As a means of self-discipline I have decided to confront that which tortures me through this continuing feature—B-Movie Bullsh*t in 50 Words or Less.
The former Vince Furnier is Vince Raven, a rock star who visits his childhood home to shoot a music video. His trip coincides with the arrival of dangerous packs of dogs anticipating their lycanthropic master. Cooper’s voice is dubbed by another actor is this very accurately titled Spanish-Italian fiasco.
“Don’t you recognize me, Drake? You doubled for me on McQ in seventy-four.”
“Duke? Is that you? But you died 2 years ago. I know ‘cause I got thrown out of your memorial service for hitting on Tatum O’Neal. I mean, how was I supposed to know she was only 15?”
“It’s me, Drake.”
“Then does that mean what I think it means?”
“That depends on what you think it means.”
“Am I in Heaven?”
“Turn around and you tell me, pardner. What do you see?”
I just realized I haven't taken the time to properly introduce my new banner, whose long awaited appearance finally marked the true end of The House of Glib. It's the creation of my friend and co-worker, Nicolas Lambert, who everyone thinks is all exotic because he's from France, but who I really know is just a big nosed geek under that suave sophisticated exterior.
Before he began I gave him a disk filled with 505 different posters to choose from and I thought it would be fun to reveal the 5 posters he sampled from to create his masterpiece.
The only one I recognized immediately when he first showed the banner to me was:
A 1986 Italian movie (aka Vendetta dal futuro), this apocalyptic cyborg classic stars an actor I really only know as the dumb love interest in Elvira, Mistress of the Dark and his brief appearances in all of the Farrelly Brothers movies. I haven't seen it.
The next one I have seen. In fact, I coincidentally watched it for the first time just a few days before Nicolas revealed his finished work to me:
Made in 1976, Hollywood Boulevard is a hilarious satire of low budget filmmaking that was thrown together by Joe Dante and Allan Arkush after producer Jon Davison bet their boss Roger Corman that they could make a movie for less than $50,000 using stock footage from other New World films. They won the bet and miraculously managed to make a genuinely entertaining film at the same time.
The thrilling automobile imagery comes from one of the many movies I actually do have buried in my private collection, but shamefully haven't gotten around to watching yet. (At this point the pile is probably close to 500 movies deep. Maybe more):
Everything I've heard about 1975's Race With the Devil tells me its a classic. I really do have to get around to watching it sometime soon.
To mess with me, Nicolas threw in some background imagery from the Spanish language poster of one of my all-time favourite bad movies, knowing I wouldn't be able to guess where it was from in a million-billion years:
I have an original vintage copy of the English language one-sheet of 1978's Starcrash and it looks nothing like this one, which features two heroic characters who bear no resemblence to the characters they're supposed to represent. The woman is at least as hot as the actual Stella Starr, Caroline Munro, but the dude doesn't look like any of the men in the movie. At all.
And finally, to bring some classic Man-in-suit B-Movie Bullsh*t flair to the whole thing, Nicolas grabbed the title from the most famous Japanese movie of all time:
So that's how that happened. I hope you like it half as much as I do and if you don't, what the eff is effing wrong with you?
Not everything I've written for FLICK ATTACK has made it to the show. Mr. Lott insists that these rapidly aging reviews will be posted eventually, but until then I'm just going to assume that they have been:
Rejected By Rod(?)
Frogs
(1972)
You can’t really blame Frogs’ producers for their blatant deception. I mean, there are frogs in Frogs, but they alone aren’t the only animals who turn against the various unlikable characters who inhabit the story. In reality, the film should have more accurately been called Traditionally Harmless Animals Who Have Suddenly Decided To Attack People Because Of Pollution, which I will concede would have been a lot harder to market.
The people in question are a bunch of rich assholes who live under the thumb of patriarch Ray Milland and who have gathered together on his private island to celebrate his latest birthday. You know Ray is a bad guy because: a) he’s rich and b) is in a wheelchair, so its only natural that he has no problem keeping the bugs away from his estate with a very eco-unfriendly pesticide. It’s only a matter of time before the local animal population (which admittedly includes a lot of frogs) calls “Bullshit!” on this and starts attacking everyone, including the studly tree-hugging photographer played by Sam Elliot, whose lack of a mustache is eerily discomfiting.
Frogs manages to avoid being as ridiculous as that same year’s Night of the Lepus, but that’s not a good thing. While watching giant bunny rabbits stalking Janet Leigh is just stupid enough to hold your attention, the same can’t be said for people being hunted by normal sized fauna. Despite the goofy promise inherent in its concept and infamous poster, Frogs is just plain dull.
For some the capsule review comes easy, but for me it’s an exercise in pure frustration. As a means of self-discipline I have decided to confront that which tortures me through this continuing feature—B-Movie Bullsh*t in 50 Words or Less.
The best Canadian horror film ever filmed in Wisconsin, The Pit pits adolescent Sammy Snyders against a world that (justifiably) considers him a perverted creep. He gets his revenge thanks to the titular location, which is filled with carnivorous beasts. Genuinely unsettling, the film also features a classic “twist” ending.
The film is 1980s You Better Watch Out (or, as it is better known, Christmas Evil) and though the film bears a superficial resemblence to the more infamous Silent Night, Deadly Night, they are actually as different as two films about homicidal maniacs in Santa suits could be. You Better Watch Out is actually closer in spirit to films like Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and Roman Polanski's Repulsion than it is to a traditional slasher movie. Rather than being a movie about a madman's killing spree, it is instead about what has led that madman to go on that spree in the first place. Stylistically it is the kind of raw and dirty movie that defined the cinema of the 70s. It's one of those movies where its obvious low budget and grainy cinematography adds to rather than subtracts from its sense of realism, which only makes its surreal ending that much more thrilling to watch.
It comes as no surprise that Harry's strange hobby wrecks havoc on his social life. He has no friends and is mocked as a loser by his co-workers. The neighborhood kids are charmed by his own childlike demeanor, but he wisely keeps his distance from them. His only real contact with the world comes from his brother's family, but as the film begins Harry has already started the inexorable journey from eccentricity to madness and he starts avoiding them as well. At work he becomes angry when he discovers that the owner's pledge to donate toys to a local hospital for disable children is purely a publicty stunt and very few toys are actually going to make it into the children's hands. Having already started to design his own ornate Santa Claus costume, Harry decides to correct his company's fraud by stealing toys from the factory floor and giving them to the hospital himself. To add authenticity to his delivery, he takes the time to paint the image of a sled on the side of his van.
The news quickly spreads that a homicidal Santa is rampaging through the streets of the unnamed city. The police organize a lineup of suspects, but Harry is not among them. Armed with a sackful of toys he returns to his neighborhood and starts handing out presents to the kids, which immediately arouses the suspicions of his neighbors. One of them threatens Harry with bodily harm, but he is stopped when the kids intervene and allow their benefactor to escape in his van. As he drives to his brother's house, a mob (complete with torches!) forms and begins to search the streets for him. His brother is horrified to discover that Harry is the madman responsible for all of the mayhem being reported on TV. They end up coming to blows and his brother strangles Harry until he is unconscious. Afraid that he has killed him, he puts Harry back into the van, only to discover that Santa still has some life in him yet.
