31 days of horror Day 15

Christmas Evil

Source-OOP Brentwood DVD

Released in 1980,Christmas Evil AKA You better watch out AKA Terror in toyland,is a very early example of the "killer Santa" subgenre of horror films. The movie starts off in the late 1940's when a boy sneaks downstairs on X-mas eve and catches Santa,his dad in a Santa suit,groping his mom. This scars the poor Lil boy,and he grows up with an obsession with Christmas. He works at a toy factory that makes shoddy cheap toys. He has his apartment decorated year round in holiday decorations. Plus he even sleeps in a Santa suit. But wait things get creepier,when you see him spying on the neighborhood kids with his binoculars. He has 2 ledgers,one for nice kids,and one for naughty kids. And he keeps tabs on all the neighborhood kids in these two ledgers. After not too long his already fragile mind finally snaps. He steals alot of toys from work,and he goes home puts on his Santa suit. He takes the toys to the local children's hospital. The next night he sneaks into a co-workers home. He leaves toys for the kids,and kills the co-worker. He keeps up giving toys to the good kids,and killing the bad adults. Finally there is a huge mob,with torches,after him. Since the film is set in NYC I wonder where the mob gets torches from. It looks like they have him cornered in his van when .... well lets say a Christmas Miracle happens. OK film was kinda slow,and I can see where someone raised on more current horror movies would find it unbearably slow. On little piece of trivia,The killer Santa is played by Brandon Maggart who is Fiona Apple's father. Christmas Evil is a sleeper film,when you consider the X-mas Horror genre. Luckily now it is easy to find on cheap DVDs. And a nice remastered version is also out for those that want better picture and sound. I enjoyed this movie,even with the slow parts,and give it a B-.