Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!
Plot Summary: A man, traumatized as a child at Christmas, believes himself to be Santa Claus and delves into murderous insanity.
Review: First, this has no connection, as far as I know, to "New Year's Evil" although it should! Goodness gracious this has to be one of, if not, the most bizarre Christmas themed movie out there. Okay, yes, there are some really horrific Christmas movies out there, but this one has a level of disturbing all to itself. I have this piece of shit on VHS and it kind of enhances the absurdity of it all with that grainy footage, but I did recently see a DVD version and it still looked bad. I think it's supposed to be a slasher, but there are so few deaths while the vast majority of the film is comprised of the slow exploration of the lead character, Harry's, drift into madness. I will give this film some credit though, it is scary in a real life stalker kind of way where you would worry about that creepy guy hanging around your kids. And...it does have one of the craziest endings known to film.
I really have to break down this one's plot since it needs to be analyzed properly to understand just how crazy it is. Well, back in 1947, Harry, as a boy, believes he sees the real santa showing up at his house, and I suppose he is somewhat in awe and half scared. Although, did they seriously leave bread and butter for santa...pst amateurs, I always leave that bitch pizza. Harry's younger brother, Phil, tries to explain that santa was their dad is disguise, but Harry doesn't believe it. Wait, santa's not real?! Say it ain't so! So Harry tries to prove him wrong when he stumbles upon santa groping his mom by the Christmas tree. That's how that song goes, right? I saw mommy getting groped by Santa Claus? And what the hell, that's like the worst groping I've ever seen! It's like he's trying to tenderize her thigh...dude, this is the worst foreplay--bring your A game it's Christmas after all! In response to this sight, Harry cuts himself? Was he the forerunner for all emo babies out there? You'd think there would be more to this trauma, but that's about it; it's nowhere near the antics seen in "Silent Night, Deadly Night." To be fair, the film does acknowledge the outlandish and over the top spazzing out over such a trivial sight later on.
So we skip ahead to "present day" which looks a lot like 1980 since we see it written all over the place multiple times including the same fucking scene that says "present day." Alright, it is never explicitly said, but I'm going to jump to the assumption that Harry treats everyday as if it's Christmas since the film opens sometime in November presumably. This includes playing Christmas music when he wakes up, dressing in red pajamas with Christmas paraphernalia strewn about, appearing to open presents offscreen, and using his shaving cream to amuse himself with a fake beard. In essence, Harry has become obsessed with Christmas and gradually likens himself to be Santa as the film progresses. To get his mornings off to a good start, Harry busts out the binoculars to start spying on the neighborhood kids and record their activities in his naughty and nice books that he has been logging for years. I have to say, the music enhances most scenes nicely to properly convey the emotions and shenanigans of Harry's sporadic thoughts. I guess I should stress that although Harry appears to be a pedophile stalker, the film wants him to be more obsessed with trying to be santa than to be interested in the kiddies in any other way...but come on! Conveniently, Harry works at, you guessed it, a fucking toy factory where he was somehow promoted to a manager which is peculiar given how much of a lunatic he appears to be--always one step away from going postal. And seriously, this factory is the absolute worst toy factory known to man with the saddest toys I've ever seen; I suppose this can be explained away by budget constraints.
I'll give this film credit yet again--it definitely does not spoon-feed the audience as there is a lot going on under the film's surface, and you have to draw a lot of the conclusions on your own. I don't know what was the exact trigger to make Harry finally go off the rails, but after about 40 minutes of showing the audience just how creepy Harry can be, he finally begins to take action. Maybe it was the fact that the toy company he works for sucks that set him off, or maybe he just wanted to grab a kiddie already, or maybe it has something to do with "playing the tune" of humanity he keep rattling on about--I have no clue; at least one character does say "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about" in response to this nonsense. Let's just say someone like Natre from "Shutter" scares me on one level and someone like Harry scares me on a whole different level. I should probably mention there are scenes of Harry staring at a picture of one of the neighborhood girls who appears to be his unspoken favorite, going out of his way to mess with one of the naughty kids in the most unusual manner, and a restrained rage as he has nothing but unhealthy means to express his emotions both suppressed and repressed. Harry is at least interesting, you can't argue with that.
By Christmas Eve, Harry has assembled a custom santa suit, glued on a beard, and has exclaimed "it's me!" accompanied by the most maniacal laughter. Oh yeah, that's perfectly sane...hell, I do that once a week. It's tough to say what exactly was his plan since we see Harry do a wide array of things on this night with little to no direction. At first it seems like he wants to kill his boss and people who have been making him mad, but when he goes to kill some guy in marketing, he ends up just killing the people in front of the guy. Uh okay. Harry stops a few times to deliver presents as he stole a great number from the toy factory; this includes breaking into some houses while also delivering some to a hospital for retarded kids. Aww, he has a heart of gold deep down inside! He even takes a break to dance and entertain at a party. Maybe I should also mention he painted his van (yeah, I know, a pedophile-like dude with a van) to have a slay on the side, and when he's driving he pretends he's cheering/whipping his reindeer. I think a lot of this kind of speaks for itself at this point. After all manner of zany antics, Harry decides to end the night by killing the guy he works with that makes fun of him most but not before leaving some presents for the kids.
Now that it's Christmas Day, Phil begins to worry about Harry since he noticed how weird he was acting earlier in the film, and I think it's safe to say he knows how obsessed Harry is with Christmas. With the news broadcasting about a killer santa, Phil easily suspects that it's Harry. But it doesn't matter, because Harry is still running around delivering a few last minute gifts until some guy tries to fight him while Harry manipulates kids into helping him. This is when the movie goes right into the stratosphere of absurdity with one ridiculous scene after another. So the families that witness Harry's fight with this guy grab torches and create an angry mob that chases Harry. What, no pitchforks? I mean, seriously?! Keep in mind, it is subtly revealed that the setting is the suburbs of New York City, and you're telling me these people would gather an angry mob with torches like this is fucking "Frankenstein" or something? Harry escapes in his van and flees to Phil's house where the two get into a fight as Phil realizes Harry is the killer santa. Harry is still talking about playing some tune like a nutcase, and they address what I mentioned earlier about Harry's shoddy motive for becoming insane. Phil says something about how Harry claims he's insane because that one time when the two were kids Phil said santa wasn't real and Harry has been trying to prove him wrong his whole life. Good lord, at least the film is aware to the idiocy of it all! It's so funny too when you think about it--this guy has become this degree of insane over one line his brother told him as a kid. Oh, but the fun isn't over yet! After choking Harry into unconsciousness, Phil decides to drag him back into his van as he wakes up and punches Phil in the face in an overly comical way. Harry drives off but is somehow confronted by that same angry mob who apparently possessed the first GPS tracker. Or maybe it's all a dream because right when Harry is cornered, he drives off a cliff and instead of crashing into the ground, he whimsically flies off to the moon and becomes the real santa after all. I'm not even making this up. That's how the movie really ends. HE FUCKING FLIES AWAY! Take a few minutes if you will to laugh.
A lot goes unexplained like what's up with his fascination with the kids, does he associate Christmas with sex or at least with the repression of it, why does he want to be santa if he believes he groped his mom, what the hell is this nonsense about playing the tune (at best we assume he implies fitting in), and why do we only get inferences on how crazy Harry was throughout his life? This movie is scary, no doubt about that, but not in the way you'd think. While it fails as a slasher, and probably a late "Halloween" ripoff at that, it succeeds at presenting one of the weirdest and creepiest characters ever. There are so many strange nuances, odd choices, and seemingly nonsensical scenes that this film feels like a bad ecstasy trip. If it weren't so boring with so few deaths, this really could have been one of the greatest cult classics of the '80s, but instead it all feels like a bad dream--how I'd imagine Christmas looks like in hell. But is this film any good? Eh, it's tough to say because it needs to be watched to fully grasp the ridiculous nature of everything, but at the same time, it is hard to enjoy. Plus there's that ending...eh, make of it what you will.
Notable Moment: The end of course. I mean, seriously, it has to be one of the weirdest, most unexpected scenes of all time.
Final Rating: 5.5/10
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