As
the 1970s crossed over in the 1980s, two distinct forms of slasher
movie appeared. One the one hand, there were the films that followed
the pattern laid down by Halloween and Friday
13th – slick body count movies that, for a few
years, defined the genre and were almost guaranteed box office
success. On the other hand, there were the oddball, eccentric
films that hovered somewhere between the arthouse and the grindhouse,
with their own distinct style and sense of weirdness that would
prevent them from finding that mainstream market. Abel Ferrara’s
The Driller Killer is a classic example of this
sort of film, and so too is Christmas Evil, a
film that shares the same off-key atmosphere as Ferrara’s
film. But blends it with a dark sense of humour.
Shot as You Better Watch Out (that title that
appears on screen in this director’s cut), Lewis Jackson’s
film follows Harry (Brandon Maggart), whose life is slowly falling
apart as Christmas approaches. Already suffering the childhood
trauma of seeing his mother making out with Santa – or at
least , his father dressed up – he’s now stuck in
a dead end job in a crappy toy factory, where he’s the butt
of jokes and exploited by co-workers. He also has an obsession
with Christmas, spying on local children to see who is naughty
and who is nice, and writing the names and crimes of offenders
in a large book of ‘Bad Boys and Girls’.
Before long, Harry has convinced himself that he is Santa,
dressing the part and setting out to bring Christmas cheer. This
starts with him stealing toys from his factory and donating them
to sick children, but Harry is the sort of Santa who punishes
the naughty as well as rewarding the nice, and there are plenty
of naughty people around…
It’s
easy to understand why Christmas Evil struggled
to find an audience on original release. The film is marketed
as a horror film, but it’s more a psychological study of
mental collapse (again, rather like Driller Killer),
and it’s not until the film is more than midway through
that we get a murder – hardly the sort of thing to keep
the audiences flocking to Prom Night and He
Knows You’re Alone happy. But see now, it’s
remarkable just how impressive the film is. Slow, perhaps, but
deliberately so, and the gradual mental collapse of Harry is effectively
played out. What’s more, the couple of gore scenes are remarkably
nasty and shocking, coming out of nowhere. There’s also
a lot of humour here, and the ending is outrageously audacious.
Christmas Evil works best when seen as part of
that genre-bending collection of left-field horror movies that
emerged in the 1970s and would only find a following years later
thanks to video releases. It’s a fascinating, entertaining
mix of sleaze and style that fans of oddball cinema will find
very agreeable.
This new DVD certainly pulls out all the stops for such a relatively
obscure film. There are two commentary tracks – one with
director Jackson, the other where he is joined by none other than
John Waters, a huge fan of the film. There are also audition tapes
(with some interesting familiar names who didn’t get the
parts), outtakes and storyboards, as well as video interviews
with Jackson and Maggart.
As
the 1970s crossed over in the 1980s, two distinct forms of slasher
movie appeared. One the one hand, there were the films that followed
the pattern laid down by Halloween and Friday
13th – slick body count movies that, for a few
years, defined the genre and were almost guaranteed box office
success. On the other hand, there were the oddball, eccentric
films that hovered somewhere between the arthouse and the grindhouse,
with their own distinct style and sense of weirdness that would
prevent them from finding that mainstream market. Abel Ferrara’s
The Driller Killer is a classic example of this
sort of film, and so too is Christmas Evil, a
film that shares the same off-key atmosphere as Ferrara’s
film. But blends it with a dark sense of humour.
It’s
easy to understand why Christmas Evil struggled
to find an audience on original release. The film is marketed
as a horror film, but it’s more a psychological study of
mental collapse (again, rather like Driller Killer),
and it’s not until the film is more than midway through
that we get a murder – hardly the sort of thing to keep
the audiences flocking to Prom Night and He
Knows You’re Alone happy. But see now, it’s
remarkable just how impressive the film is. Slow, perhaps, but
deliberately so, and the gradual mental collapse of Harry is effectively
played out. What’s more, the couple of gore scenes are remarkably
nasty and shocking, coming out of nowhere. There’s also
a lot of humour here, and the ending is outrageously audacious.
