Reaction & Review | Christmas Evil

Welcome, one and all, to the Reaction & Review "Christmas in July Special". Yes, guys, I'm doing another one of these specials in July because...why the hell not? The holiday exists, so I may as well cover another Christmas movie in July. Anyway, for this years special, I decided to take a look at a slasher film from 1980. That movie is "Christmas Evil".

Now, I don't really know very much about this movie, other than the premise being about a guy that's dressed up as Santa Claus and decides to go on a killing spree. Yes, it's kinda similar to the other Christmas movie that I covered back during the Christmas special last December, which was "Santa's Slay". AKA, the one where professional wrestler Goldberg decided to go on a killing spree due to reasons that I won't spoil here. If you really want to know the details about that, you can go read my review about that somewhere in my R&R file.

Now I didn't really do too much research about this movie, other than what I already mentioned. Partially because, this is another one of those movies that I have been genuinely interested in watching for quite a while now. I couldn't find a physical copy of this movie, but, thankfully, the movie is up on YouTube, so I'm gonna be watching it off of there tonight. And hopefully, this version of this movie will be of decent quality.

Now I have no idea if this movie is gonna be any good or not. I'm hoping that it is, though, because I really like these sorts of premises, as basic as they are. So the only way I'm gonna find out if this movie is gonna be any good at all, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Christmas Evil".

5 minutes later

So, after seeing his mother with Santa Claus, whom was also being a creepy weirdo, the kid we just saw cut part of his hand from the broken shards of his snow globe, which causes him to bleed out a bit. You know, I totally understand that it would be pretty traumatizing to see if Santa was cuddling up to anyone's mother during Christmas, but I don't know if cutting yourself is really the appropriate method to react to that kind of situation. Just saying, there are less painful ways to cope.

5 minutes later

So this guy keeps an ENTIRE journal of all the kids that live at the apartment building and writes down anything that they've done that, I'm going to assume, is suppose to be naughty or nice. That...is beyond stalker territory, I'm just gonna lay that out there.

17 minutes later

Guys, I think it's safe to say that Harry's obsession with Santa Claus and Christmas has become insanely creepy. And yet, at the same time, it makes him the most likable character in this entire movie. Holy shit...

13 minutes later

You know, guys, I will say that that this version of "Santa Clause Is Coming To Town" is actually pretty cool. You guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, but this version of that song that's playing here is really kinda catchy. Or, WAS kinda catchy, before it just ended abruptly. Still though, it was a really cool rendition of that song.

12 minutes later

Well...it took almost an hour, but we finally got our first kill in this movie. Quite a few of them, actually, too! You know, in most cases, I would bitch about how the pacing is really slow. But you know what? That kill was totally worth the wait. It really was.

11 minutes later

You know, guys, it's funny. Out of all the things that Harry has accomplished tonight as Santa, the one thing that he can't get right is how to go down a chimney. He can totally give away toys, be around everyone that's in the Christmas spirit, and also kill a few people as well, but he can't go down a fucking chimney. Perhaps maybe if he had Santa's powers, perhaps maybe he can become the one guy he's been obsessed with this entire movie. But hey, what do I know?

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Christmas Evil". Wow, um...let me go ahead and shut the movie off...OK. What to even begin with...? I guess I could start by saying that ending wasn't exactly what I was expecting. And also, the credits at the end there seemed a little bit peppy to be ending a movie on that note. But that's just me discussing the ending. I should really talk more about the movie itself.

Let's start with the writing. So, way early on, I mentioned that I didn't really do very much research going into this movie, because I wanted to go into it as blind as I can. The only things I really did know about it was that it was suppose to be a slasher/horror movie. And, to me, that was more than enough for me to want to cover this movie. After all, I really enjoy movies such as "Santa's Slay" and "Jack Frost". And just to clarify, I'm referring to the 1997 movie about a killer snowman and not the one starring Michael Keaton. So this movie should be right up my alley, because it would be something similar to those two movies. And while I will say that this movie does have their own kills in this movie, the more that I watched it...the more it became a completely different movie for me. Now before I explain what kind of movie, I should come right out and say that I really enjoyed this movie very much. And what I'm about to say is not really much of a negative either, in case anyone's curious. So anyway, back on to my point. You see, this movie, again, while it is kind of a slasher movie, it's actually...less of a slasher movie, but more so a Christmas thriller that delves into the sanity of our main character, Harry, that we follow throughout the entire movie's runtime.

In fact, why don't we just delve right into the characters, shall we? And the one character that I'm going to be mostly focusing on is Harry. Harry first becomes obsessed with Santa Claus thanks to something that happened to him as a child. Where he sees his mother being touched sexually by Santa. Or at least someone dressed up as him. I'm going to assume it was Harry's Dad dressed up as Santa, but I could be totally wrong there. So anyway, this carries onto him as an adult, where he runs a toy factory. And from there, it basically turns into this story where, well...Harry slowly starts to descend into madness, as he thinks he's the real Santa. Oh sure, you could argue that he was already insane from the moment he starts to write down information in his book, where it's literally a giant journal about good boys and girls, about the kids that live in the same apartment complex as he does. But it later starts to get even more insane for him, where he starts to dress himself up as Santa to prove that he's REALLY Santa and that the kids do love him. Now on that latter bit, it may or not be implied that Harry is a pedophile. What sorta gave me that notion was when, at one point, he spies on this one kid, who's sort of being a jerk to his mother, where Harry paints his face black with dirt and places his hand marks on the side of the kids house AND places a kiss on there as well. Now again, the movie only implies that Harry may be a pedophile. But really, that's more left up to interpretation.

Now what's funny about that scene I just mentioned is, right before all that happened, I said that Harry was still the most likable character in this entire movie. I say that not only because he's the only one in this movie that gets the all the depth here, but you actually feel rather sympathetic towards him. Because he's mostly being interpreted as an idiot by his co-workers and brother, and you feel like his feelings about the children are met with good intentions. But he goes about it the wrong ways, such as when he steals presents from his brother's kids and delivers it to a children's hospital for the retarded. And no, I'm not kidding about that part, they even state that in the movie where it was a hospital for retarded children. And then, finally, when he stops somewhere where people are making fun of him, he starts his killing well after the 50 minute mark of the movie. Which again, in most cases, I would say that when a slasher movie takes this long to get it's first kill, I would say that the pacing in this movie would be complete shit. However, I'm giving this movie a pass on that, because the buildup before we get to all that was fucking great. The only slight downside to all this is that once he gets those kills, the later kills he gets away with are mostly reduced. I won't tell you how many people left he kills in this movie, but I will say that it is a bit disappointing. Mostly because, this thing was advertised as a slasher film, and he really doesn't do a whole lot of kills here. At least, when compared to other slasher films that I have seen before this one.

But I'm not gonna let that deteriorate my enjoyment from this movie, because, like I said, this film is really fucking good. Now before anyone comments, I do know about the Director's Cut of this movie, which has about 8 more minutes of footage that wasn't seen from the original cut of this movie that I watched on YouTube. I'm gonna have to find out for myself when I eventually track down a physical copy of this film for myself. But anyway, regardless of all that, the writing in this movie is really good. While it sorta lacks itself in being a slasher flick, it more than makes up for it by being a Christmas horror/thriller movie. And that, in my opinion, is totally awesome to see. Now, with that being said, let's get into the acting. And the acting here is also really solid. I couldn't find anybody that I would consider a bad showing. There may have been a couple of child actors that phoned it in, but surprisingly, just about every other child actor turned in a pretty good showing for the material they had to work with. The best actor, by far, would have to be Brandon Maggart as Harry. He plays up that creepy, insane character so well, and it stands out so much that it almost outshines the entire cast. Now again, almost nobody here turned in a bad showing, but Maggart's performance in this thing is so good that I think it would've been impossible if everyone else tried as hard as he did. And that's probably a good thing, considering that everyone else's characters weren't really given a whole lot to work with, so they put in the best efforts that they could with the minimal amount of dialogue that they were given. But overall, most of the entire cast here did a really good job in this movie, and that's the best that I could ever ask for.

Special effects here are pretty good for low budget standards. From the few kills in this movie, they were executed pretty well. The blood effects here are also pretty good, especially for a low budget movie such as this. Granted, there's not a whole lot of blood here. But what little is here is still good for what it is. Our costuming here is really good. The sets look really awesome, and makes you feel like you are watching a movie that takes place during Christmas. But then again, a movie that literally has Christmas in the title would be pretty obvious.

Our camerawork here is really good. The sound-mix here is perfectly fine. The lighting here is pretty good. Our score here is really good, and mostly fits the tone of this movie. The soundtrack is actually really good, too. I wasn't really sure about that going in, seeing as how this is a Christmas movie. I say that, because I wasn't sure if they were gonna go for something more original for it's music, or if they were just gonna go for some standard stock Christmas music. And while it does have a couple of Christmas songs here that we're heard many, many times before, it does have one particular song that was pretty catchy. Which would be "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town". The remix that they play here is very catchy, and I may have to try and look up that song at some point to give it a full listen to. So yeah, the music here for both the score and soundtrack is very good.

Ultimately, guys, can I recommend "Christmas Evil"? Definitely, yes. This movie is really fucking good. If you're someone that is a horror fanatic, and you're looking to find a Christmas movie to watch that is also related to horror, then I would definitely say check this thing out. The only thing I have to mention, again, is that this movie isn't really much a slasher film that it tries to advertise itself to be. It's more of a horror/thriller film. But even then, it's still a really good thriller, and as long as you're aware of that, then I think you're gonna really enjoy the hell out of this movie. The movie is up on YouTube, if you guys are really curious about checking this out. So if you don't want to run the risk of buying a physical copy of this movie, you can go ahead and find it on YouTube somewhere. It definitely is worth a watch. Now I do know that Troma did re-release the movie with the Director's Cut intact. So, I'm gonna go and see if the movie's running on some sort of sale on their website and I might just eventually buy it off there. I really enjoyed the hell out of this thing, and I definitely want to add this movie to my list of Christmas movies that I want to watch every year during Christmas. So, I'm gonna go do that next, and hopefully add it to my DVD collection at some point.

Anyway, guys, that concludes "Christmas in July" here on Reaction & Review. And I hope that this year's Christmas special will be just as good as the movie that I watched this month. But anyway, guys, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.