I've heard about this film many times over the years. i think i first read about it in Fangoria magazine back in the 90s, and I've wanted to see it since then, but i never got around to it until now. I was actually searching my stuff for "Silent Night, Deadly Night," the other more famous movie about a killer Santa, but I couldn't find it and this one caught my eye, so I finally decided to check it out after all this time. Let's see what I think.
This movie is about a toy maker who finds joy in the Christmas spirit, and he enjoys his solitary life with great happiness, until one day he suffers a mental breakdown when his work as a toy maker meets with derision instead of praise. Since he was already a little off to begin with, this REALLY sends him over the edge, and he starts killing people. Merry Christmas my ass. Will anyone be able to put a stop to his killing spree or will he kill all the other annoying characters in the movie?
I really feel for the guy (named Harry) in this movie. First he's traumatized in the beginning of the movie by watching Santa put the moves on a woman, then he grows up to be a weird little loner who keeps records of his neighbors and whether they're naughty or nice. it seems like a sad little existence, and I can't help but sympathize with the guy before he goes all psycho killer on everybody. Hell, even after that he's not the most unlikable character in the movie, so what does that tell you about the other characters in this movie? not many people to like here. As far as I'm concerned Harry's boss is probably the worst, but there are a lot of jerks to choose from.
This movie moves at a snail's pace and takes FOREVER to get going. I don't remember "Silent Night, Deadly Night" being this slow, but that had a lot going on right from the beginning and this one just had less action. Once the killings start, though, the pace speeds up a bit. I have to say that I don't really feel bad for the people who die first. They kind of had it coming. Don't mess with Santa or he'll stab you in the eye. Speaking of stabbing people in the eye, that special effect is really cool. Best eye gouging I've seen since the movie "Zombie." I'm talking mainly about the deaths because there's not much else that happens in between. we just get lots of footage of Harry playing Santa in various situations where people should have caught on that he was crazy and stopped him, but no one ever does for some reason. There's a lot of downtime between kills here and we get an excruciatingly long scene of Santa trying to fit down a chimney and failing. There's a lot of boring stuff crammed into the movie, is what I'm saying, and the movie would be better off without it. I really wanted to like this one, but there's too much downtime between the action and I was way more bored than I was entertained. note to self: Watch "Silent Night, Deadly Night" instead.
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