Christmas Evil (1980)

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Poor Harry. In Christmas 1947, he saw Santa doing more than kissing Mommy under the Christmas tree, and it has traumatized him since.

An adult Harry (Brandon Maggart) now works at the Jolly Dream Toy Factory, where he is the butt of jokes and gossip from his coworkers. He is promoted to an office job, but still misses the toy assembly line. Harry also has an extracurricular hobby- he is obsessed with Christmas and Santa Claus. His house is in perpetual Christmas year round, and Harry spies on the neighborhood children, keeping track of who has been nice and who has been flipping through a copy of Penthouse. Harry's brother, Phil (Jeffrey DeMunn) and Phil's wife Jackie (Dianne Hull) are on the other end of the spectrum. They are in love, they have children, but Phil is venomous toward his weirdo brother. Harry is taken advantage at work by a lout who wants to duck out on a shift. At the Jolly Dream Christmas party, a film shows the vacationing owner promising toys for the local children's hospital- which Harry finds out is nothing more than a publicity stunt. Jolly Dream's toys themselves are plastic and worthless, Harry laments that no one takes pride in the product any longer, and he reaches his breaking point.

"Christmas Evil" belongs just below "Gremlins" and "Black Christmas" (1974) and well above "Elves" and the moronic "Silent Night, Deadly Night" series when it comes to the unique Christmas horror genre. I would compare this film favorably to the unwatchable "Maniac," which also featured an insane loner who loses it and kills. This film is different in that we are tipped to Harry's insanity early, and watch him mentally deteriorate throughout the film. The motivation for his Christmas delusion is weak, but Maggart is very good as Harry, anchoring the film. The writer/director wisely keeps the cast above thirty, no horny teens wandering around alone here. The supporting cast are all character actors whose faces you have seen a million times in other things, most notably "Home Improvement"'s Patricia Richardson, playing a mom much different from her saintly TV Jill. The ending is definitely weird, the torch bearing townsfolk is a little too much to take. There is a wicked sense of humor throughout, from office politics to a police lineup of Santas, but Jackson never succumbs to tossing in a bunch of Christmas cliches and stupid one liners.

The film came out in 1980, in the beginning of the slasher cycle, and it stands out. Known under alternate titles "You Better Watch Out" and "Terror in Toyland," I recommend it based on the junky slasher films that have followed. This was made before there was a slasher formula, and its difference is something to cherish in a very weird way.

Stats:
(1980) 100 min. (* * * *) out of five stars
-Written and Directed by Lewis Jackson
-Cast: Brandon Maggart, Jeffrey DeMunn, Dianne Hull, Andy Fenwick, Brian Neville, Joe Jamrog, Wally Moran, Gus Kangas, Patricia Richardson, Ellen McElduff, Brian Hartigan, Peter Neuman, Lance Holcomb
(R)