Review by Kit Rathenar
Ah, the magic of Christmas. Trees, lights, cake, presents, carols, peace, goodwill, man dressed as Father Christmas going around killing people…
Wait, run that last one by me again? Oh, okay – that would be the premise of one-off director Lewis Jackson’s indie cult classic Christmas Evil, originally released in 1980 as “You Better Watch Out”. Harry Stradling is a toymaker, a disillusioned man working in a depressing factory, surrounded by bullying colleagues, greedy bosses, and an entirely more successful younger brother who sees him as a failure. He’s also never recovered from the childhood trauma of finding out that Father Christmas doesn’t exist, and in response to this has dedicated his life to understudying Saint Nick. He makes toys at home for the local kids – and even spends his time spying on them to see who’s being naughty or nice, just to make sure he gets it right. I’m sure in a modern movie the image of a man peering through a bunch of kids’ windows with a pair of binoculars would send the viewer off expecting a different kind of horror entirely, but since this was 1980, it’s not what you might think. Harry may not be entirely in touch with reality, but he really does seem to care about the children he watches over, and would never do anything worse than leaving a sack of coal on someone’s doorstep.
At least, not until one Christmas, under the pressure of a promotion at work that he didn’t want and a new executive who’s put together a “charity” drive to give toys to a local children’s hospital as a purely PR exercise, Harry snaps. Finally going all-out, he robs his own workplace of enough toys to sink a battleship, dons his home-made Santa costume and heads out across town to spread cheer and goodwill. Harry is going to make Christmas special this year if it kills him… or indeed, everyone else.
This film has its faults. It’s slow and somewhat incoherent at times, certainly in the first half; the acting is very much eighties B-movie standard for the most part; and it handwaves a lot of awkward practical issues (if you like nitpicking for plot holes and “wait, how did that happen?” moments you’ll have a field day with this one). But once it picks up its pace and finds its feet, it… well, begins to look a lot like Christmas, actually. Christmas Evil draws a lot of its imagery and feel from the mainstream tradition of Christmas movies, and once you realise that it’s deliberately meant to be a skewed reflection of that genre, it’s a lot easier to enjoy. I loved that there are scenes in here which are genuinely heartwarming, such as when Harry manages to pull off his mission and ends up delivering an entire van of presents to the children’s hospital, or gets to dance at a party when he’s watching through the window and is dragged inside to join the fun. These could have come straight out of any Christmas classic you care to name.
But of course, not everyone appreciates the spirit of Christmas, and these Scrooges are the ones who end up dying. The actual body count in this film isn’t all that high however, certainly not by modern standards, and the killings are surreal but not especially gory. What’s going to stay with me about Christmas Evil is the more subtle vein of the genuinely macabre that runs through it; the implications it manages to make about kids, grownups, innocence, right and wrong, and how people are capable of committing terrible acts without even thinking about what they’re doing. Sure, intellectually I may wonder how a group of citizens in New Jersey managed to find flaming torches, let alone why they actually needed them given the electric lights, but the image of Father Christmas being chased down an alley by a torch-wielding mob is one that’s going to stick with me nonetheless. You don’t realise how strongly certain ideas are entrenched in your subconscious until someone starts subverting them, and that’s where Christmas Evil comes into its own.
Well, that and the humour, which ranges from the pitch-black to the possibly purely accidental and even struck the odd chord right the way back to my childhood. Ever been one of those precocious (and probably naughty) children who used to wonder HOW Father Christmas gets down the chimney, and what would happen if he got stuck? Lewis Jackson obviously was too, and I can only thank him for finally clearing that one up for me. Add to all this an ending that’s simultaneously utterly nonsensical and absolutely perfect, and you’ve got Christmas Evil – a strange, flawed, yet oddly inspired little film. I’d pitch this strictly to those of you who – like me – still secretly love Christmas, but like the idea of seeing it played something other than straight for a change.
Arrow Video’s Region 0 DVD of Christmas Evil is available now. You might also like to read Marc’s interview with Lewis Jackson from last December.