Harry Stadling is completely obsessed with Christmas. Every inch of his home is covered in Christmas decorations. He dresses in a Santa suit for bed and he plays Santa in his own neighborhood. You'd think that it would just be dressing up and listening to the local children's wishes for Christmas, but it goes much further than that. He has ledgers full of notes about his observations in passing and with binoculars of each child in his neighborhood. This is a literal naughty and nice list made from creepy voyeurism and obsession.
Harry works at a toy factory and others think of him as a bit of a loser. He finally gets a promotion that only further exposes the corruption within the company. The higher ups create a program to donate toys to needy children with company money matching employee donations, but they lied. Only employee donations will go to the kids because the company wants to look good without actually losing profits, rightfully outraging Harry. His reaction is to become Santa (and truly believe it) in a fugue state on Christmas Eve, rewarding good children, punishing bad children, and killing bad adults. He takes a huge amount of toys from his job and delivers them to a hospital for sick children.
This movie is a mixed bag a movie with odd editing and weird situations. The corruption at his work and in the adults around Harry seems to be enough reason for his mental break. He also has childhood trauma when he witnessed his mother and father (dressed as Santa) caressing each other after he was supposed to be in bed and then he dropped a snowglobe, cutting his hands on the broken glass. This part of film wasn't really needed and only served to show his parents' awkward foreplay scene several times throughout the story. My favorite scene is when Harry gives his neighborhood kids presents causing their parents to realize he's the killer Santa. The children form a shield around him and an angelic blonde girl gives her father's switchblade to Harry. It's a weird scene, but shows his genuine goodwill beneath the psychosis and voyeurism especially compared to every other adult (and some kids) in the movie.
Christmas Evil is a bizarre movie where creepy Harry who thinks he's actually Santa is the most likeable person in the whole thing. His grievances are valid and ones we are still dealing with today. The film has a weird mix of 80's tropes (consumerism and corruption), slasher tropes, and a heartwarming underbelly where hospitals and good children get deserved free toys. This film is surprisingly watchable and entertaining for what I expected to be a slasher dud. Despite the overall weirdness and bizarre ending, I enjoyed this killer Santa story that had much more heart than expected.
My rating: 3.5/5 fishmuffins
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