Rating: 11/20
Plot: Poor Billy. First, he watches a guy dressed up as Santa Claus murder his parents. Then, he's got to spend his formative years surrounded by nuns. And then they wonder why he grows up wanting to impale women on the antlers of a mounted deer head or hit somebody with the claw end of a hammer. And it's all still a little funnier than Jingle All the Way. Also, if the writing in Jingle All the Way can be butchered, what Arnold does in that movie is probably a little more violent. But I digress.
This created quite a bit of controversy, enough to spawn a few sequels anyway. I'm not sure why anybody would think that a guy dressed as Santa Claus going nuts and killing a bunch of people after seeing a nipple would be a bad idea though. I like the movie's tone. It always threatens to be a little funny, but it never gets there, and there's some great music, especially during the credits as cartoonish blood splash over the title wreath and during the scene where his parents are murdered. Of course, they might deserve it anyway since Mom is riding in a car with a baby on her lap. A lot of this movie takes place in a toy store, and as I've mentioned, I played with toys until I was far too old to play with toys. 1984 was still my prime toy-playing years, and it was fun seeing a lot of this stuff in the background. There's some Star Wars stuff and Masters of the Universe stuff, and even the Muppets make an appearance in this one. This all has a pretty cheap and gritty look although there's almost a little style in a shot with a nun's scream and some wide-mouthed nutcrackers. And there's a great scene featuring box cutters, a first attempt at some humor in an otherwise humorless production. The violence is, for better or worse, grisly and varied. This serial killer doesn't stick to one weapon. No, you get the aforementioned hammers and antlers, Christmas lights, an ax, and some other things. No, it doesn't all look real. In fact, you'll see some of the fakest-looking stabbings you'll ever see, one of them featuring a bare-breasted woman shown in flashbacks at least a dozen times. And the film almost grinds to a halt during a scene where high school kids are stealing sleds from other high school kids, but there's a cool payoff to that with a nifty death scene that might have been more gruesome than Sonny Bono's and a hilarious freak-out. There's also a really weird montage that seems out of place with this "Warm Side of the Door" song and an older, studly Billy starting his work at the toy store. Of course, the problems with this movie are numerous. Billy's growling of "Punish!" or "Naughty!" gets tiresome and takes away a little of the fun at seeing a raging Santa Claus going after people. The acting is especially terrible. Will Hare, the guy who played Farmer Peabody in Back to the Future, is awesomely bad, managing to out-bad-act the little kid who played Young Billy. But man, that Billy can punch! Lilyan Chauvin is pretty good as the head nun though she's playing a stereotype in a habit. Best of all are Britt Leach (a guy who played three different characters on Three's Company) and Nancy Borgenicht who play Mr. Sims and Helen respectively, the toy store manager and a worker who get slightly inebriated at the lamest company Christmas party you're every likely to see--drinking around cash registers at closing and singing half of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" basically. Their drunken duet right before their deaths is a magical movie moment. This isn't a complete waste of time, and it might even get you thinking. For example, at one point, Billy has a sex dream featuring his own hairy ass. My question: Do people really know what their own asses look like or would his subconscious have to come up with that. And if it's the latter, what would a psychologist say about that? And how is a psychologist going to talk to those poor orphans after watching two Santas get gunned down in one day, the second one while he was about to swing an ax at Mother Superior? My favorite scene not involving Mr. Sims or Helen: an uncomfortable scene with Billy as Santa with some children. Also, I was fond of a picture that young Billy drew of a knife-filled Santa and a decapitated reindeer. And they let this kid work in a toy store?
The sequel to this is supposed to be one of the worst movies ever made. I'm thinking of squeezing it in before the end of the holiday season.
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