Four for a Naughty Christmas Eve
Okay, if you’re going out to a flick today and you want something that is going to put you through a series of excitations - horror, suspense, and violence - but also, oddly enough, have some non-clingy, heartfelt moments and also some really deep, guttural laughter (‘cause, yeah, it’s funny), then head for “Violent Night”.
My first thought was that David Harbour’s Santa would be a mash-up of Hopper from “Stranger Things and the Red Guardian from “Black Widow”, but he zagged when I thought he was going to zig and his St. Nick is very much its own creation. He’s less curmudgeon than vengeance at a certain point in the film; he’d give Pattinson’s Batman a run for his money in that department.
The short take is Santa’s questioning why he’s still doing the gig after all this time when kids just want the latest electric gee-gaw and no one could care less about, you know, the Christmas spirit. Santa’s also got a bit of a drinking problem, but I’m proud of him; he can put it away. The opening sequence may be one of the best in recent years; Santa in a pub chatting with a department store Santa. Real Santa lets loose on his disappointment in the season and humanity and Department Store Santa feels so bad, he pays Kringle’s tab. Santa says thanks and heads out. However, he heads out the emergency exit that takes you to the roof. The bartender follows and is stymied when he’s nowhere to be seen on the roof but looks up in wonder to see - YES! - Santa is real!!! And he pukes. And it lands. On her face.
The movie only gains steam from there. A family is held hostage by a scenery chewing John Leguizamo; but it’s a rich, venal family and we veer slightly into Eugene O’Neil territory but oh, is it delicious. The “good son” (our hero, kind of) and his wife have decided to stand up to the matriarch Gertrude (a welcome Beverly D’Angelo…seriously!) and of course, there’s the other contingent that sucks up to mom for all the reasons you would think, but the only person she seems to care for is her granddaughter Trudy (Leah Brady, who’s a gem). There’s a ton of riffing that goes on before Leguizamo and his squad show up; but suffice it to say, we learn that they’re after a ton of money.
That’s just the set-up. Once they arrive, in wave of exterminations (so much for the security team), somewhere in the night, Santa shows up and most, if not all, hell breaks loose in a series of slow-burn sequences to “Home Alone” style booby traps and since this is “R” and not “PG”, the damage done is far more real (and graphic) than what you saw in Chris Columbus’s movie.
To say more would be major spoilage and since this is still in the theaters, I’ll refrain. But holy shit, trust me when I tell you it’s more than (and other than) what you might be thinking.
But maybe you don’t want to go out. You could stay in and watch the usual heartwarming classics. “It’s a Wonderful Life” is a beautiful film and one to rightfully celebrate. “A Peanuts Christmas” with Charlie Brown and the gang touches all the emotional strings about acceptance and giving and what the holiday Is about. You could, especially if you’re looking for laughs, cue up “Scrooged”, one of Bill Murray’s finest moments. Sure, you could do all these things. But you could do them tomorrow and they’d still be relevant. If you have people visiting, you could just put any of these on and I suspect the crowds would be happy.
Hell, you could put on “The Thin Man”, a Christmas tale if there ever was one. All right, all right, it’s only set around Christmas, but still….it is seasonally appropriate.
Or you could get down and dirty and drenched in blood, body parts, greed, and surreal goodness with one or more of these:
“Black Christmas” (1974)
Released ten years or so before his “A Christmas Story”, Bob Clark directed this fiendish protoslasher. It doesn’t quite make full slasher because, to his credit, Clark wanted the murders to happen off screen. Like “Peeping Tom” before it and “Halloween” after it, a first person perspective is used for the murderer’s presence.
Set in a sorority whose members include Lois Lane Margot Kidder and Zeffirelli’s Juliet Olivia Hussey as the final girl, a literate script and swift plotting and you’re in for a treat. That it’s set in the seventies only adds to the urgency. There are no cell phones, no caller ID, so when the killer calls in threats, it’s a problem to trace the calls.
Last, it’s an ambiguous ending, but so well-played.
Hoo-boy! This is as pulpy as they come. A philandering attorney (Patrick O’Neal) representing his client to sell the old Butler estate ASAP arrives in a small town in Massachusetts (Long Island, NY is the stand-in for New England and trust me, nothing looks like Massachusetts in this) with his girlfriend in tow (Astrid Heeren). He meets the mayor, the owner of the local paper (John Carradine who says not a word; were I to guess, it’s because they could afford him if he actually spoke dialog), the switchboard operator for the city, and the sheriff. All well and good, but of course, things go wrong when the lawyer and his girlfriend decide to spend Christmas Eve in the mansion.
In the meantime, an inmate has escaped from a local asylum, and we also encounter Jeffrey Butler (James Patterson, who turns in a solid bit of work here, but sadly passed away four months after wrapping) en route to the house. He’s the one who retained the lawyer since he needs the cash. The last character we meet is Diane, the sheriff’s daughter (Mary Woronov, one of Warhol’s Factory denizens and not the only one who makes an appearance here).
The body count begins with the home invasion of the Butler mansion by the escaped serial killer. RIP lawyer and girlfriend and it just gets higher from there. It’s a fleet 80 minutes and was pretty polarizing (so, for that matter, was “Black Christmas”), but is now recognized as a classic of the genre.
What makes this a notch above the usual exploitation movie is the way director Theodore Gershuny shot the around the budget limitations. Aside from the location shooting, the action is contained to only a few sets, but all are lit atmospherically enough to lend an air of dread and expectation. Woronov and Patterson acquit themselves well and you do find yourself vested in each character.
There’s also a flashback that is rendered in sepia tones and really nicely shot. That shouldn’t be too surprising, since Adam Gifford is the cinematographer. He’d worked with the Maysles on “Gimme Shelter” and had a career in documentaries both before and after our current film here.
I also would like to point out that this was one of Cannon Films early releases and one of the producers on it was none other than the founder of Troma himself, Lloyd Kaufman.
Now, while the previous two films have been set at Christmas time, our next one returns us to a direct encounter with Santa Claus; and this time, he is even angrier than David Harbour’s iteration. Yeah, we’re in Krampus territory here.
Made by a Finnish cast and crew, “Rare Exports” is centered around a mining expedition that has come, not for ore, but for the body of one S. Clause. And boy oh boy, does this have ramifications.
We meet Pietari and his friend Jusso spying on the operation and it’s Pietari who figures out what they’re doing and what they’re after. Naturally, no one believes him and he’s written off as a pre-teen crank, but as the movie goes on, it becomes pretty obvious just how real shit has gotten.
A recovered body proves not to be Santa, but one of his elves. He’s a tall, bald and bearded fellow and along with his elven brethren have wiped out the miners, stolen the children of the village, and killed a flock of reindeer. In short order, we discover there are a couple of hundred of these guys and they’re there to steal kids and protect Santa.
I mentioned Krampus territory above and that’s the Santa we’re getting; a giant, horned deity whose business it was to punish children who have been naughty at Yuletide. For now, he’s encased in a massive, two-story brick of ice. How we get to that place, though, entails discussions of a son and his father and what do parents need to protect their children from. We get a taste of a community whose sole sustenance is the reindeer that have been wiped out and the consequences for who might be thought to be responsible. In other words, like “Violent Night”, there’s more on the plate than simple carnage.
And truthfully, “Rare Exports” is not really all that graphic. It also has a kick-ass ending, that I really am not sure you’ll see coming.
Afterthoughts:
“Violent Night” and “Rare Exports” both have some seriously good capitalist critiquing going on. Exploitation of resources and the damage to livelihood that such exploitation brings, particularly with industrial concerns that leave the place in a worse state. That Santa Claus is the extraction element here could be expanded and expounded upon, but maybe another time.
The entitlement of the rich and the familial cannibalism that circles around inheritance and tribalism within the clans of the ultra-rich is equally fodder for “Violent Night”. Both films are dialed up to eleven, but each scores points in subtle satire that may go unnoticed given the nature or the films.
I could really go on at greater length about each of these films but for now, ‘tis the season and I want to be a good kid and not spoil too much. Suffice it to say, there are gems here, and if you’re feeling a little out of sorts for the season or if, like me, you really love exploitation and Christmas horror, put these under your tree or better yet, onscreen.
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