Harry\u2019s yuletide zeal is inherently silly, but Jackson and Maggart give it a surprising pathos by never overplaying it and focusing on the real psychological consequences of such an all-consuming fixation. Harry keeps huge ledgers of \u201cnaughty\u201d and \u201cnice\u201d kids in his neighborhood, and when he spies on them from afar with his binoculars, he looks like any haggard dirtbag in any late \u201970s or early \u201980s crime drama. He trudges through the drab, gray streets carrying his groceries, a portrait of recession-era scrappiness. Even the toy factory where Harry works (at what should be his dream job) is grubby and depressing, plagued by layoffs and corporate malfeasance.<\/span><\/p>\n Like Travis Bickle, Harry feels alone and misunderstood by the world, and he eventually takes out his frustrations violently. But even that violence is just an outgrowth of his love for Christmas, and he spreads at least as much joy as chaos. When he looks in the mirror while gluing on his long white Santa beard, he exclaims \u201cIt\u2019s me!\u201d with manic glee, and from that point forward, as far as Harry\u2019s concerned, he is<\/i> Santa Claus. That means delivering a bag full of dirt and rocks to local \u201cbad kid\u201d Moss Garcia (who\u2019s shown being slapped around by his mom, less bad than abused and neglected). It also means hauling presents to the institution for mentally handicapped children that Harry\u2019s company is only pretending to support. The employees at the facility are genuinely delighted with Harry\u2019s gifts, and he seems equally delighted with himself, perhaps for the first time ever.<\/span><\/p>\n It takes nearly an hour for the movie get to Harry\u2019s first kill, and his body count is low compared to other holiday slashers (or slashers in general). He remains sympathetic throughout, a man with a twisted but clear moral code, and when a mob of adults is closing in on him, he makes sure to protect the children he just wants to nurture and encourage. If he lived in 2018, Harry might be posting his rants online, lamenting the loss of innocence and purity in the world, and he might find an audience to cheer him on in his ill-advised quest. The movie\u2019s controversial magical-realist ending implies that Jackson might be on Harry\u2019s side, too, giving him a strange sort of redemption in his final moments.<\/span><\/p>\n Christmas Evil<\/i> is an obvious low-budget effort, complete with sheets of fake snow that can\u2019t stay in place and supposed New York City streets that are strangely underpopulated. But Jackson never treats it like a tossed-off cash-in, and his gritty, often naturalistic visual style ensures that it never looks like a typical horror B-movie. There are no jump scares here, and there\u2019s no excessive gore. Maggart and DeMunn both give committed, serious performances that are even moving at times. Harry is a figure of pity and scorn, but by the end of the movie, he\u2019s also a perverse embodiment of the Christmas spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n Christmas Evil is currently streaming on Shudder.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The title Christmas Evil (also released as You Better Watch You) does not promise a complex psychological drama, and anyone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":539,"featured_media":10704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1399,1381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-looking-back","category-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/539"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/christmasevil2big.jpg\")
<\/a>It all goes back to Harry\u2019s childhood, which the movie depicts in a prologue set on Christmas Eve 1947. That\u2019s when young Harry catches Mommy kissing (and doing other naughty things with) Santa Claus, who\u2019s really Harry\u2019s dad in a costume. It\u2019s a completely consensual marital act, but it scars young Harry for life, warping his sense of sexuality and arresting his emotional maturity. Cut to 30-plus years later, and Harry is now a middle-aged man both obsessed with and haunted by Christmas. He wakes to a Christmas alarm clock and has Christmas decorations all over his ratty apartment, but his holiday cheer is tinged with hysteria. When he hums \u201cSanta Claus Is Comin\u2019 to Town,\u201d it sounds like a threat.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a>Maggart conveys Harry\u2019s downtrodden weariness in every motion, every word, his eyes dull and deadened, at least until he retreats into his Christmas fantasy world. He\u2019s bullied by his co-workers and jealous of his well-adjusted younger brother Phil (Jeffrey DeMunn), whose family life (and lusty relationship with his own wife) reflects what their parents had at the time of Harry\u2019s formative trauma. Harry makes his own elaborate Santa costume from scratch (nothing like the ragged outfits seen on other Santas in the movie), and when he\u2019s practicing his Santa moves in the mirror, he vividly recalls Taxi Driver<\/i>\u2019s Travis Bickle\u2019s iconic \u201cYou talkin\u2019 to me?\u201d moment. (A more appropriate title for this movie might have been Sleigh Driver<\/i>.)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a>That delight doesn\u2019t last, though. Harry\u2019s draconian holiday spirit means punishing the naughty as much as rewarding the nice, and when confronted with a trio of adults who mock his outfit and the whole idea of Christmas, he doesn\u2019t hesitate to stab one of them in the eye with a homemade lead soldier. Still, it\u2019s not an act of aggression, and there\u2019s no malice in it, really, just disappointment. Even when Harry goes to the house of a co-worker who mocked him and pushed him around, with the intent of murdering the guy in his sleep, he still leaves presents for his victim\u2019s innocent children.<\/span><\/p>\n
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