Santa Claws (1996)

... aka: 'Tis the Season

Directed by:
John A. Russo

John Russo will forever be best known as the co-writer of the masterpiece NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) and for that reason alone he will be immortalized in our beloved genre regardless of whatever else he does. However, unlike NOTLD's director / writer George A. Romero, who went on to prove his talents numerous times over with various other excellent films, Night is thus far the lone major highlight in Mr. Russo's career... and one he'd go on to milk for all it's worth. In the early 80s, Russo wrote a zombie novel called "Return of the Living Dead" and an accompanying script, which he then put together as a possible 3D film project by producer Tom Fox. The two wanted Tobe Hooper to direct, but Dan O'Bannon ended up getting the job instead. O'Bannon then drastically re-wrote Russo's screenplay to the point where it had next to nothing to do with what Russo had written. Despite that, Russo retained a story credit for the ensuing film; the 80s favorite THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985). Afterward, he continued to exploit the "Living Dead" with numerous novels, comic books, documentaries and films. He wrote "The Complete Night of the Living Dead Filmbook" in 1989, produced Tom Savini's mediocre Night remake in 1990, put together a 25th Anniversary Night documentary (later titled ZOMBIE JAMBOREE) in 1993, and committed a nearly unforgivable sin by re-cutting and inserting cheap new scenes into the original film and releasing it as Night of the Living Dead: 30th Anniversary Edition in 1999. Not content with all that, he went on to blab about Night is numerous documentaries and TV specials, executive produced the atrocious Children of the Living Dead (2001) and has announced he's going to make Night sequels numerous times over the years. One he kept going on about was "Escape of the Living Dead," which was going to be based on Russo's 2005 comic of the same name. The film has yet to happen.

Aside from Night and all the offshoots, Russo was also heavily involved in the whole 80s / 90s Scream Queen phenomenon, which basically revolved around attractive actresses of varying degrees of talent who usually took their clothes off in low-budget films. Starting in 1993, Russo was the editor of the magazine "Scream Queens Illustrated" which featured interviews with, and accompanying nude layouts of, female B movie stars like Linnea Quigley (the magazine's very first cover girl). To supplement that, Russo's company Latent Image Inc. also hawked Scream Queen books, trading cards, autographed posters, cheesecake videos like Scream Queens Swimsuit Sensations and and Scream Queens Knockout Workout (1992) and other such merchandise. Santa Claws falls firmly into this category of T&A fluff, though unlike earlier SQ videos, which are often just women parading around in the nude or in swimsuits or lingerie, it's a genuine attempt to make an actual horror film with a plot. Debbie Rochon, then an up-and-coming Scream Queen on the rise who has since become an indy horror queen with hundreds of credits to her name, was drafted for the lead role. Not only nice to look at, Rochon is also one of the better actresses in her category, so it's no surprise that Russo kept her around for several of his later projects like his Night re-do and the yet-to-be released Saloonatics (2002). She was also the announced star of Russo's yet-to-be-filmed "Escape of the Living Dead."

Claws centers around actress Raven Quinn (Rochon), who has a master's degree in zoology but instead opts to make a living as a nude model and B-movie Scream Queen (in a role clearly patterned after real-life Scream Queen Brinke Stevens, who has a master's degree in marine biology). Right after Raven secures the lead role in "Scream Queen Christmas" her life begins to fall apart, starting with her wayward Joey Buttafuoco-lookalike husband Eric (John Mowod), a glamour photographer who's just run off to Akron with slutty model Debbie (Susan Ellen White) and is considering filing for a divorce. To make matters even worse, Raven has attracted the attention of an obsessed, long-haired weirdo stalker named Wayne (Grant Kramer). As a child, Wayne gunned down his obese uncle and silicone-chested mother after catching them in bed together. Now as an adult, he has photos of Raven plastered all over his walls, a candle-lit shrine dedicated especially to her and even mail orders a bust of Raven, which he talks to and kisses, and fantasizes about coming to life. Wayne, who conveniently lives right next door to Raven, then begins babysitting her young daughters Angela (Dawn Michelucci) and Savannah (Savannah Calhoun) to integrate himself into her life. Not content with just that, he also begins donning disguises and taking a garden claw to the cast and crew of "Scream Queen Christmas."

Ho!

Ho!

Ho!

Merry Christmas!

Clearly designed primarily as a vehicle for slasher T&A, this very cheap-looking direct-to-video trash fails miserably as a horror film with its laughably choreographed and ineptly staged attack scenes, one of the lamest murder weapons on record and a completely silly and non-threatening psycho (played in a laughably over-the-top manner by Kramer). There's no gore and barely even any blood, which will further piss off the target audience, as will the fact this was promoted as a killer Santa movie and Wayne doesn't even put on the costume until the film is nearing the 1 hour mark. This does a little better at the T&A, with five actresses getting naked, but gruelingly long sequences of women stripping out of glittery costumes on extremely cheap looking sets will have even the most desperately horny Lothario quickly seeking his fast-forward button. Rochon is several cuts above the others in the looks department and, like all good things, her topless-under-the-Christmas-tree-boogie is saved for the very end. For what it's worth, the supporting cast is littered with NOTLD alumni. Marilyn Eastman plays Raven's bitchy mother-in-law, Karl Hardman plays a sleazy producer, Bill Hinzman is a cameraman and Russo himself appears as a detective. Christine Cavalier and Terri Lewandowski, who were then trying to market themselves as mother-and-daughter Scream Queens, as well as Lisa Delien (also in the terrible Demon Lust [1997]) provide nudity. Russo filmed the tie-in tape Scream Queen Naked Christmas (1996) at the same time and on the same sets. It also featured Rochon, Kramer, Cavalier, White and Delien.

Much of Santa Claws actually seems like a defense for the whole Scream Queen movement. Raven has to defend herself against a feminist reporter who tries to degrade her career choice, her hypocritical in-laws, who are just fine with her husband shooting nude layouts but not OK with her appearing in them, and Wayne himself, who disapproves of her line of work and wonders what men do while watching her videos. Posters for nearly every film Russo ever worked on are seen on the walls and there are many direct plugs for "Scream Queens Illustrated." At one point, Hardman's character says the magazine is "...a tasteful presentation of horror movies, horror movie makers and horror movie starlets. The girls have beautiful bodies and normal, healthy guys enjoy looking at them." This whole angle is curiously destroyed not only by psycho Wayne but also Raven herself as she discusses one of her lame fans in detail, suggesting that men who like stuff like Santa Claws are pathetic, maladjusted perverts!

★1/2

Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987)

Directed by:
Lee Harry

Thanks to a parent-infuriating ad campaign featuring everyone's favorite ambassador of Christmas goodwill as an axe-murdering maniac, the original SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (1984) gained almost immediate infamy as a slasher flick in particularly bad taste. This first sequel, however, took a little more time to gain its own kind of infamy... as one of the worst films ever made! Pretty much flatly dismissed in its day as useless trash, Part 2 has slowly but steadily gained its own devoted fan following and has been wowing bad movie fans for the past 25+ years with its hilariously awful acting and dialogue and pathetic attempts to pad it out to feature length status by recycling tons of footage from the original film. Just how much footage? At least half of the running time! This was never even intended to really be a sequel in the traditional sense. The producers of the original had hired director Lee Harry to film some framing sequences (all set in an asylum) and then simply re-cut the first film to try to pass it off as a sequel. Instead, Harry (along with three other writers) scripted more than was originally intended and the resulting film (which has about 40 minutes of new footage) was then shot over a 10 day period. I suppose we should thank Harry for at least doing that much.

On Christmas Eve, Ricky Caldwell (Eric Freeman), the equally unhinged brother of the original film's "Santa Claus Killer" Billy Chapman (not quite sure how that surname change came to be), sits in a mental institution angrily scowling and puffing away on cigarettes. Psychiatrist Dr. Henry Bloom (James Newman) shows up, sets up his tape recorder and attempts to get Ricky to tell him his life story. Ricky isn't too fond of recounting his tale for this nosy "pencil neck piece of shit" but seeing how it may be his last chance to come clean he decides to humor him. And thus begins a long series of flashbacks to the original film, including repeat scenes of Billy and Ricky's parents being killed by a psycho Santa, their ill-treatment at Saint Mary's Orphanage at the hands of the cruel Mother Superior and 18-year-old Billy's eventual murder spree before he's shot and killed by the police. Ricky seems to have amazingly vivid recollections of some of the events, especially when you take into consideration he wasn't even there to witness most of them!

It isn't even until the 40 minute mark that we get to hear a little about how Ricky ended up in the mental institution, which is then shown in a series of side-splitting flashbacks. At age 12, he's adopted by Martha and Morty Rosenberg (Corinne Gelfan, Michael Combatti), who are concerned over the fact that young Ricky has seizures whenever he sees nuns and seems to react violently to the color red ("Red car. Good point."), but Sister Mary (Nadya Wynd) ensures them that all he needs is a stable family. Five years later, Ricky's stepfather dies, which hits him pretty hard. After all, "You tend to get paranoid when everyone around you gets dead." Ricky goes for a walk and encounters a man roughing up his girlfriend, which brings on traumatic flashbacks to his parents getting killed... never mind the fact he was an infant when that happened. After he runs over the guy repeatedly with a jeep, the victim's girlfriend walks up to him, smiles and calmly says "Thank you" (?) A year later, Ricky hears something that sounds like "some squirrel getting his nuts squeezed," gets into an altercation with a thug (Frank Novak) and then impales him him with an umbrella that is then opened.

Ricky ends up bumping into the beautiful Jennifer (Elizabeth "Cayton" / Kaitan), but even she cannot calm the snarling beast. The two go on a date to a movie theater where we see even more footage from the original Silent Night and Ricky kills an obnoxious heckler in the audience ("Naughty!"). He uses a battery charger to make Jennifer's ex-boyfriend's eyeball explode, strangles Jennifer with a car antennae ("Uh oh!") and then shoots a cop in the head with own gun before going on a ludicrous shooting rampage through suburbia while laughing maniacally and shouting things like "Punish!" and, most famously, "Garbage Day!" (a clip of which has managed to get 5 million hits on Youtube). Once he's cornered by more cops, Ricky turns the gun on himself but discovers he's out of bullets... Back to the present day, Ricky murders Dr. Bloom, manages to escape the nuthouse and then heads out after "that bitch Superior." The wheelchair bound Mother Superior (Jean Miller) is said to have suffered from a stroke but they've applied some kind of weird burn / scar make-up to her face to try to disguise the fact it's a different actress in the role!

Freeman's ridiculously over-the-top performance (and hilariously overactive eyebrows) have made him something of a cult icon over the years. When no one was able to hunt him down to do a DVD commentary track, fans went on a crusade to locate him and a website was even set up specifically for the cause (http://www.findingfreeman.com/). About a week ago to this day, Freeman finally surfaced, appeared at the New Beverly Cinema for a special screening of the film and did an interview with FearNet. Freeman's only other notable film appearances were in David DeCoteau's bizarre slasher / gore flick MURDER WEAPON (1989; where he was billed as "Damon Charles") and a bit in the comedy Ghost Writer (also 1989). He did not get to reprise the role of Ricky in SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT III: BETTER WATCH OUT! (1989) and the part was given to Bill Moseley. The cast also includes a young Tim Abell (under the name "Ron Moriarty") as a detective. 

Terrible as this all is, in some strange way I actually prefer watching this sequel to the original film. Not only do you get loads of laughs in the new footage, but it also cuts out the middle man by showing all of the highlights from the first film. Both films have been issued numerous times on DVD by Anchor Bay.

SBIG

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

... aka: Slayride

Directed by:
Charles E. Sellier Jr.

The furor over this typical (though entertaining) slasher flick began with a series of TV spots and print ads featuring a man dressed as Santa Claus brandishing an axe. A parent's group out of Milwaukee began protesting the film, picketed theaters and demanded the ads be removed from the air, the controversy rapidly spread and the film's bad reputation was solidified after it was blasted on an episode of "At the Movies." Gene Siskel referred to it as "sick and sleazy and mean-spirited," called out the distributors as well as the director, producer and writer by name to publicly shame them (claiming their profits were "blood money") and then went on record placing it alongside I Spit on Your Grave as "one of the two most contemptible films I have seen." Interestingly, at least three earlier films had also depicted a killer donning gay apparel; the "And All Through the House" segment of TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972) starring Joan Collins, CHRISTMAS EVIL (1980), which fellow Silent Night-hating-critic Leonard Maltin had awarded a 3 star rating to, and the seldom-watched TO ALL A GOODNIGHT (1980), which was the directorial debut of David "Krug" Hess. None of those films received quite the attention or the (over-the-top) chilly reception of SNDN. Regardless, all the hoopla, news coverage and free publicity ensured the film was profitable. It managed to gross more than double its budget in less than two weeks before TriStar finally caved in and yanked the film from theaters. After the firestorm calmed down a bit, it was re-released in 1986 by another company (Aquarius Films) and again raked in lots of money, which set the stage for numerous sequels.

Silent Night is basically your run-of-the-mill Psych 101 slasher flick that follows the familiar "childhood trauma = adult murderous impulses" trajectory. After a visit to a nuthouse to see his creepy grandpa (Will Hare), who snaps out of his faked catatonic state long enough to inform the boy that "Christmas Eve is the scariest damn night of the year!," five-year-old Billy witnessed his parents (Tara Buckman, Geoff Hansen) being butchered by a psycho (Charles Dierkop) dressed as Santa. He and his infant brother Ricky are promptly sent off to a Catholic orphanage where things don't improve much. The place is run by the sadistic Mother Superior (Lilyan Chauvin), a stern advocate of inflicting "punishment" on all the naughty boys and girls with a belt and whose remedy for a child's nightmare involves tying them down to the bed. Still troubled by seeing his parents being murdered, Billy draws bloody pictures and spies on some teenagers having sex, all of which lead to him getting a good beating. The compassionate Sister Margaret (Gilmer McCormick) does what she can to help soften the blow, but she too is pretty much at the mercy of the Alpha Nun.

After turning 18, Billy (hunky Robert Brian Wilson) is finally able to leave Saint Mary's Hellhole and goes to work in a toy store. Still troubled by his repressed childhood trauma and abusive treatment at the hands of Mother Superior over the years, Billy finally snaps when he's forced to don a Santa Claus costume around Christmastime and then catches the attempted rape of his female co-worker / crush Pamela (Toni Nero). He strangles the attacker to death with a string of Christmas lights, guts Pamela with a box cutter, sinks the clawed end of a hammer in his drunk boss' (Britt Leach) head and then shoots another woman with a arrow. After Billy leaves, Sister Margaret stops by for a visit, finds the bodies and then goes to the police, but by that point Billy's already mid-way through a vicious murder spree, which includes impaling a topless teenager (Linnea Quigley, you're wanted on the set!), decapitating sled-stealing bullies on their trip downhill and sending a cop down a flight of stairs after burying an axe in his chest. Billy eventually ends up back at the orphanage wanting revenge on the woman who'd made his life a living hell.

Aside from the novelty of the killer's costume, a couple of memorable murder scenes (most notably Ms. Quigley's) and a Grinch pinch of holiday mean-spiritedness (no less than two different Santa's are gunned down right in front of a bunch of children), this is all rather predictable and routinely written and directed. It's at its best during the opening half hour "build up" portion detailing Billy's tumultuous youth. The visit to the asylum and the family encountering a deranged Santa while traveling across a vacant country road at night are genuinely creepy, and the orphanage scenes are pretty nasty and somewhat harrowing; something the rest of the film fails to live up to. Still, there's enough blood and nudity to satisfy a slasher fans needs and it's reasonably well-made, with above average performances.

This reissue poster omitted the killer Santa angle, yet played up on the controversy surrounding it.

Billy's brother Ricky was the central character in the first two follow-ups; Lee Harry's unintentionally hilarious Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2 (1987) and Monte Hellman's bland Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out! (1989). Brian Yuzna's Silent Night Deadly Night 4: Initiation (1990), which concerned an all-female cult of bug worshippers, and Martin Kitrosser's Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker (1991), starring Mickey Rooney as a guy who makes killer toys, were completely unrelated to the first three; only sharing the Christmas setting. In 2012, a loose remake of the original (directed by Stephen C. Miller and titled simply Silent Night), was released.

★★1/2