Last Sunday, I drove to my local mall to visit SpookyTown Depot, my very favorite seasonal Halloween superstore. My plan was to purchase a couple of half-priced Kate Gosselin wigs and a zombie clown mask (don't ask). Upon reaching the mall though, I encountered something most unexpected: a long line of children and their parents waiting not-so-patiently for some lap time with one Mr. Kris Kringle! That's right, Santa had already set up shop at the mall and it was only the day after Halloween! You'd think I'd be delighted, considering how much I love jolly fat guys with beards, but I was quite the opposite. I was incensed! And to make matters worse, SpookyTown was all out of Kate wigs (they did have plenty of lame, leftover Jon Gosselin costume sets--clip on CZ earrings, "faux" Ed Hardy t-shirt, half-pack of cigarettes) and in the process of becoming Santa's Pantry, which, truth be told, offers some of the most delicious smoked meats and cheeses. But that's not the point. The point is it ain't Christmastime! I've yet to stuff myself with Thanksgiving goodness! I haven't scrambled to buy relatively thoughtless last minute gifts for my wife! I haven't even heard that awful Paul McCartney song yet! For Pete's sake, nameless local mall full of stores I made up, slow your roll! Walking into a Halloween-themed store in transition to a Christmas-themed store is fairly offputting anyway. On one aisle you might find plastic sickles, squeeze bottles of fake blood, and slutty cavewoman ensembles; in the next, Advent calendars, dancing Santas, and musical Twilight ornaments. It's weird and confusing and wrong. Christmas and Halloween are as different as jam and puss. They do not belong in the same store. If I were a justice of the peace in some backward Southern town and Christmas and Halloween approached me about performing a marriage ceremony for them, I would flat out refuse. Don't get me wrong--I'm not a racist. I would refer them to another JP. I'm just looking out for the kids.
Perhaps the only element of Christmas I can see working in a Halloween capacity is Santa Claus. I know that is a crazy thing to say, but think about it. Santa is a creepy dude in many respects. Take for instance that Naughty and Nice List he keeps. How's he keeping track of that shit? Exactly--he's stalking you. And not just you, but every single child on the face of the Earth. Santa's a child stalker, plain and simple. I'm not suggesting that he has any sort of sinister motive besides making sure lil' Jedidiah and Johannah eat their vegetables and refrain from pulling the dog's tail, I'm just saying that grown men who secretly watch children are kind of gross. You know the song:
He sees you when you're sleeping.
He knows when you're awake.
He knows if you've been bad or good,
so be good for goodness sake!
Brrr! Creepy!
Christmas Evil is the perfect melding of Christmas (warm family good times) and Halloween (unspeakable horror). Is it a Christmas movie about one lonely man's quest to bring joy to children and prove to his brother that he's not a hapless schlub? Or is it a Halloween movie about an unhinged psychopath who dresses up like Santa Claus on Christmas Eve and takes revenge on all the assholes who have wronged him over the past year? Well, it's mostly that second one, but there is enough heartwarming stuff mixed in to make Christmas Evil one of the most oddly compelling movies I've ever seen. How can you not love a movie that starts off with Santa munching on some MILF's box?
One magical Christmas Eve long ago, Harry Stadling and his little brother, Philip, watch in awe as Santa Claus climbs out of the fireplace, eats a sandwich, and stacks some colorfully wrapped presents under the old Tannenbaum. It's like a Family Circle Christmas pictorial come to life. Philip is delighted, barely able to conceal his giggles behind two tiny hands, while Harry watches with wide-eyed reverence as if he's observing a wild animal in its natural habitat. After Santa swigs some milk, he drops a few trinkets into the boys' stockings and disappears up the chimney.
In the bedroom they share, Philip claims that "Santa" was merely the boys' father in a fat suit and this revelation pushes Young Harry over the proverbial edge. "That wasn't Dad," he growls angrily at his little brother. "That was the real Santa!" Later that night, Harry hears strange noises coming from downstairs and convinced that Santa has returned to prove his existence to the entire Stadling clan and remove Philip's presents for his unwillingness to believe, he sneaks down to the family room and encounters a troubling site: "Santa" muzzle-deep in Mrs. Stadling's cooch. Yes, Santa is chowing down on mommy's hoo-ha and that's just a little more than Harry can stomach for one Christmas. Crestfallen, he runs to the attic and purposefully cuts his hand open with an ornament shard. Oh, Harry, even Santa needs a little poontang now and again. There's no need to get all secret cutting over it. 
Years later, Harry is a sad-eyed, middle-aged weirdo who endlessly hums Christmas carols and sits for hours on the roof with a pair of binoculars and spies on the children in his neighborhood. If he observes one taking out the trash, he makes a note of it in his Good Boys and Girls Book; and if he catches one ogling vag in a Penthouse magazine, as neighborhood n'er-do-well Moss Garcia is fond of doing, well, that gets written down in the Bad Boys and Girls Book. Harry's got a real issue with pornography, as displayed in one of my favorite exchanges in the film:
Years later, Harry is a sad-eyed, middle-aged weirdo who endlessly hums Christmas carols and sits for hours on the roof with a pair of binoculars and spies on the children in his neighborhood. If he observes one taking out the trash, he makes a note of it in his Good Boys and Girls Book; and if he catches one ogling vag in a Penthouse magazine, as neighborhood n'er-do-well Moss Garcia is fond of doing, well, that gets written down in the Bad Boys and Girls Book. Harry's got a real issue with pornography, as displayed in one of my favorite exchanges in the film:(Harry walks jauntily down the street, a smile stretched across his schlubby face)
Kid#1: Hey, Harry, what did you wish for last night?
Harry: I wished I was super magical!
Kid #1: I wished that I was principal and I could kick any kid out of school that I wanted!
(Harry smiles)
Moss Garcia: I wished for a lifetime subscription to Penthouse!
(Harry's face melts into a frown; psycho music)
But while the children he secretly watches seem to like Harry, his co-workers at the Jolly Dream toy company ("If it's not a Jolly Dream...it's not worth having!") couldn't respect him less. It might be because until his recent promotion he was a assembly line drone like the rest of them, but mostly it's because he has a quick temper and is all kinds of creepy. He strongly believes in the shoddy toys his company shits out too, the most popular of which seems to be a toy soldier, in either red or blue, carrying a dangerously sharp lightening bolt in its hand just perfect for driving into a man's brain when he least expects it.
As the film progresses, we watch Harry become increasingly more unstable: he paints his face black and hides in the bushes outside Moss Garcia's house; he skips out on Thanksgiving dinner with his brother's family insisting that he is close to perfecting "the tune;" he sews his own Santa suit and paints a sleigh on the door of his rape van; and following a heated argument with a fellow executive at the company Christmas party, he steals a shitload of toys from the Jolly Dream factory.Once Christmas Eve rolls around, Harry dons his gay apparel and drives off into the night to deliver toys and death sentences to all the good girls and boys of suburban New York. First, he visits an orphanage, and, after a tense showdown with an elderly security guard, unloads a rape van full of pilfered Jolly Dream toys for the children. Next, Harry heads over to the local Catholic church where he viciously murders two young couples with a festive holiday axe while a crowd of parishioners watch dumbfounded. Then it's on to the Garcia's house with a lumpy sack full of, well, we never really find out. My immediate thought was that it was a riff on the old "Flaming Poo Bag on the Doorstep" gag, though I'm fairly certain that a bag full of dog shit as large as the one Harry leaves for Moss (which is kind of a cool name, right?) once set on fire could easily raze an entire block of townhomes.
By now, the police are involved, dragging in every poor bastard in a Santa suit and making them stand in a line-up, while confused churchgoers attempt to pick out the killer. Harry, however, is still galavanting around town in his rape van pretending that it's Santa's sleigh and calling out the names of the reindeer. He stops at a party and is invited inside for drinks and dancing. After a spirited group number, Santa Stadling delivers a final message to the children in attendance:
The woman's face at 1:15 says it all.
The party scene made one thing very clear to me: Christmas Evil and Taxi Driver are basically the same exact movie. Let me explain. Harry Stadling, like Travis Bickle, isn't really a bad guy, he's just misunderstood. Both men could clearly see how truly awful life can be. They also respected and cherished the innocence of youth. Travis shot up a sleazy brothel to free Iris from an empty life of child prostitution. Harry robbed Jolly Dream blind because he didn't agree with Corporate's decision to cheat orphans out of free toys. Travis and Harry had the balls to look the status quo right in its beady little eyes and say, "No way, man. I'm not going to sit here and watch the system get more corrupt. I'm gonna do something about it, man. I'm going to strap an elaborate sliding action holster to my arm and assassinate a politician! Or shove a toy soldier into a Catholic gentleman's brain! Whatever I do, it's gonna make a difference dammit!" Taxi Driver made Rober De Niro a household name and won the Palme d'Or at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival; Christmas Evil has been called "the greatest Christmas movie ever made" by director John Waters. Coincidence?
Unfortunately, the deeds of a hero of Harry Stradling's magnitude cannot go unpunished. Or can they? Harry is chased by a mob of torch-wielding parents and shunned by his longsuffering younger brother, but instead of having Harry burn for actions a conventional audience might find "atrocious," "anti-social," and "not very nice," writer/director Lewis Jackson gives his protagonist an out...a flying rape van out:
Here's a list of Christmas movies off the top of my head: The Santa Clause, Fred Claus, Santa Claus: The Movie, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Nothing Like the Holidays, Ernest Saves Christmas, Elf, The Family Stone, Four Christmases, Miracle on 34th Street, Home Alone, Prancer, The Polar Express, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York...Yep, I gotta agree with John Waters. Christmas Evil is by far the greatest Christmas movie of all time. Happy Early Ass Holidays, everybody!
