So much average

Simply A Masterpiece

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

A very British entry into the 1980's slasher cannon. It feels as if the EastEnders writers thought that they'd give jumping on the slasher bandwagon a go, but lacking any real insight into the genre they get it a bit wrong at most turns!Lacking the perkiness of most of its American cousins and the style of the Italian gialli, the film is nevertheless more aligned to the giallo in terms of structure and plot, police procedural action and a whodunit angle with numerous characters.It gets pluses for the mask, a variety of amusing kills, the London Dungeon scene and the sheer curiosity factor given that UK slashers of this era are relatively rare. There is a bargain basement TV actors look and feel throughout, like a fairly straight BBC version of a slasher film. London looks suitably gross, seedy and grotty. A few off the wall moments keep it fairly enjoyable and worth a look for fans of sleazy, cult, obscure trash.

You'd think with a spate of Santa killings in London, the inhabitants would do their utmost to avoid dressing up like jolly old Saint Nick. But no, even after the story is all over the papers, they still parade about in red and white, without a care in the world. Like lemmings, they are.I'd never heard of this film, but an 80's slasher set in somewhere that wasn't Middle America demanded to be seen, despite the unseasonal time of year. And I think I can grasp as to the reason behind its obscurity... it ain't very good. The scenes that are filmed seem to be stuck together with Pritt-Stick and paste, which is a way of saying it appears they're making up the plot as they go along. A lot of this material could be jumbled up in any random order... and still make as much sense as it does now (which isn't much). It comes as no great surprise when that the opening credits inform us that 'additional shots were written and directed' by some guy who WASN'T Edmund Purdom. A bit of trouble during production, perchance? Perhaps poor old Edmund got the SACK!! HO HO HO! *Ahem* Sorry...If you can stay awake long enough though, some of the murders are a really hoot, including one where Father Christmas gets emasculated while relieving himself, and another where Kris Kringle has a javelin lodged in his windpipe from fully 100 yards. (He might be a psycho, but that killer needs to try out for the Olympics, I tell you what.) It's just the parts in-between are little more than the same sort of padding that gives Santa his ginormous belly. There's no-one to relate to, and the constant change of perspective is a pain. It's definitely not a film to frighten your friends at a sleepover, more like one where you skip to the death scenes, and laugh your socks off at the dated effects. Get ready with that fast-forward button... 4/10

A vicious psycho brutally bumps off various unlucky guys dressed up as Santa Claus around Christmastime. It's up to the dour Inspector Ian Harris (a very sour and indifferent Edmund Purdom, who also fumbled the direction) to catch the maniac. While this movie totally fails to provide any true chills or tension, it certainly succeeds in delivering a steady succession of grisly and ghastly murder set pieces that are randomly injected throughout the narrative with an appealingly appalling lack of finesse and cohesion: one poor tubby dude gets castrated while using a public lavatory, another has a spear shot into the back of his head, a third's face is fried on a grill, and so on. Moreover, Purdom does manage to effectively create and sustain a thoroughly nasty and seedy tone, there's a hefty corpse tally of 14, the foul script blithely breaks the usual established slice'n'dice rules (for example, the final girl is a cheery harlot instead of the customary virginal innocent), and the St. Nick victims are mostly despicable jerks (one Kris Kringle is offed while visiting a sex shop on his lunch break!). The cast do their best with the tawdry material: Alan Lake as creepy low-rent tabloid newspaper reporter Giles, the fetching Belinda Mayne as the distraught Kate Briosky, Gerry Sundquist as Kate's insensitive boyfriend Cliff Boyd, Kelly Baker as bubbly peepshow booth worker Sherry Graham, and Mark Jones as Harris' partner Sergeant Powell. Caroline Munro makes a cameo appearance as herself singing a cruddy disco song in a nightclub. As a tasty added plus, buxom blonde Pat Astley bares her fine shapely body several times as brash nude model Sharon. Alan Pudney's cinematography makes neat occasional use of a prowling hand-held camera. Des Dolan's quivery synthesizer score does the generic ooga-booga hum'n'shiver trick. Worth a watch for fans of sleazy holiday horror fare.

All right. So the plot's something like this. There's some guy who goes around in random masks and he kills a bunch of people who dress up as Santa Claus. Scotland Yard tries to find him, but they really suck. The daughter of one of the Santa's he kills tries to find him and succeeds, but her deductions don't make any sense. Then everybody dies except for the serial killer. Merry Christmas. I knew this wasn't going to be pretty when they misspelled the name of the film in the opening credits. It's almost entirely made up of scenes that are so short and so all over the place that you really can't make any connection with what's going on. The movie would be really predictable (there's a sinister innocuous secondary character, like in Scooby Doo), except that it's impossible to keep track of everything that's happening, as it's completely random. None of the characters are particularly likable, and the scenes really could be arranged in any order. Nonetheless, some of the Santa deaths were fun. The castration was impressive, as was the guy who apparently soaks himself in gasoline before coming to work every day. Amusing, in a sort of god-awful way.