Christmas Evil (1980) review: a surprising psychological character study

Welcome to Knockout Horror. Christmas is coming so that means it is about time for another addition to our Festive Frights category and this time it’s a Holiday classic – Christmas Evil (1980)

A quick plot recap

It had been a very long time since I last watched Christmas Evil; at least since I was a teenager. I figured I couldn’t do it justice without actually sitting down and re-watching it through a far more critical eye. To be perfectly honest, I had a great time. This is a movie that has aged incredibly well. Let’s talk about the plot first.

Harry (Brandon Maggart) is a toy factory worker who is still bearing the mental scars of learning, back when he was a child, that Santa wasn’t real. He’s been keeping a list of all the kids in the neighbourhood who have been naughty or nice and this Christmas will finally push him over the edge.

“There are films that released this year that don’t look anywhere near as glorious as Christmas Evil does.”

When he sees the way his fellow coworkers treat the holiday, he snaps, dons a Santa Claus costume, and goes on a murderous rampage. Every tiny bit of that synopsis that I have just written sounds like a Christmas slasher movie, right? It’s basically the precursor to another 80’s festive classic Silent Night, Deadly Night. That’s where you would be mistaken.

Not the festive slasher you might expect

Christmas Evil is about as far from a traditional slasher as you can possibly get; well, for the first hour or so, at least. It’s actually far more of a psychological horror film that explores the mental collapse of a person who is just trying to go about their life while trapped in a state of arrested-development.

Harry actually believes in the sanctity of Christmas, despite his experience as a child. His crummy apartment is decked out with festive paraphernalia and he wholeheartedly believes in the good of the season. Especially when it comes to kids.

It’s the greed of his bosses and their cynical attitude towards a children’s hospital toy donation that really pushes him over the edge. He’s about as atypical a slasher antagonist as you can possibly get and we spend a lot of time with him.

It’s hard not to sympathise with Harry, at least a little. He just wants to do good but he goes about it in completely the wrong way. His decline comes not from a deeply hidden evil streak inside of him but from the want of restoring the sanctity of the holiday.

Harry’s victims are not unwitting characters who have a stark disconnection from him. They are people he has deemed to be fundamentally bad and perhaps even evil. It makes Harry a completely unique antagonist when placed up against a litany of violence driven horror killers.

Not violent but strangely refreshing

With this in mind, Christmas Evil isn’t a particularly violent film. It has at least one horrifying kill that earned it a place in our list of the 14 goriest Christmas horror movies but there is nowhere near enough here to keep blood-thirsty slasher fans salivating. It’s incredibly restrained.

“Social responsibility is the key that unlocks his rage. How often can you say that of horror in this day and age?”

In fact, the violence doesn’t even start until over an hour in. It’s a movie that still has the power to surprise people who go in thinking it’s going to be full of the red stuff, and I don’t mean tinsel. Naturally, due to Harry’s rather sympathetic nature, it’s not a scary movie, either.

We spend the entire film as a tag-along with him so there is none of the usual horror stuff you might expect. You aren’t going to be trying to spot Harry hiding in the shadows because you will be right there beside him trying to avoid being spotted.

Christmas Evil really speaks to a time when horror movies dared to subvert expectation in the most ordinary of ways. Slashers have conditioned us to expect a boogie-man that wears a mask or is accompanied by a musical riff. That isn’t the case here; it’s just a normal guy who has lost the plot.

Even his motives are atypical – social responsibility is the key that unlocks his rage. How often can you say that of horror in this day and age? It’s refreshing in a really strange way.

It’s a festive feast for the eyes

Christmas Evil is an absolute visual treat. Ricardo Aronovich’s cinematography shines to a level that will probably shock people who watch this film for the first time. Colours pop with a vibrancy that hides just how low-budget this movie was.

There are films that released this year that don’t look anywhere near as glorious as Christmas Evil does. It’s an enormous step above similar 80’s slashers like Blood Rage and Friday the 13th IV. There’s an absolutely fantastic scene with some very clever editing that pays homage to Frankenstein in a way that tips its hat to the obvious story similarities.

Naturally, there are issues. This is a very slow movie. Many horror fans are probably going to want to discard the first hour. It’s all character study stuff, presentations of mental decline, and highlighting the woes of a consumption obsessed society. Fans of movies with a more psychological bent will be in their element, though.

Harry’s character presentation can be uneven. His sympathetic nature is untangled pretty quickly by him spying on children through windows but there’s never any violence directed towards them. Slasher fans are going to be seriously disappointed, too. There’s just not enough violence to keep genre fans happy.

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