HOLIDAY HORRORS: BLOODY CHRISTMAS (2012)

Ho-Ho-Ho Dear Readers! It's Christmas-time again which means that here at ER we'll be turning our attention to the world of Holiday Horrors. Over the next few weeks we'll be diving into a veritable sinematic fruitcake of killer Santas including flicks from the SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT series, CHRISTMAS EVIL, Edmund Purdom's DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS and more. But let's kick things off with something of a more recent vintage as longtime ER contributor Douglas Waltz serves up some BLOODY CHRISTMAS. If you dig Doug's stuff – and if you're an ER reader I know you do – be sure to check out his new book Divine Exploitation, a collection of his no-holds-barred takes on trash cinema.

In Small Town U.S.A. there is a child murderer on the loose. The police are helpless and don't have a clue.

Meanwhile, has-been 80s action star Rich Tague (Steve Montague) is reduced to playing Santa on a shitty Public Access TV show and fantasizes about killing the people who irritate him. The fantasies are increasing in frequency and becoming more vivid at every turn.

Father Michael (Robert Youngren) has demons of his own to battle as the body count continues and Christmas is rapidly approaching. Who will snap? Who will do what is right? It all comes to a head in ... BLOODY CHRISTMAS!

It wasn't till after I started watching this that I realized Geretta Geretta from RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR and DEMONS was in it. She's so wasted in this part. Not wasted like drugs or alcohol, but talent-wise. They had her for at least a day and should have used her to her potential. Troma chief Lloyd Kaufman has the funniest cameo in the film.

Steve Montague is awesome as Rich/Santa. He is sick of the commercialism of Christmas and the fact that his shining moments are largely things of the past. That is something he struggles to cope with throughout the movie.

So, in a world that already has CHRISTMAS EVIL, SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT and BLACK CHRISTMAS, how does this one hold up? Well, it is dealing with a microscopic budget so there are things about it that scream "amateurish".

On the other hand, the small town aspect is done well and, to be honest, I got pretty wrapped up in the climax of the film. It got to a point where if they ended it one way I was done with it and it was just another micro budgeted piece of crap. But, they went the other way, which made me happy and gave the film the ending it needed to become another bloody Christmas classic.

There's some interesting gore in the film and some nice girls were kind enough to show us their sweater puppies but I honestly think that Steve Montague made this movie. You felt for him. You felt his disgust at the crass commercialism of the holiday.

As a whole, BLOODY CHRISTMAS does what it sets out to do and it works. Geretta was wasted, but she really didn't need to be in the movie and her being in it didn't make it better or worse.

Which is kind of a shame.

But I'm happy to add this to the holiday season of Santa horror movies. It's about time. We haven't had one of those in a while. – Douglas Waltz

BLOODY CHRISTMAS is available from Amazon.