EDITOR’S NOTE: This was first on the site on December 18, 2018.

Check out Bill’s intro when this played FACETS in Chicago!

Straight up, let me be honest. This movie is crazy. I say that a lot in conversations about movies that defy description. I may exclaim, this movie is insane. It’s bonkers. I may use all manner of words. Let me tell you, when it comes to Christmas movies, nothing will prepare you for this.

Let me short hand it for you — imagine if Home Alone had more terror and blood. Think of the grindhouse version of that film. And then realize that this was made a year before and director René Manzor once threatened the makers of that film with a lawsuit alleging that they had remade his movie.

The difference is that when the Wet Bandits get beat up in Home Alone, the carnage is like a cartoon. Not here. Not at all.

Thomas de Frémont is a smart young kid who is obsessed with inventing things and American action movies like Rambo. He lives in a secluded mansion with his widowed mother Julie, his nearly blind grandfather Papy and his dog J.R. On Christmas Eve, Thomas uses a Minitel ( a French 80’s internet that had access to commercial and private addresses, along with chat rooms) to try and talk to Santa, only to be targeted by a deranged homeless man who breaks into the mansion.

Seriously, this evil Santa is super evil. He gets a job where Julie works, slaps around kids and gets his entry into their home by hiding in a delivery van and killing the driver. He then kills Thomas’ dog in front of his eyes. The young boy thinks that this really is Santa and he is angry that he’s stayed up so late to try and catch him dropping off toys.

The evil Saint Nick cuts off all the phone lines and challenges Thomas to a game of life and death, even catching him once and letting him go. I’m not going to give away more of the movie, but it’s seriously one of the darkest holiday movies I’ve ever witnessed, one that will make kids not want anything in their stockings.

It’s also shot in an incredibly frenetic style that I’d compare favorably to Michele Soavi. Manzor would go on to be a famous writer, as well as get hired by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas to direct some of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

Also known as Deadly Games and Dial Code Santa Claus, this movie was impossible to find. That said — the awesome folks at American Genre Film Archive have a restored version playing across the country this holiday with a blu ray finally releasing soon. It won’t be out in time for Christmas, but if you’re already reading about it here, you know how to search the grey markets of the internet by now. It’s worth the time.

Vinegar Syndrome has released this movie after years of people like me waiting for it. Get it now!

There’s no way that National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation should be as good as it is. By 1989, Chevy Chase had become, well, Chevy Chase and a holiday film three movies in feels like a cash-in. And yet this is a movie that my wife’s family watches every single year and now, I’ve become part of that tradition.

The first movie by director Jeremiah S. Chechik (who went on to direct Diabolique), the real joy of this movie is the script by John Hughes, based on his story Christmas ’59.

Chase and D’Angelo are back, but as always, the kids are played by different actors. This time, Audrey is Juliette Lewis and Rusty is Johnny Galecki. This probably has the smartest casting of any of the films in the series, with Clark’s parents being played by John Randolph and Diane Ladd, Ellen’s by E.G. Marshall and Doris Roberts, William Hickey and Mae Questel as the elderly and deranged Lewis and Bethany Griswold, evil neighbors the Chesters played by Julia-Louis Dreyfuss and Nicholas Guest, and most importantly, Randy Quaid and Miriam Flynn returning as Eddie and Catherine.

Eddie’s appearance surprises me every time, how he just shows up out of nowhere and then takes over the movie. Yes, in the days before he was a conspiracy driven near-insane man, Randy Quaid had incredible comic timing.

It also has the episodic story idea that works so well from the first movie as you can come into this movie at any time and enjoy it. I mean, the shopping for lingerie scene? The sled riding? Randy waving in the pool dream? There are so many moments that make me laugh just imagining them.

Director Chris Columbus started as the director, but he and Chevy Chase did not get along, so John Hughes replaced him and gave him Home Alone. That worked out, right?

It also will never fail to blow my mind that Angelo Badalamenti did the score to this.

We haven’t watched this movie since two Christmas Days ago. My father-in-law, who would shush us all and make us all watch it together no matter what, is gone and maybe it’s too hard to watch. The closing line, where Clark just says, “I did it” used to make me cry before because it’s so wonderful and perfect and sums up the end of the holidays as an adult so well. But now, in a year where I’ve lost both of the fathers in my life, it seems like it all could all be too much.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This for kids but not recommended for children movie was originally on the site on December 23, 2019.

I love my wife, but man, when she gets control of the remote, we end up watching movies like Prancer when all I want to watch is Cannibal Holocaust again. I’m joking — I know it’s Christmas, but c’mon.

Here’s the demented thing about this movie: it has the same director as Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, John D. Hancock. I swear to Santa.

This movie is all about nine-year-old Jessica Riggs (Rebecca Harrell Tickell, who left acting to become a clean Earth activist), who is being raised by her widower father John (Sam Elliot). He can handle raising her brother Steve, but feels that she’d be better of being raised by his sister-in-law Sarah (Rutanya Alda from Mommie Dearest and Amityville II: The Possession).

Eventually, her obsession with Santa’s reindeer Prancer pays off and she gets to nurse him back to health. But man, is this a dark movie. The eighties are packed with dead moms in movies and this is yet another holiday film where everything is beyond somber.

Michael Constantine from the Greek Wedding movies is a Santa in this, plus you get Cloris Leachman, Abe Vigoda, a young Johnny Galecki and Ariana Richards from Jurassic Park.

You know how dark this one is?

Director John D. Hancock insists that Prancer’s fate — either he rejoins Santa or leaps off the cliff to his death — should be left open to interpretation.

Let that sink in: LEFT TO INTERPRETATION IN A MOVIE MADE FOR KIDS.

I’m not always a fan of studio notes, but I get why they wanted a more definitive answer. Originally, Hancock decided on an elaborate special-effects sequence showing Prancer’s journey to Santa’s sleigh, but they couldn’t afford that.

When asked, Hancock claims that the shot of Prancer rejoining Santa is all in Jessica’s mind.

So the reindeer is dead.

Merry Christmas from John D. Hancock.

Man, Tubi is filled with the work of John Russo, including these two docs:

Monster Make-Ups With Dick Smith (1989): Dick Smith is the godfather of monster make-up and best known for his work on Little Big Man, The Godfather, The Exorcist, House of Dark Shadows, Taxi Driver, Scanners and Death Becomes Her. He was an early pioneer of combining make-up with on-set “practical” special effects to make movie magic. This video, however, is just him doing simple make-up on a willing subject, giving him vampire fangs and then going absolutely wild and making him into a monster. While Smith’s work is dynamic, he’s soft-spoken and this video will show you technique but if you’re watching it as entertainment, you won’t get much. That said, it’s intriguing for horror movie fans. You can watch this on Tubi.

Horror Effects with Tom Savini (2008): Not released until 2008 but probably shot sometime in the 90s, this is less learning the techniques of Savini and more he and John Russo taking a trip down memory lane, talking about the movies they had worked on together and new films that Savini is just starting on like Two Evil Eyes, so yeah, this was around 1990 or so.

When it was shot, this would be the only way that you could see Heartstopper and I’m so glad they left the scene in where Tom keeps doing sets in his home gym while his wife begs him to put a baby in her.

This was directed by Paul McCollough, who shot The Winners, There’s Always Vanilla, The Booby Hatch, FleshEater and Midnight, as well as edited The Booby Hatch, FleshEater, Midnight, The Majorettes and Heartstopper. He also composed the music for remake of Night of the Living Dead, Legion of the Night and Santa Claws.

Russo is a total carny and you know, I kind of love that. I’ve given him money for posters covered in coffee stains and don’t feel bad at all about it.

You can watch this on Tubi.

John Russo is a green filmmaker and by that, I mean that he sure does love to recycle footage. But hey — he’s also smart enough to realize that those that love metal generally love horror movies, so why not combine both of them?

His Market Square Productions put this together and it was directed and written by Paul McCollough, who was around to shoot The Winners, There’s Always Vanilla, The Booby Hatch, FleshEater and Midnight, as well as edit The Booby Hatch, FleshEater, Midnight, The Majorettes and Heartstopper plus also compose music for several of those films and the remake of Night of the Living Dead, Legion of the Night, Santa Claws and Monster Makeup.

There are seven music videos on this and each has a video — of sorts — to go with it.

Hurricane “Over the Edge”: Hurricane is an American heavy metal band — they’re still around! — first formed in 1983. The original lineup had now current Foreigner lead vocalist Kelly Hansen, Robert Sarzo, Tony Cavazo and Jay Schellen. If some of those last names seem familiar, Cavazo and Sarzo are the younger brothers of Quiet Riot’s Carlos Cavazo and Rudy Sarzo. Robert was the first guitarist to replace Randy Rhodes after he tragically died. Robert and Tony are also the only original members left in the band. I kind of love how the “video” behind their song is just footage of Kennywood, an amusement park outside Pittsburgh.

Wrath “Children of the Wicked”: Wrath plays what they refer to as “progressive, technically demanding thrash metal which has been referred to as Tech-Thrash or Speed-Tech.” Bassist Gary Modica is the only original member left, but they’re still recording.

The Pandoras “Run Down Love Battery”: This band got their start in late 1982 as part of the 1960s garage rock revival and was associated with the Paisley Underground era in Hollywood’s underground rock scene. Sadly, the band split into two factions as It’s About Time LP was released with founder/singer/songwriter Paula Pierce hiring three new musicians and literally going her own way. The band was on Rhino, Elektra and Restless before disbanding in 1990. Keyboardist Melanie Vammen and bassist Kim Shattuck went on to form The Muffs. Even sadder, both Pierce and Shattuck are no longer with us. This is pretty much just the band’s video for the song, but man, it’s infectious.

The Dickies “Booby Trap”: This Los Angeles-based punk band has been in continuous existence for over 40 years. They’re probably best known for doing the music for Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

Elvis Hitler “Hot Rod to Hell”: This Detroit-born psychobilly band was named after the stage name of their lead singer Jim Leedy and had a novelty hit with the song “Green Haze,” which combines the theme song of Green Acres with “Purple Haze.”

The Del-Lords “Judas Kiss”: Founded by The Dictators’ guitarist Scott Kempner, this band had four singers — beyond Kempner, there was Eric “Roscoe” Ambel, Frank Funaro and Steve Almaas — to become an urban roots rock version of the Beach Boys. They were named for the director of several Three Stooges shorts, Del Lord.

N.M.E. “Heartstopper”:  This Pittsburgh band featured guitarists Michael Weldon and Brian Keruskin, Chuck Robinson on bass, drummer Dave Snyder and vocalist Jirus. They broke up shortly after doing the music for the movie Heartstopper.

All of all these songs play over clips of Night of the Living Dead, The Majorettes, Midnight and Heartstopper which as you may have put together are all movies owned by Russo (or in the public domain, as is the case with Night). There are also strange garbled voiceover and audio warnings about a character named Uncle Tonoose, who gets mentioned so much in this you might believe that he’s actually someone. Maybe the character from Make Room for Daddy came back from the dead?

Regardless, this is a fun artifact of a past time and for a while was the only way to see Heartstopper. It’s pretty ramshackle, but that’s part of the fun.

Thanks to the magic of the web, you can watch it on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of my favorite holiday movies and one I dream that Vinegar Syndrome releases. This was first on the site on December 20, 2017.

Sometimes, I watch movies in the middle of the night, after working long shifts of meetings, copywriting and brainstorming. Whatever brains that still exist in the mush and at this late hour are often exposed to sheer lunacy via films that I find on YouTube. When I awaken, my first thought is often, “Was that movie real or a nightmare?”

Elves is one of those films.

Kirsten and her friends innocently take part in an anti-Christmas pagan ritual in the woods, but then she cuts her hand and awakens a demonic elf who ends up being part of a Nazi plot to create the master race that Hitler always dreamed of. Yep, instead of the pure Aryan Nietzsche paradigm, the Führer dreamed of a world where human and elf hybrids would populate the globe.

Through one of those moments of perfect horror movie luck, Kirsten is the last pure Aryan virgin on earth. Nope, this isn’t a post-apocalyptic film. That’s just the way things are these days. Her grandfather was once a part of all of this, but he’s since reformed. Oh, he’s also her father, because inbreeding was a big part of keeping the bloodline pure.

But hey, Kirsten has no idea that any of this is going on. She’s just trying to get through the hell of holiday retail, working in a department store. That’s where she meets Mike McGain (Dan Haggerty, TV’s Grizzly Adams), an alcoholic homeless ex-cop who takes over for the store’s Santa Claus when the original is killed by an evil elf. Yes, I just wrote that sentence, perhaps the most batshit crazy one I’ve ever assembled in all my years of writing.

Mike starts living in the store, eating food that he steals from the snack bar where Kirsten works. One night, he saves her when the Nazis come to the store and kill all of her friends.

Will Kirsten survive? What does her mom think about all of this? Have you ever wanted to see a movie where an elf electrocutes a woman in a bathtub? What the fuck is an elfstone anyway? These and several other questions will and won’t be answered.

This is a film rich with purely inane and insane dialogue, including a lecherous cocaine using Santa that states, “Santa said oral!” and our heroine bemoaning that her only friend is a cat. There’s also a great scene where Mike goes to see a professor during a holiday dinner and the man describes how elves and Nazis are having this big ritual and incestual sex bloodlines in front of his children.

Geek note: Mike goes to the library and asks what the Dewey Decimal System Number is for the occult. The answer? 666. Nope. The real number would be 130, the code for books on parapsychology and the supernatural.

Is this film any good? Fuck no, it’s horrible. And I loved it. It’s my holiday gift to you and I’m so happy to share such a patently warped film with all of you.

Also, was this film inspired by The Little People, the potboiler that inspired Paperbacks from Hell?

It’s also never come out on DVD, an amazing thing in an age where nearly everything has been released. Luckily, the VHSPS crew have things covered!

How have I never watched this?

I mean, the cast is pure magic. Rutger Hauer playing a gaijin Zatoichi? Terry O’Quinn as his chemical expert war buddy who gets wacky when he throws explosives at people? Nick Cassavetes and Rick Overton as the cowboy henchman known as the Pike Brothers? Randall “Tex” Cobb as Slag, the man trying to get O’Quinn’s kid and who has already killed his ex-wife, played by Meg Foster?

This is a movie where, of course, Hauer has crazy blind eyes and goes eyeball to eyeball with Foster, her blue eyes staring a hole into the sun.

Lisa Blount as O’Quinn’s new love? Tiger Chung Lee playing a heavy? Sho Kosugi showing up just long enough to go one on one with Hauer in a sword duel over an electrified hot tub?

Phillip Noyce made this and Dead Calm in the same year, which is absolutely amazing. He also made Sliver and I’d love to talk to him about all of the insanity.

Seriously, I watched every single moment of this with a huge smile on my face. The idea of remaking Zaitochi Challenged in America and not losing any of the charm? Credit goes to Tim Matheson, a fan of that Japanese series, who worked with producer Daniel Grodnik for seven years to get this made.

The Kino Lorber blu ray of this has an audio commentary by screenwriter Charles Robert Carner, moderated by Filmmaker Douglas Hosdale, as well as a newly remastered trailer. You can get it from Kino Lorber.

Winemaker Dr. Elson Po (James Hong, who directed this with William Rice, and wrote the movie with Douglas Kondo and  James Marlowe)  is growing old, so he takes young people and uses their blood to make wine. He gets a great idea to make a movie about the wine, but that’s just a scam so that he can get some gorgeous young folks to visit and die.

There are some fun moments in this, like the dying people buried in Po’s garden, him ordering the death of his wife’s young lover and a moment where he rapidly ages while making love. No problem — he heads down to the basement for a fresh bottle of that age-defying wine.

Jezebel, one of the main women in this, is played by Playboy March 1982 Playmate of the Month Karen Lorre, who was also in Dangerously Close. I love that all these young American women take one look at Po and say, “He’s so…interesting!” Yes!  He’s going to smash you like a human grape into his favorite chablis! Run!

You can watch this on Tubi.