Worsemovies

This holiday season wraps up this time with Santa Claws, which is probably worse than the previous film, Christmas Evil, if you can believe it. It’s quite sad, really. Santa Claws looked like it was only a label away from being considered a Troma release. It promised senseless violence, gratuitous nudity, and even a starring role by Troma fave Debbie Rochon. But alas, it was not to be.

As the movie begins, we see kid Wayne (played by Grant Kramer) stumbling around the house while his mother is in bed with some fat guy wearing Santa’s cap. Apparently, the fat guy is kid’s uncle who drugged him so he can have some fun with his mother. But Wayne wakes up from slumber, finds his late father’s gun and shoot them both. I must point out that I have never seen such flat acting from people who were supposed to beg for their lives. Kid gets arrested and thrown into juvenile until he is 18. Then he gets to walk free. And there, folks, is your killer. It’s a premise stolen from every previous Santa slasher film ever made, and yet manages to be even lazier at establishing the killer’s character than any previous incarnation.

Merry Christmas from Uncle Joe

Some decades later, Wayne is now a grown-up with a terrifying little pedophile beard, buggy psycho eyes and large porn collection. Somehow, this does not invalidate him from being good friends with his neighbor Raven Quinn (played by Debbie Rochon). Raven is the big star at the local T&A video studio, where they’re currently shooting Scream Queens’ Naked Christmas, which actually exists. Her husband Eric (played by John Mowod) is a real shithead who cheats on her whenever he gets the chance. Wayne has a huge crush on Raven, and when we meet him, he’s just purchased a latex bust of his favorite star, which he talks to in the finest crazy movie psycho tradition.

Naked Christmas

Also, there’s a whole lot of drama about how Eric’s mom (played by Marilyn Eastman) and sister (played by Julie Wallace) disapprove of Raven’s lifestyle, and how Eric is screwing the girl he’s doing a holiday-themed photo shoot with. Finally, after 31 horrifyingly long minutes, Wayne finally goes to the studio to start killing all of Raven’s competition, including the director. Then he disposes of bodies by burying them under the snow in the middle of day. Of course, no one noticed him.

At some point, Wayne’s intermittent attempts to kill porn stars switches to Wayne’s intermittent attempts to kill porn stars while dressed as Santa Claus, which may have been triggered by his constant flashbacks to his mom and his fat uncle. With the Santa costume on, Wayne goes after another of Raven’s scream queen coworkers, attacking her in her house. After he’s been firmly established as the Santa Claus killer, he decides he needs to color his costume black, apparently so it will coordinate with his mask. His method for doing so? Spray Paint.

While Wayne is doing all the bloody job for her (including babysitting of her two brats and killing Raven’s in-laws), Raven decides to give it another shot with Eric. This really pisses off Wayne who comes after both of them. And ever-so-realistically, Wayne gets a long and drawn-out scene where he gets to tell his potential victims all about his life and why he’s the nutcase that he is today. Classic case of serial killer egoism. Anyway, during the fight, they pushed Wayne down the stairs in what appears to be one of the most comical scenes in this smoking pile of shit. Of course, this didn’t affected our killer because he is insane. Wayne gets the goods on Eric, stabbing him with the fork o’doom in the shoulder and then trying to plow it into Eric’s head. Raven gets the upper hand, though, when she rams the tool into Wayne’s throat, presumable ending his reign of terror. And that would be it. Not even the last words. The ending of the film shows Eric, Raven, and their kids enjoying a happy Christmas together, despite the whole divorce thing that was being teased the whole movie. The kids even get their very own Scream Studios jackets, showing just how thoughtful their parents are to begin with.

Conclusion: What makes the suckitude of Santa Claws even more disappointing is the fact that it’s the product of John Russo, who was one of the creators of the original Night of the Living Dead along with George Romero. Of course, since then, he’s been relegated to doing movies that aspire to be C-movies, but he’s still one of the guys responsible for one of the greatest horror movies to ever be made. But this movie still sucks rotten ass. The story is scant. The acting is uniformly bad. “Walls” wobble when struck, and we can glimpse where they don’t connect to the ceiling. And the special effects are laughably poor. Unlike many slashers, this killer sticks to only one implement, a relatively mild-looking garden rake. He hits people with it, leaving small red dots, which we are supposed to think are gashes. All of the actresses in this film appear to have had massive breast implants (which makes them great actresses). In essence, if you’re in the mood to completely wreck what’s left of a horrible Christmas season, then this is the movie to watch. Otherwise, leave it the hell alone.