Bloody Christmas

Written by Martin Unsworth Wednesday, 14 December 2011

Horror Obscura - by Martin Unsworth

With the Yuletide season upon us, it is customary for some good old ghost stories to get an airing. For a long time on BBC TV there would be a re-telling of a W.R. James tale or some late night spooky films shown. Rather than go over the those, however, I'd like to look at a few Christmas related films, and hope you find something of interest to track down and watch while sipping your mulled wine and listening out for slay bells, I mean sleigh bells...

Black Christmas (1974) seems an obvious place to start. It is directed by Bob Clark, who would later make the first two Porky's films and another seminal seasonal film, A Christmas Story (1983), but however great that film is, it does not come under our remit here at Starburst. Prior to Black Christmas Clark had made the cult favourite Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1973) and a film that was a minor hit in the early video age, Dead Of Night (aka Deathdream 1974).

Coming several years before the stalk and slash genre officially kicked off with Halloween (1978), Black Christmas uses techniques and ingenuity that would be seen in a myriad films later on. The familiar POV shot of the killer, stalked sorority girls, and creepy phone calls are all present, and predate the hits in which these would become clichés. That is not to say Clark invented them, though, of course not. Mario Bava had been pioneering the slasher flick for many years, as far back as 1964 with Blood And Black Lace and his 1971 film A Bay Of Blood (aka Twitch Of The Death Nerve) is often cited as an influence to the films that came later. However, what it is about Clark's film that makes a notable impact is it being set within a familiar setting for most Americans and Canadians (where this was made).

As the girls are planning their Christmas break at the sorority house, they start getting some strange, and obscene phone calls (I can imagine the language police at TV stations showing this going over time on the over dubs). Among the girls are Jess (Olivia Hussey), the brash and drunken Barb (Margot Kidder) and Clare (Lynne Griffin). They are disturbed by the caller, but take it as more of a prank than a threat. However, when Clare goes up to her room to pack, she is attacked and suffocated with a plastic bag. Then left for the rest of the film, in a rocking chair in the attic, going back and forth. Her father arrives the next day to pick her up, and is distressed that she seems to be missing. The police, headed by the ever reliable John Saxon, do not seem to be too concerned despite the fact another girl is missing, who is later found dead in the park near the house. After this discovery, the police finally take the calls to the house seriously and put a trace on the line to catch the perpetrator, who seems to be becoming more and more unhinged. The bodies begin to stack up, and while the film is fairly bloodless by today's standards, it is all the more effective for it. The deliberately slow pace and black humour might not be to the taste of audiences who have been weaned on the slashers of the 80s, but Black Christmas is a fine example of how to do it right. Plus the twist ending is fantastic! There was also a 2006 remake (now there is a surprise, eh?), which felt the need to give far too much back story to the killer, but is quite fun in a 'leave your brain at home' type way. It is worth watching out for Andrea Martin, who appeared as the mousey Phyllis in the 1974 film, playing the sorority house mother in the remake, fact fans!

A curious little film from 1980, Christmas Evil (although originally called You Better Watch Out, and still titled this on screen) shows us a darker side of someone with a Santa fixation and is a favourite of 'The Pope Of Trash' himself, John Waters, calling it “the best seasonal film of all time”. Harry Stadling (Brandon Maggart) works at a toy factory, and in his spare time creepily watches children through binoculars, making lists of who is naughty and who is nice. Now, of course this would be enough to have him lynched and thrown to a baying mob now a days, but it takes a little more to get this quite town riled up. Harry has always believed in Santa, despite once catching glimpse of jolly old St Nick giving his mother some oral pleasure as a child (I say that, but I'll be honest it looks more like he is just having a good sniff, no hard core stuff here folks!). As the big day approaches, and his company arrange cynical PR charity donations to a local children's hospital (which involves giving far less toys away than you would expect), Harry flips. Donning a home made red suit and gluing a luxurious white beard to his face, paints his old van with a sleigh and sets about stealing loads of toys to give away. Stopping on the way to stab some taunters in the eye with a toy soldier's bayonet.

He then stops off at the home of one of his co-workers, who had earlier tricked him into working his shift, and smothers him with his large sack, before being waved off by his excited, smiling children.  The police begin their hunt for the Santa killer, even going as far as holding a brilliant Usual Suspects type line up. The towns folk gather their flaming torches and pursue Harry in a Universal Horror kind of fashion, and, like the Frankenstein monster that was tracked down in those old classics, Harry's killer Santa is actually a very sympathetic character, with only good intentions at heart really but his unbalanced mind just tips him over the edge to wrong doing.

The film is slow, but watching Harry's decent into madness is all the more rewarding for that. There are some slightly gruesome killings, but nothing too excessive, and the killings are only of those who he views as doing wrong. Despite his keeping records of naughty and nice children, it is not really those he chooses to punish, although he does give a stern and chilling warning to a group of kids to obey their parents, and be good or they will receive something bad on Christmas morning. The biggest reward of the film is the jaw dropping 'WTF' moment at the end, I will not spoil it in case you want to track it down, but it is worth it.

More Santa slayers abound in To All A Goodnight (1980), a fairly routine college girls get bumped off because of some prank that went wrong in the past film. This time, the sorority girls staying behind for the Christmas break have managed to sneak some boys in, who have flown down to have their wicked way with the girls. They leave their pilot to sleep at the plane, which is a shame because he is played by the legendary Deep Throat star, Harry Reems (under the pseudonym Dan Stryker) and no doubt he would act the rest of these off the screen. There are some gory murders, but the whole thing is shot so darkly (or more likely badly transferred on the old VHS I had to watch it on) and the inept dialogue so stiffly delivered that it is hard to get too involved in the paper thin storyline. It seems that most of the best lit scenes take place around an open refrigerator door! Which makes it all the sadder when you learn that the film was directed by the recently departed David Hess (Last House On The Left), who seems to just use techniques and scenarios he has seen in other films and been in himself, but does nothing new or exciting with them. The shame of the whole thing must land at the head of the writer, Alex Rebar, better known to fright fans as The Incredible Melting Man (1977). Hess does managed to shoe horn one of his songs into the proceedings, as one of the fellas who have come to do the dirty strums away at an acoustic guitar warbling 'Vagabond'.

You would think that the idea of someone dressed as Santa going around killing would have been used quite a lot through the years wouldn't you? Before Christmas Evil and To All A Goodnight the only real depiction of Santa as a homicidal maniac was in the Amicus favourite Tales From The Crypt (1972), in which Joan Collins is menaced by an escaped lunatic in the familiar red suit on Christmas Eve. Familiar fare like Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) and its four (count them -four!) sequels have diminished the impact somewhat.

A different slant was provided by the British film, Don't Open Til Christmas (1984). This time it is the people in the Santa costumes that are the victims! It's days before Christmas and some one is going around old London town bumping off people who happened to be dressed as St. Nick. Anyone is fair game, be it the office boss at the Christmas party to sellers of roast chestnuts on the street corner. Cliff (Gerry Sundquist – one of those faces you know but can never place, although I remembered him from the awful British disco film The Music Machine) is prime suspect for Inspector Harris (the film's director Edmund Purdom, a bit of a regular in this type of low rent horror including Pieces (1982) and Joe D'Amato's 1981 video nasty Absurd), despite the fact he was with his girlfriend, Kate (Belinda Mayne, daughter of Ferdy Mayne, the vampire in Roman Polanski's Fearless Vampire Killers) at the time her father was murdered playing at being Santa. The film makes nice use of the London locations, Piccadilly Circus, the peep shows of Soho and London Dungeon attraction (before it was all done up). To be honest, it was just a relief not to have to put up with more sorority girls!

Some very gruesome murders are to be had, including a spear through the mouth, a bottle in the eye – one guy is even cut off in his prime while using the loo – and there was several minutes missing when the film was first out on VHS. Like a lot of British films from this era it is full of (sort of) well known faces, even if you might struggle to put a name to them. Alan Lake is the most recognisable, and there is a very young looking Kevin Lloyd (later Tosh Lines in The Bill). Interestingly (or macabrely to be precise) both Lake and Sundquist would commit suicide later (although not because of this film, I must add!). There is also a brief appearance by scream queen Caroline Munro, this time playing herself as she belts out one of her ill advised disco tunes in a West End theatre. Oh, the horror of it all.

Back to more traditional seasonal chills, with the 1951 version of Scrooge which is arguably one of the most well known of the film adaptations of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. This one has Alastair Sim take on the role of Ebenezer, just before he got the part of the headmistress Miss Fritton in the original St Trinians films. The Scrooge role has been taken by some great names over the years, from Albert Finney to Patrick Stewart. Indeed, before the 1951 version, Dickens' tale had already been filmed several times, twice with Sir Seymour Hicks in the main role. Hicks is probably best remembered (by me at least) as the cantankerous Professor Heggie in the seldom seen but fun Nessie film The Secret Of The Loch (1934). The 1935 Hicks version has some striking visuals, and is wonderfully shot, although Jacob Marley's ghost is played as invisible, making the line “look to see me no more” a bit of a nonsense. This version is unique for the harrowing vision of Tiny Tim lying in state. It is, however, Sim's version that sticks in the memory longer. There is also a fantastic cast of great and soon to be great actors, many of whom have some genre connections. The story should be familiar to everyone, so I will not go over that, instead I will point out the wonderfully spooky ghost scenes which, considering this is a family film, are genuinely scary and very well lit. The old house Scrooge lives in is full of shadows and creaking doors, brilliantly setting the mood for the up coming spectral visitors.

Scrooge's partner, and first ghost, is played by Michael Hordern, a true British acting legend, whose voice was instantly recognisable – his portrayal of Gandalf in the 1970s radio serialisation of The Lord Of The Rings is often cited as the definitive version – and he appeared in almost 200 films, many of interest to genre fans, like The Bed Sitting Room (1969), Theatre of Blood (1973), the often over looked Hammer film Demons Of The Mind (1972), and of course the classic BBC TV Christmas ghost story Whistle And I'll Come To You (1968), directed by Jonathan Miller from the M.R. James short story, this version is so much scarier and memorable than the recent remake.

Hordern's Marley is both sad and tortured in just the right balance. His wails of torment sound like the Krayt Dragon call, although I doubt startling Tusken Raiders was his intention (incidentally, Alec Guinness plays the Marley role in the 1970 Albert Finney musical version of the story). Interestingly, both Sim and Hordern play the same parts in a 1971 animated version, made by Richard Williams who was the animation director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988).

Bob Cratchit, Scrooge's put upon clerk is played here by another familiar face, Mervyn Johns. His hangdog face would later appear in The Day Of The Triffids (1962) and Hammer's William Castle directed remake of The Old Dark House (1963). It will no doubt be Ealing Studios' Dead Of Night (1945) that he is probably most fondly remembered; as Walter Craig, stuck in a never ending nightmare. This portmanteau film easily ranks amongst the scariest films of all time, if you have never seen it I strongly urge you to do so. There is even a Christmas story in there too, but it is the climactic tale that will live long in the memory – and nightmares – for a long time after you have seen it.

Another familiar genre face is Ernest Thesiger in the small, but memorable, role of the undertaker. His prissy camp voice, so familiar to many from The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935), altered to be a little coarser here, but his beautiful proboscis is unmistakable. It is also worth keeping an eye open for Carol Marsh, as Ebenezer's sister Fan, who would later be Lucy Holmwood in Hammer's Dracula (1958) and as the young Jacob Marley, Patrick MacNee, later to be John Steed in The Avengers on TV. A popular character actor, Miles Malleson appears as Old Joe, the pawnbroker the undertaker and the maids take their looted goods to. Also from Dead Of Night “room for one more inside!” and Dracula (1958), but arguably his most recognisable appearance is in Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (1960), where, as a man in the newsagents looking for his 'views', he is unforgettable. The film stays just on the right side of sentimentality, bringing home the message without over doing it as is usually the case. I always cry when I see what those ghosts do to that poor man, fancy making him change his wonderfully wicked ways.

Finally, a short film that is well worth seeking out is Treevenge (2008), made by Jason Eisener, who you may be familiar with as the director of the superb Hobo With A Shotgun (2011). This seasonal short opens with a bunch of foul mouthed, annoying lumberjacks going about their business collecting trees for the Christmas markets. Only the trees are not too happy about this, and what with the humiliation of being decorated with garish baubles and tinsel, they begin to strike back. With obvious influence from such gore maestros as Lucio Fulci, the short has to be seen to be believed, and anyone who enjoyed the bloody excesses of Hobo will be in their element. You might just think twice about putting up that fir this year. You can watch Treevenge in all its gory glory here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vaiv7kAXBzM

Well, I hope you find some ghoulish viewing for your holiday season, myself I think I will now curl up with a very large whiskey and watch It's A Wonderful Life for the millionth time, and love it all over again. It's not all blood and guts at Obscura mansions, you know. Merry Christmas and a bah humbug to the lot of you.