Cover Art

Credits

Director: Peter Keir/ Massimiliano Cerchi Starring: Jeff Samford, Michelle Samford, Lucien Eisenbach, Eric Spudic, Krystal Stevenson / Robert Cummins, Jodie Rafty, Robert Hector Screenplay: Peter Keir/Simonetta Mostarda Country: USA Year 2003/1996

Psycho Santa is technically about a bickering couple on their way to a Christmas party. The male doesn't want to go, so to humbug the trip he tells his wife about a deranged guy prone to wearing a Santa suit. The stories the husband tells are all shown via flashback, making this film more of an anthology. How the guy knows any of the little details revealed is a mystery, but I'm guessing they're supposed to be accurate retellings, as the crazy Santa is real. Ignore the synopsis on the back; this is what the movie's really like:

In the first story, two women are driving (what is it with shot-on-video movies and driving scenes?) on their way to an annual Christmas sleep over where they traditionally tell ghost stories. One goes out to pick up some rocks while the other showers. The girl walking walks and walks, and the girl showering showers and showers. Padding has never felt so padded; you know it's bad when you're saying, "Oh, get on with it!" during a shower scene. The two friends are waiting for another friend who hasn't shown up, so one decides to do a negligee dance. Well, dance in that if you put the movie on fast forward, it looks like she's moving. This dance is right up there with the climactic one in The Gore Gore Girls. Anyway, eventually our psycho Santa shows up, though he'd actually been there a bit earlier, too. What should've been a MAYBE five-minute flashback goes on forever, but eventually we get back to the present day. I was relieved…but lo…another flashback. This time it was about some burglars, who also just walk around for most of the time. Then there's a flashback within a flashback, and the whole thing gets so patchwork I began to wonder if heaps of footage was lost or damaged. The third story is about two siblings on an expedition somewhat similar in tone to that which begins Night of the Living Dead, but when their car breaks down, we get even more walk, walk, walk. This movie really should've been called Walking Around Until A Murderous Santa Turns Up.

To be fair, Walking Around Until A Murderous Santa Turns Up has some amusing lines, but many of these are hampered by the inexperienced thespians. While I'm all for a movie about an insane Santa who likes to dismember people and wrap up their body parts, this movie is mostly dialogless, dull nonsense…with people walking around. At least the filmmakers must've realised the film was padded enough, as the end credits are really short.

After that rank turd of motion picture experience, I expected Satan Claus would have to be better. I'm not sure that it is.

Satan Claus has a Santa going around collecting body parts to be used as decorations, perhaps inspired by "Deck the Halls with Parts of Charlie" from the Tales From the Crypt Christmas album. A failed actor tries to help his cop girlfriend catch the killer, along with the help of some witch doctoress. The police very slowly build up some, well, not clues. They mostly just sit around until the killer calls. At which point the head detective instantly believes the caller is the killer, but doesn't bother to trace the line. I understand this is a low budget effort, but for fuck's sake couldn't the police have been even remotely efficient?