After Black Christmas (1974) had come Halloween (1978), and as John Carpenter’s movie was a massive box office juggernaut, many other film-makers were looking to try and replicate his success. Therefore the 1980s slasher boom began. And in the early days of this subgenre, writers and directors seeking to emulate Carpenter’s success, also looked to the calendar for inspiration. And so in 1980 we got not one, but two horror movies set on New Year’s Eve.
The first was Terror Train, released 3rd October 1980. This movie was the brainchild of producer Daniel Grodnik, who was inspired by both Michael Myers’ first rampage, and somewhat oddly, the Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor comedy The Silver Streak, to make a movie that was essentially Halloween on a train. Now in fairness, Grodnik was not just a cynical bandwagon jumper, he was actually friends with Carpenter and Debra Hill, and asked for their blessing before setting about making Terror Train. And with the duo graciously giving him the green light, he pitched the film to producer Sandy Howard, who loved the idea.
Filmed in and around Montreal, Canada and mostly on a genuine Canadian Pacific Railway steam locomotive, Grodnik also managed to secure the services of Jamie Lee Curtis, who at that time was the leading scream queen of the day thanks to Halloween. Also appearing, seemingly largely because producer Sandy Howard liked magicians, was a young David Copperfield. Furthermore in the director’s chair was a young chap named Roger Spottiswood, and Terror Train was indeed the very first movie he directed.
Now although not technically a Christmas movie, there is plenty of seasonal ambience to Terror Train, and the movie itself is fairly decent too. With a good plot and capable cast, Terror Train actually turned out to be not just Halloween set on a train, and stands up as an intriguing and fun slasher movie in its own right. Again, like so many of these early slashers, while there are the expected set-piece kills, the main focus of the story is on the mystery of who is doing them, and after years of later slashers being about the murderous villain, early entries in the genre come across as surprisingly fresh rather than derivative. And if you want to hear more about Terror Train, we watched this movie for our 2022 New Years Special over on Commentary Club, and indeed a surprisingly good time was had by all.
However Terror Train wasn’t the only end-of-year slasher outing, for we also got New Year’s Evil, released 19th December 1980. Written and directed by Emmett Alston, unfortunately this is very much the lesser of the two movies, although its premise does have a lot of potential. The plot of this flick is as follows - DJ Diane Sullivan is hosting a televised punk rock and new wave show on New Year’s Eve. However she receives a series of phone calls in which a mystery man threatens to commit a new murder as the clock strikes twelve in each time zone.
Now in its favour, we must give massive credit to writer/director Alston for simply not making a movie with a masked and/or deformed psycho killer at a New Year’s Eve party and offs various young nubile characters to the strains of Auld Lang Syne. Indeed with the master criminal-style plot to make a kill as the new year rings in across different time zones, I do wonder whether this was originally written before the slasher boom kicked in.
But despite having an inventive concept, New Year’s Evil is a fairly run-of-the-mill outing. It isn’t an entirely terrible film, but it’s nothing remarkable either. It’s true it has gained something of a cult following over the years, however that is more to do with the rock music from Made in Japan and Shadow than its prowess as a horror movie, and indeed the theme song New Year’s Evil has very much developed a cult of its own.
But we aren’t really here for horrors committed on Old Father Time’s watch! We are tracing Yuletide terrors, and thankfully 1980, the gift that keeps on giving, had another Christmas fright flick to offer us, and it's a little cracker!
Unleashed on 7th November 1980, was Christmas Evil, which has also been released as You Better Watch Out and Terror in Toyland. Written and directed by Lewis Jackson, it was filmed in late 1979 and early 1980 in New Jersey, and originally had the working title of simply Santa. So then, what is the plot of Christmas Evil?
In a flashback to 1947 we see a young boy, Harry, sneak downstairs on Christmas Eve, only to see Santa Claus… how can I put this delicately… canoodling with his mom. Of course, it is just his father, but young Harry does not realise that. And needless to say this experience will have some long reaching effects on him.
Back in the present day we catch up with the now adult Harry. He’s grown up to be a nice guy, perhaps too nice. He has a job working in a factory that makes toys, and is kind to his neighbours and is friendly with all the neighbourhood kids. However Harry’s sanity is hanging by a thread, for he goes to sleep in a Santa outfit and is keeping a ledger of who is naughty and who is nice. Anyhow not to give away any plot spoilers for this highly unusual movie, a series of events angers Harry, and he is so disturbed by the lack of true Christmas spirit, he believes that he has become the true Santa Claus and sets out setting things right, giving gifts to the good, but also ruthlessly punishing the wicked…
Now Christmas Evil is often lumped in with all the other killer Santa movies, and is often described as a slasher movie. Now it is true that the movie does feature some violent kills, so much so that it did end up on the lower tiers of the video nasties list when in its uncut form. However Christmas Evil is far more than just another by-the-number slasher. And anyone tuning in expecting the usual mix of stupid teens, gratuitous nudity and some gore every ten minutes or so will be sorely disappointed by this movie.
Rather with its focus on the gradual collapse of Harry’s sanity, and with the social realism of its New Jersey setting, this movie actually has far more in common with Taxi Driver (1976) than your typical Friday 13th clone. And it is so much better for it. For while there is horror in the shape of Harry’s crumbling mental state and the violence he commits while being the true Santa, this movie is very much about Christmas, the ideals it represents and how so often we fail to uphold them in the real world. And somehow despite the gritty realism, mental health issues and murders, somehow Christmas Evil ends up being a strangely heart-warming film, with an ending that is both ambiguous and magical.
Christmas Evil is a movie full of contradictions, and on paper, it really shouldn’t work at all. But somehow it does - a Christmas miracle perhaps? Now for quite a while it languished in obscurity, but thanks to cinema legend John Waters proclaiming it his favourite Yuletide movie, Christmas Evil has garnered a great deal of praise in recent years. And rightly so, for it is a very unusual film that manages to make its horrors heart-warming, rather contrasting the festive with frightening. And if you’ve not seen it, ask Santa nicely for a copy…
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