Been bingin' like a seasonal bastard - here is the belated proof (part 1).
BLACK CHRISTMAS – Tried and tested I know, but I seldom get through an xmas eve without this old mainstay. I’ve always liked its offhand, slightly elliptical seventies vibe, and the fact that the creepo with the googly voice is just so… inexplicable. Grainy clouds of foreboding for the end of a crappy year.
CHRISTMAS EVIL – I’m with John Waters all the way on this gritty, wintry downer, wherein a downtrodden guy just loves dressing up as Santa and deciding who’s been naughty or nice. CE could’ve been played for laughs, but the opposite is true – the atmosphere is as hangdog as its protagonist, and shimmers with a vague, arty abstruseness until a couple of splattery outbursts. Somehow it's still all quite funny. Not everyone’s idea of a festive slasher, but an impressively twisted ‘ho ho ho’ in the face of anyone with a preference for baubles.
DOLLS – This is definitely a christmassy movie, I feel. All the requisite elements are there – naughty toys, kids winning against bad adults, sinister magic-wielding elders who are goodies in the end. Monster teddy aside, it always takes me a while for me to settle in (possibly a fatal flaw in such a short movie) – but then something switches and it just goes a bit crazy with all those battalions of dolls and murderous figurines. If that’s not enough, there’s an abundance of gothic corridors, shoddily performed goths, and underlying themes that seem strangely moving. I’ve always enjoyed it more than ‘Re-Animator’ and ‘From Beyond’ – sue me, misers.
THE FEAR – A nice little find for me. A psychologist organises a highly unrealistic cabin-based retreat for his dickhead mates, then stumbles upon a creepy mannequin from his past. Plods for a little, then suddenly blossoms into all kinds of wild silliness. By the end I was grinning, and not just because of the tiki. One of those bottom-of-the-barrel weirdoes like ‘The Vineyard’ or ‘Hellgate’ that still mystify and entertain.
THE NEW YORK RIPPER – Silliness and sleaze vie for supremacy in Fulci’s nasty slasher / giallo ‘hit’. What about that ending? It’s meanspiritedness still takes me by surprise after all these years, but the journey there is so completely quackers that NWR never leaves me completely without a smile. Vile sludge from the bowels of Gotham, Italo-style - a toxic classic.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME – Whoever was responsible for that final twist certainly had some nerve. But then ludicrousness runs through HBTM like current from a faulty socket, and it makes an overlong film quite intoxicating. Neurosurgical red herrings aside, HBTM has a good line in primo slasher set-pieces – the ‘dead guests posed in a birthday party tableau at the end’ being a bit of an archetype. Entertaining.
EBOLA SYNDROME – This Cat 3 classic is as flyblown as ever – good. An acid douche for the festive season, ‘Ebola Syndrome’ is a movie that shits on the face of humanity whilst still being quite a good laugh. I mean it’s just so cartoon-misanthropic; the protagonist, a happy individual who decides to go plague spreading in between bouts of casual rape'n'murder, is the biggest c*nt I’ve ever witnessed on screen. If, after viewing, you feel a bit queasy, don’t worry about coming down with anything sinister – ‘Ebola Syndrome’ is likely to make anyone spike a temperature.
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