ZC Rating 1 of 7: Poor
Disclaimer: Zombos' Closet cannot be held libel for the loss of precious holiday time or mirth should any reader decide to ignore the numerous warning signs in this review and purchase, open, and view Santa Claws alone and/or sober. By reading this review, said reader releases Zombos' Closet and its heirs, in perpetuity, from fault, risk, and all future liability or damage that may occur from such viewing.
"How long has he been like this?" I asked.
"For the past half-hour," Glenor Glenda said.
"You should have called me sooner. How could you be so careless!" I felt Zombos' faint pulse.
"He said he wanted to watch something different," Glenor said. "I didn't know."
"How can you not know?" I held up the offending DVD, Santa Claws, from Shock-O-Rama Cinema while admonishing her.
"Paul Hollstenwall said Zombos asked for it specifically—"
"Paul! So he's the one to blame for this. The last time he was here he wasted our time with Neon Maniacs. I can't believe he'd stooped this low. The man is incorrigible; a menace to decent horror fans everywhere."
"I told Paul he shouldn't. I told him he should have gone to you first," Glenor said with tears in her eyes. "But Zombos said it didn't matter, that he wanted something new, something totally different to watch. He said he was too old to play it safe anymore. He's been that way ever since his birthday."
"Well, the damage is done. I hope you've learned your lesson," I said, lifting a brandy snifter to Zombos' lips. The color was gone from his cheeks. "At least with Paul Naschy films I have a chance, but this? I'm not sure how to bring him back to sanity." Zombos was grayer than usual and his breathing was short and shallow.
"What was that?" I asked. I leaned closer. Zombos' lips had moved, and a faint whisper caught my ear. "Say again?"
"Nudie-cutie," he managed to whisper. "I just...wanted...to see...nudie-cuties. My god, it was beyond horrible." He took the brandy snifter from me and held it in his trembling hands.
"Nudie cu—" Glenor started to say.
"That will be all, Glenor," I said, interrupting her. "I can take it from here. Thanks!" She left the room. Zombos slowly recovered in-between sips of brandy.
Nudie-cuties, scream queens, bodacious tatas--none of this can save Santa Claws. It is a film not to see alone or sober. It stands as the perfect DVD movie equivalent to bituminous coal: sufficient punishment for any horror fan on your Naughty Horror Fan holiday list. Sleazy synthesized background music, ear-numbing dialog delivered through cereal box acting, and sloppy camerawork all bump and grind together, along with the T and A, in this shoestring-budget film.
This cinematic train wrecks in the first five minutes when dubious horror overwhelms the night before Christmas cheer. Another young soul is damned and primed for future killing. Director John A. Russo mixes blue-tinted, mismatched close-ups, then glides a wobbly camera pan to little Wayne (Christopher Boyle) sleeping on the couch in the living room. In the bedroom, his mom is frolicking with a naughty man. The man wants to open his present early, but she's afraid Wayne will wake up. He tells her he spiked Wayne's hot chocolate with two sleeping pills to knock him out. She smiles and quickly displays her ample stocking-stuffers. Wayne, who apparently dislikes hot chocolate, wakes up and interrupts their sleigh ride. The boy is so upset --though you cannot tell by his acting--he easily pulls a loaded gun from a drawer. They plead with him using dialog so bad I also wanted Wayne to shoot them. He does, they scream, and the years and holidays fly by.
Now free from prison, grown-up Wayne (Grant Cramer) is working publicly as a teacher's aide and acting privately as a weirdo. When he receives the Raven Quinn (Debbie Rochon) life-size--but armless--mannequin from Scream Queen Magazine (a dubious promotional tie-in to be sure), he starts getting all dreamy-eyed as he admires its certificate of authenticity. Now there's a true collector: I would have been happy with the 12-inch doll.
The mannequin looks nothing like Debbie Rochon, the real-life scream queen who plays the fictional Raven Quinn scream queen. Rochon has arms, killer legs, and a beautiful smile. Apparently the props department did not have budget for doing a life mold of her, so they used a mannequin's torso, cut off its arms and added a black wig. One clever and creepy touch--actually, the only clever and creepy touch--has Wayne dropping packing peanuts over the mannequin's head as they dance.
While Wayne admires and listens to his mannequin, Raven Quinn picks up her two children from her in-laws--her gallivanting husband's mother and sister--who chide Quinn on her chosen profession. We learn, amazingly, that Wayne lives next door to Quinn and is almost like an uncle to her kids. As the kids run off to play, she and Wayne spend the next three hours sitting on the sofa--wait, I am wrong, it only seemed like three hours--discussing why film is a visual medium. Shouldn't they be doing something instead of talking on and on like this? For a psycho-teacher's-aide-horror-memorabilia-collector (no insult intended to any teacher aides or memorabilia collectors), who has the object of his obsession this close, not much heat or psychosis is shown. When Quinn comes on to him, he still doesn't do anything. No, wait, he does: he goes back to express his love to the armless mannequin. Then decides to start killing people. Collecting can be dangerous, I guess.
He goes to Scream Studios and kills a nudie-cutie, but not before she gyrates and completes her important shower scene; then he goes after the producer, who shoots Wayne at point-blank range. This being a no-budget film, the blanks do no harm. Scratch one producer. Now let me reveal the spoiler. Are you ready? To kill his victims, Wayne uses a prop from one of Quinn's horror films about gardening. I think it was called Fertilizer of the Damned, or Weed Be Gone to Hell, maybe. Anyway, the gardening tool is a puny three-pronged weed-puller. We never actually see Wayne use it. He waves it around, then there are a few drops of blood followed by a body slumped on the ground.
Moving on, Wayne complains to his stoic mannequin how everyone needs to pay. I am not sure what for, but he is certain everyone needs to pay. As Wayne complains, Quinn tries to get back with her husband, but he is bedding down with another nudie-cutie, providing ample opportunity for more T and A. While no one notices the producer missing, more nudie closeups fill time while "Uncle" Wayne drugs Quinn's two little girls' hot chocolates and goes shopping for a Santa Claus suit. Right. That is the tie-in to the movie title. The only tie-in.
More nudie-cutie shower scenes with another potential victim; she answers the phone, chats for a moment or two, then goes back to take a bath. But didn't she just take a shower? Who is she anyway? We do not know. It is a randomly inserted shower/bath scene with a randomly inserted character. Wayne, dressed as Santa, shows up and kills her. I do not know why. I don't think even he knows why. This is the only time he wears the red Santa Claus suit. He spray paints the suit black. Another inexplicable action left unexplained.
In a flurry of scenes, it is Quinn's turn to flash her T and A--but we cut back to Wayne doing?--not sure what he is doing because we quickly cut to Quinn's errant husband returning home to find the kids knocked out on the sofa--but we're back with Quinn being naughty with a cuddly stuffed--now back to the house and a frantic call to the in-laws--and Quinn struts her assets for the camera, takes her top off--now back to her husband running over to crazy Wayne's house--then back to Quinn playing with her two Christmas presents. The tension is the only thing killed during this time as we move back and forth between Quinn doing her naughty act with a stuffed animal, her frantic husband heading to Scream Studios, and fruitcake Wayne, who shows up just in time for one more murder as he wields the weeder of death again.
There is more. Black-suited Santa Wayne attacks Quinn's husband, then goes after her. In one last breathtaking struggle--I was excited the movie was almost over--Wayne and Quinn's husband go hand to hand (more like hand in hand the way the action was filmed). Quinn grabs the weeder and plunges it into Wayne.
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