Meek middle-aged toy factory worker Harry Stadling (superbly played with heartbreaking pathos and conviction by Brandon Maggart) has a decidedly unhealthy fixation on Santa Claus: He lives in a home adorned with a motley array of St. Nick-themed items, tries to get his indifferent coworkers to take pride in the toys that they manufacture, and even spies on the neighborhood kids with binoculars and keeps tabs on their behavior in a series of ledgers. However, one fateful Christmas Eve Harry has a severe mental meltdown and goes dangerously off the deep end with his Santa obsession.

Those expecting a typical and conventional slice'n'dice body count opus will be seriously disappointed; instead writer/director Lewis Jackson offers something much better and more ambitious: A quirky, vivid, and often darkly humorous psychological character study of a deeply tragic and troubled soul who elicits from the viewer a complex blend of fear and pity. Best of all, Jackson not only grounds the premise in a thoroughly believable workaday blue collar reality, but also provides a handy helping of spot-on stinging social commentary on the crass commercialization of the yuletide season. Moreover, this film delivers a wonderful wealth of inspired oddball moments: A raucous Christmas office party that degenerates into a drunken fracas, Harry marking a bratty kid's house with muddy hand prints, Harry happily dancing at another Christmas party (Harry's speech to a bunch of little children at this particular party is an absolute loopy hoot!),Harry getting stuck in a chimney, Harry being chased by an angry torch-wielding mob, a police station line-up of sidewalk Santas, and a truly bonkers magical ending that's probably all in Harry's unbalanced head.

While Maggart clearly dominates the movie with his top-notch portrayal of a fascinatingly sincere and well-meaning, yet still lethal and unhinged individual, he nonetheless receives sturdy support from Jeffrey DeMunn as Harry's fed-up long-suffering younger brother Philip, Dianne Hall as Philip's more sweet and tolerant wife Jackie, Joe Jamrog as lazy and irresponsible coworker Frank, and Peter Friedman as callous executive Mr. Grosch. Philip Cosnoff does a wickedly dead-on caricature of Geraldo Rivera as preening television reporter Ricardo Bauma. Popping up in small parts are such familiar faces as Mark Margolis, Patricia Richardson, Rutanya Alda, and Raymond J. Barry. Kudos are also in order for Ricardo Aronovich's lustrous cinematography and the wonky electronic score by Joel Harris, Julia Heyward, and Don Christensen. A marvelously singular treat.

Christmas Evil is a rather uninteresting black comedy about a homicidal Santa Claus who takes his role to murderous levels. It start off promisingly enough as a kid witnesses his mother engaged in a rather intimate situation with Father Christmas and later self harms. Years later, he goes on a rampage at Yuletide.

The problem with this low budget production is that it's very slow and not much happens. It's a full 50 minutes before we get any horror scenes and even those are weak in the extreme. The acting is poor and the tone is off too - half of this seems to be designed as a black comedy, but the problem is that it's neither funny nor interesting.

Christmas Evil didn't do anything for me at all, and that cheesy joke ending is the sour cherry on top. It's probably the worst Christmas-themed "horror" movie in existence.

A toy factory worker (Fiona Apple's father),mentally scarred as a child upon learning Santa Claus is not real, suffers a nervous breakdown after being belittled at work, and embarks on a Yuletide killing spree.

I had a copy of this movie on my desk for over a year (thanks, Vinegar Syndrome) but somehow never found the time. Finally, in December 2016, I put it in and gave it a watch. And, sadly, despite a few good scenes and the possibility of this being the first killer Santa movie, it runs a bit too slow and too long to be a really strong slasher.

On the bright side, it has Jeffrey DeMunn before he really became a horror icon through his work with Frank Darabont.