So… yes… 1984 England… I am not sure what was going on in 1984 England (I can only assume The Queen was royally commanding her fiefdom to engage in 1} celebrations of my ascent into puberty and hornitude and 2} mandatory lockdowns) but whatever they were using to shoot this movie is pretty poor. The specs on IMDB read “35 MM” and I would never, ever claim to be a student of film (or even know anything about it) but this was one of the worst looking things I have seen, maybe ever. It looked like someone had smeared their greasy hands all across my TV screen and everything was a blurry mess, especially when we were looking at images in the dark, of which there were M-A-N-Y… But I have found that it’s not fair to judge an oldie by the quality of the film since we’ve made such technological advances into High Definition, so I got over that and concentrated on the story and the actors and the sets and the kills and all of that good stuff.

The scene before the opening credits pretty much sets the tone – it’s grainy, hard to make out the couple making out in the car and then STABAROO!! they’re both dispatched with a knife to the gut!! Queue the pretty low budget, to say the least, title cards rolling to the right of a burning Santa Claus figurine. Maybe some sort of British equivalent to the opening titles for Halloween? Maybe? Maybe – crazy British. Go boil some more meat! Just kidding, I don’t mean that – I heard that on an episode of Frasier a while back. Go throw some more darts and bollocks! Arse! You wanking tossers! There – that’s more me. Quote me.

Next: Another dude dressed in a Santa Suit is killed! Gored through the head with a spear! Must be a souvenir from one of the colonies in Africa. Either way, someone doesn’t have any Christmas Spirit. The Good and Proper cops at Scotland Yard are on the case! Someone’s playing a flute on the street! Who does he fucking think he is, Jethro Tull?? The daughter of the last Santa that was killed doesn’t want to strip and be in a porn shoot! The lady that does undress goes out in the street in her Santa outfit and is accosted by this guy!

He takes a look at her business and lets her go free!!

That looks a lot smuttier than it is – it’s just one of the only decent looking res pics I could find of this curiosity of a movie.

Now the cops have a lead – a man in a hood wearing a mask – but “His eyes are smiling…” This whole thing was kind of curious because the kills are all pretty gory: brains blown out, stabbings, gore through the head, meat cleaver to the face and even, cough cough, a weenus chopped off and a very bloody urinal.  The whole time I was watching this I was thinking that this was only kind of good but the last ten minutes of this were pretty fuckin awesome. And not like pretty fuckin awesome Giallo-style where the entire movie is explained, pretty fuckin awesome as in Hey – Didn’t expect that! Right on! Go on, you meat boiling English! Pimps! I’ll have another sheep stomach for 35 Euros! If you get a call from the United States and it’s someone breathing hard in the other end, it’s not me.

Can you even do prank calls any more? I bet no one remembers my older Slumber Party Massacre posts but, as I never got invited to those types of things, I only ever remember getting one prank call when I was a kid. I also never got flashed by anyone in a trench coat, randomly mooned or saw anyone streaking. I mean, I’ve done streaking and mooning but never been the recipient. I would probably shit myself laughing if someone mooned me.

Oh well – I can dream but I guess that’s about enough for today –

FILED UNDER: FILM MIASMA CHRISTMAS CHEER