New Year's Evil

 

New Year’s Evil

1980

Director- Emmett Alston

Cast- Roz Kelly, Kip Niven, Chris Wallace, Grant Cramer, Jennie Franks

            

    This convoluted slasher is just what you need if you are craving some cheesy 80s horror. It’s from Cannon so you know you’re in for something entertaining, if cheap.

           

     Dianne (Roz Kelly) is a celebrity hosting a televised New Year’s Eve party that will ring in the year 4 times, once for each time zone in the continental U.S. She gets a phone call from a deranged sounding man (Kip Niven) saying that he is going to kill someone for each hour of the New Year.

            

      Sure enough, as the New Year rings in on the East Coast, he murders someone, tapes it, and plays the recording to Dianne over the phone. The police get involved and the killer strikes again when the New Year hits the Central time zone. Will he be caught before he finishes his plan? Why is he doing this? Mixed in with this clever plot is an unnecessary distracting family side plot about an unloved son who likes to wear stockings on his head.

            

     At first glance, this is a low budget slasher. At second glance, it is still a low budget slasher. But on third glance, the genius of this movie becomes evident. Now don’t get me wrong. This isn’t Psycho or Silence of the Lambs. This is a Cannon film, after all. What makes this movie different from the mountain of other 80s slashers is that the slasher is the protagonist! Dianne and her New Year’s party are just the plot device, the slasher is the focus, not the “final girl.”

            

     As he is trying to carry out his second murder he runs into complications. He’s stuck in traffic with an airhead girl blathering on about “trancendental meditation” and “transactional analysis” (that’s about as early 80s as you can get). Anyone who has ever been pressed for time on a deadline can totally relate to his frustration. When he runs afoul of a biker gang, his intricate plot unravels and he has to make do with what he can. Watching it, you are rooting for him to get away from them, if for no other reason than to see how he will finish his plan.

           

     Its cleverness aside, the movie is a time capsule of late 70s / early 80s pop culture. Roz Kelly, who plays Dianne, is best known as Pinky Tusccadero from Happy Days, but she also made appearances on Love Boat, Starsky and Hutch, Kojak, The Dukes of Hazzard and Fantasy Island. Kip Niven, who plays the killer starred in several episodes of Alice and The Waltons. Louisa Moritz, one of his victims, made appearances on The Rockford Files, M.A.S.H. and The Incredible Hulk. Taaffe O'Connell, another of the victims, starred in Galaxy of Terror the following year.  Teri Copley, the buxom girl who escapes the killer, was the star of the 80s sitcom, We Got it Made , and a ton of TV movies before appearing on the cover of Playboy.

Fun Fact: the director, Emmett Alston, directed not one, not two, but three different ninja movies!

 

An Angel for Satan

  

An Angel for Satan

1966

Director- Camillo Mastrocinque

Cast- Barbara Steele, Claudio Gora, Anthony Steffen, Marina Berti, Ursula Davis, Vassili Karis, Mario Brega, Aldo Berti

From Italy

            

    Roberto (Steffen) ,an artist who specializes in restorations, has been summoned to a lakeside village by the local aristocrat, Conte Montebruno (Gora). A drought has caused the lake to drop revealing a long lost statue. The Conte wants the statue restored but the local villagers believe that the statue is cursed and that restoring it will only bring misfortune. Naturally, Roebrto is met with suspicion and aggression. Meanwhile, the Conte’s niece, Harriet (Barbara Steele) has recently arrived. She has been away since she was a child and, having now come of age, is about to receive an inheritance.

            

     As we find out, the statue is cursed. Or so it seems. Harriet bears a striking resemblance to the figure and the Conte tells her that the statue is the likeness of one of her ancestors. Roberto is visited by a vision that tells him that the spirit of a woman named Belinda is attached to the statue. Belinda was always jealous of the woman who inspired the statue. All of the men ignored her for the more beautiful woman and Belinda died, drowned, pushing the statue into the lake. Now Belinda has possessed Harriet and is exacting her revenge.

         

      Harriet /Belinda goes through the town seducing various people and enticing them to do evil. She seduces the town bully and drives him to murder his family, drives the town idiot wild with lust pushing him to murder a young girl, seduces her maid and convinces her to dump her boyfriend which drives him to suicide and toys with Roberto’s emotions. The villagers accuse Harriet of being a witch and want her head. Only Roberto suspects that things are not as they seem. It reminded me of Needful Things in that she isn’t really doing the horrible deeds as much as providing the motivation for others to do them.

           

     There is a “twist” ending that (in my opinion) detracts from the overall story, but this is still a movie worth seeing, especially for Barbara Steele fans. This was the fourth movie where she played multiple characters (Black Sunday ,Nightmare Castle and The Long Hair of Death being the others). Like Black Sunday, she alternates between virtuous and vile and Steele had a real knack for this.

    I think this was her best performance after Black Sunday. She really turns on the erotic charm. She is not coquettish or demure. She seems to take a real pleasure in watching the men debase themselves. One particularly erotic scene is just her looking in the mirror, very much in love with ,and turned on by, her own reflection.

            

     This was the last of Barbara’s Italian gothic movies. Whether this was by design or not, I don’t know. It also served as the zenith of her career. The American and British film makers never utilized her as effectively and her movies after this were in smaller supporting roles.

  

The Ghost

 

The Ghost

1963

Director- Riccardo Freda

Cast- Barbara Steele, Peter Baldwin, Elio Jotta, Harriet Medin, Carol Bennet, Carlo Kechler

            

    Dr. Hichcock has been stricken with a debilitating disease that has bound him to a wheelchair. He has developed a type of chemotherapy that he believes will cure him though it makes him deathly ill. This predicament seems to have left him a bit morose and death obsessed. He contemplates suicide and regularly participates in séances.

            

    Well, be careful what you wish for I guess. His wife Margaret (played by Barbara Steele) is tired of playing nurse maid and is having an affair with her husband’s doctor. They conspire and murder her husband. The last laugh may be on them though. His safe containing millions of dollars in jewels is locked and apparently the key was buried with him. What’s worse are the foreboding signs of the supernatural; bells ringing, dogs howling, the maid in a trance, speaking with Dr. Hichcock’s voice.

            

   A bit of grave robbing to retrieve the safe key reveals a rotting corpse but the old man is still having his revenge as the safe turns out to be empty. Tension is rising between the lovers as the murder is not paying off the way they had hoped.  One night her rotting husband appears before her and Margaret tries to shoot him and only succeeds in filling the wall with bullet holes. The pair become paranoid, turning on each other. But what is behind all of this? Has her husband returned from the grave or is someone conning them? Are they conning each other?

            

    The film is one of the many movies influenced by the 1955 French film, Les Diaboliques. The revenge from beyond the grave plot was used in several Barbara Steele movies  so it can be a little hard to tell them apart. Despite the name of her husband, the film has nothing to do with another Barbara Steele movie, The Horrible Dr. Hichcock.

            

     A predictable movie if you are familiar with Italian gothic horror but good for some surprises.  It does have one big saving grace ; it offers the rare chance to see a young Barbara Steele in glorious color!

Terror Creatures from the Grave

  Terror Creatures from the Grave ( 5 Tombe per un Medium)

1965

Director- Massimo Pupillo

Cast- Barbara Steele, Walter Brandi, Mirella Maravidi, Alfredo Rizzo, Riccardo Garrone, Luciano Pigozzi, Tilde Till, Ennio Balbo

            

    To start off, can we just agree that Terror Creatures from the Grave is a terrible name? This was an American-Italian collaboration and I have to assume that the terrible name came from the American half. It conjures up images of Ed Wood and teenagers from Mars. The Italian name, 5 Graves for a Medium is much better, and actually related to the film. However, the American cut has some extra scenes, so I guess it’s worth putting up with the name.

            

      A lawyer, Kovacs, (Walter Brandi) arrives at an estate, answering a request by a man to check over his will. He is met by the man’s daughter, Corinne (Mirella Maravidi) and her step-mother, Cleo (Barbara Steele). She tells the lawyer that her husband couldn’t have sent the request because he has been dead for almost a year. In fact, the anniversary of his death is approaching. The lawyer has the letter authenticated and, from the writing and the seal, it seems genuine. But where did the letter come from?

            

     Cleo says that the whole thing is just a joke in poor taste, but Corinne believes that supernatural forces are at work. She reveals that her father was a renowned scientist but also an accomplished spiritualist. The local villagers avoid the estate. The villa used to be a hospital for plague victims. It bears ghastly souvenirs of its past, like a collection of mummified hands, hands cut from men believed to be spreading the plague maliciously.

            

     Corinne seems scared and claims that she has been seeing her father, returned from the grave. Kovacs finds a recording of her father, claiming to have contacted the spirits of the dead plague victims. Cleo, on the other hand, doesn’t think too highly of her dead husband, feeling a bit hoodwinked by their marriage. She left a life of high society to follow him out into the rural countryside with little payoff for her investment.

            

   The dead man’s friends, all of whom were the only witnesses to his death, are dying off one at a time. No cause of death can be found, but each corpse has a look of utter terror on its face. We also learn that his wife Cleo was having an affair and that her husband’s loyal gardener knew about it. However, as the anniversary of the man’s death draws closer, more frightening things occur.

            

    Are the deaths a result of supernatural forces or is there a more mundane explanation? This sort of revenge from beyond the grave whodunit was a typical plot for these gothic horror films. Barbara Steele starred in several of them herself (Nightmare Castle and Long Hair of Death being two examples).

      

    Barbara seems a little underutilized in the film (at least for my tastes). Reportedly, she and the director did not get along too well. Maybe that’s why. The credits list the director as Ralph Zucker, but that was really just the pseudonym for Massimo Pupillo, who went on to direct Bloody Pit of Horror the same year. The credits say the film is inspired by the works of Edgar Allen Poe, but if so, I don't know which work. More likely that was inserted to capitalize on the popularity of the Poe pictures that Roger Corman had been making.

     

    As far as Barbara Steele movies go, it’s about middle of the pack. It is typical of Italian gothic movies of this era. It is creepy with some original surprises and spends a sufficient amount of time building tension. Average horror fans can probably skip it but fans of Italian gothic horror will want to see it as will any Barbara Steele fan.

A Christmas Carol

 

A Christmas Carol

1984

Director- Clive Donner

Cast- George C. Scott, Frank Finlay, David Warner, Angela Pleasence, Edward Woodward, Michael Carter, Roger Rees, Michael Gough, Lucy Gutteridge, Joanne Whalley

            

    Some may question my inclusion of this venerable, and some might say tired, Christmas story in a horror blog, but I assure you, that this is a legitimate horror film. The story is familiar to everyone who speaks the English language. Elderly miser, Ebineezer Scrooge, hordes his wealth while those around him suffer, freeze and starve. On Christmas Eve he is visited by various ghosts who show him the error of his ways, giving him a chance to turn his life around.

            

     There are many good versions of this story. Two of my favorites are the Disney version with Scrooge McDuck and The Muppet Christmas Carol. This version, though, is far and away the best. George C. Scott turns in such a great performance. His Scrooge isn’t just greedy. He’s cynical. He’s a man that started out hopeful and romantic, but as a result of a few bad choices has turned inward over the course of his life.  He appears in every scene and as such has to carry the movie and he does just that. But the film doesn’t just rely on Scott. He is surrounded by a stellar cast (see below), all lending their expertise.

           

     Christmas used to be a time for telling ghost stories and this film definitely qualifies.  The film has very creepy moments and in general conveys a feeling of bleak cold. I’m not sure if the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future qualify as “ghosts” in our modern sense of the word. Modern occult vernacular would probably classify them as elementals. Scrooge’s partner, Jacob Marley, though, certainly qualifies as a ghost. And of course, in every version of the story, the best part is when The Ghost of Christmas Future appears, foreshadowing Scrooge’s death and damnation. This movie is no exception. Interestingly, that scene was shot in St. Chad’s Church in England. The tombstone they used for Scrooge’s grave actually still stands in the Church’s graveyard to this day.

            

     As for whether or not this movie is horror, just check out it’s bona fides. George C. Scott starred in Stephen King’s Firestarter, the supernatural thriller The Changeling and turned in an excellent performance in the highly recommended Exorcist 3. Bob Cratchet is played by David Warner .Among his many genre credits, he starred in, The Omen, Waxwork, The Company ofWolves, The Unnamable 2, H.P. Lovecraft’s Necronomicon, Penny Dreadful and others.  Scrooge’s ghostly partner, Jacob Marley, was played by Frank Finlay who played Van Helsing in the BBC version ofDracula and played a similar role in the sexy-space vampire movie, Lifeforce. The Ghost of Christmas Past, Angela Pleasance, starred in From Beyond the Grave (along with David Warner) and is also the daughter of Donald Pleasance. The Ghost of Christmas Present, Edward Woodard starred as the protagonist in one of the greatest horror films ever, The Wicker Man. The Ghost of Christmas Future, Michael Carter starred in American Werewolf in London and was the monstrous entity in The Keep (and was also Bib Fortuna in Return of the Jedi). Michael Gough, who plays one of the philanthropists that Scrooge snubs starred in the original Hammer vampire film, Horror of Dracula.

     

    Not horror related, but proof that the film has a solid cast, Scrooge’s nephew was played by Roger Rees who played the Sherriff in Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood Men in Tights. Lucy Gutteridge, who played Scrooge’s lost love starred as Hilary (she whose bosoms defy gravity, in the hilarious Top Secret). Joanne Whalley who played Scrooge’s sister also played Sorsha in Willow. Director Clive Donner, though not a horror director, also directed the David Niven horror-spoof Vampira and the weird Christmas musical, Babes in Toyland starring John Wick himself, Keanu Reeves.

 

Rare Exports

 

Rare Exports

2010

Director- Jalmari Helander

Cast- Onni Tommila, Jorma Tommila, Per Christian Ellefsen, Tommi Korpela, Rauno Juvonen. Ilmari Järvenpää, Peeter Jakobi, Jonathan Hutchings, Risto Salmi

From Finnland

            

      In a sparsely populated area, along the Finnish-Russian boarder, a mining company has stumbled on to a rare find. It seems that, in centuries past, the indigenous people of that region captured Santa Claus (Joulupukki, is a Finnish Yule time entity that was incorporated into the modern image of Santa). They trapped Santa in a block of ice and built a mountain over him to keep him there.

            

      In the town below, strange things are happening; people’s stoves, radiators and hair dryers go missing, a potato farmer has all of his sacks stolen,  all but one of the town’s children have disappeared, and the local population of reindeer have all been slaughtered. The adults suspect the Russians. The one remaining child, Pietari, thinks he knows the truth. He believes that the miners have unwittingly unleashed Santa Claus upon the world. His suspicions are confirmed when his father catches a naked, feral looking, old man in a wolf trap. The old man seems insane and borderline catatonic. He only perks up when he catches a whiff of Pietari. As it turns out, the crazed old man is not Santa and the truth is much worse.

           

      A lot of different cultural myths and icons have merged to form the modern day Santa and not all are as beneficent as Saint Nicholas. In fact, Yule could be a rather frightening season. The days were short, the nights were cold, and food could be scarce. In the not so distant past, Christmas was a time for telling ghost stories. In America, Christmas has largely been sanitized but it still has vestiges of its darker origins in some of the Germanic and Nordic countries. Rare Exports is informed by these traditions.

           

     The director, Jalmari Helander, made two short movies prior to this; Rare Exports Inc. (2003) and Rare Exports: The Official Safety Instructions (2005). These short films tell the story of a company that hunts and traps wild Santa Clauses and trains them for sell and export to foreign countries. The feature length film provides a sort of origin story for that company.

            

     It’s not so much a horror movie as much as it is a dark fantasy. Not really scary as much as intriguing. A different kind of Christmas movie to be sure.

   

Curse of the Werewolf

   

Curse of the Werewolf

1961

Director- Terrance Fischer

Cast- Oliver Reed, Clifford Evans, Yvonne Romain, Catherine Feller, Anthony Dawson, Josephine Llewelyn, Richard Wordsworth, Hira Talfrey, John Gabrie

            

    The story begins with a wretched beggar arriving at a town to find the streets empty and the church bells ringing. The local Marquis is marrying and the aristocracy is gathered at the castle to celebrate. The beggar goes there hoping to impose on their good will. He has made a huge mistake as the Marquis is a pointlessly cruel man. He teases and humiliates the beggar before having his guards throw the beggar in the dungeons. There he is forgotten about.

            

     The only people he ever sees are the jailer and the jailer’s daughter, a mute little girl that brings him food. The weeks turn into months and then years. The little girl has grown into a beautiful young woman (Yvonne Romain, who starred in several other horror films of that era including Circus of Horrors and Corridors of Blood) and the beggar has been reduced to little more than a feral animal.

     

   The young woman catches the eye of the vile and now decrepit Marquis. He tries to have his way with her but she fights back.  To teach her a lesson the Marquis throws her in the dungeon, locking her in a cell with the mad, feral beggar. Heaping one indignity upon another, the beggar, who she has cared for her whole life, rapes her! Assuming that she has learned her lesson she is released from the dungeon and sent back to the Marquis. However, the experience has not made her any more tractable as she kills the old pervert and escapes the castle. She runs into the forest and almost dies there but is found by a passing nobleman.

            

     The nobleman and his maid care for the young girl and they soon find out that she is pregnant! The maid is very nervous because her calculations have the baby being born on Christmas. This is a bad omen, a bastard being born on Christmas, as she says “For an unwanted child to be born then, is an insult to heaven…”  A similar curse is mentioned in the excellent 80’s fairy tale anthology The Company of Wolves. Well the mother can’t seem to push the baby out sooner or hold it in longer and, as predicted, it arrives on Christmas night, his arrival is announced by the howl of a dog. His poor mother dies in the birthing and the nobleman decides to raise the child, now named Leon.

           

    His first clue that there may be problems is when he takes the infant for baptism and a storm comes up. Another warning comes a few years later when a goat is found slaughtered and then a little kitten as well. The game warden, while out hunting for the culprit shoots a wolf and (no surprise to the audience) little Leon is later found with a bullet in him. Though everyone is mystified by this, little Leon has been having bad dreams and the assumption is that he has snuck out at night. He develops the trademark hairy palms and the nobleman goes to the clergy for help.

            

    The priest tells him that an elemental spirit has entered the body of the child, probably at birth. The priest describes a werewolf as “a body with a soul and a spirit that are at war.” He advises that if Leon receives warmth and love this will strengthen his soul in the battle against the evil spirit. Bars are put on Leon’s windows, love and warmth are bestowed, and his childhood passes without any more incidents.

            

      Fast forward a few years and now Leon has grown into a young man (Oliver Reed). He leaves home to make his mark in the world. He soon meets a lovely young woman, Christina (Catherine Feller). They fall for each other but they cannot marry as she is promised to another.  With some wine in him he decides to drown his sorrow in the arms of another girl he meets at the tavern. The unrequited love and the sudden lust mix together to bring out the beast in him, as it were, and he murders the girl and some other men. He wakes up the next morning, clothes missing, blood on his hands, and no memory of the night before.

         

 

      His foster parents and the priest reveal to him the secrets of his childhood. He understandably freaks out. Christina wishes to continue their romance and Leon is convinced that her love is the thing that will keep his bestial nature in check. They prepare to elope but before that can happen he is arrested for the murder of the dead townspeople. The authorities don’t know his secret of course; they just think he is a madman.

           

     Leon fears what will happen as his curse progresses and asks to be killed, while the clergyman asks to have him transferred to a monastery. The mayor, though, isn’t hearing of it and keeps him locked in jail. When the full moon arrives, Leon wolfs-out, giving us our first real look at the beast. The werewolf runs amok in the town, wreaking havoc. This is pretty close to the end of the film, but the wait is worth it.

       

      Even though it has a great cast, was beautifully shot and had a clever script, none of that would have mattered if the werewolf had looked bad, but it doesn’t. In fact, after Lon Chaney Jr.’s, I think it has the most memorable looking werewolf in cinema. Its hair is grey-white like a timber wolf and the facial features are the perfect blend of lupine and human. It is also has a very muscular build, prefiguring the more physically powerful werewolves that would appear in modern cinema.

    

            The thing I like most though is its folk horror aspect. It eschews all of the typical werewolf mythology (which, in truth, has less to do with folklore and more to do with Hollywood) and operates with a whole new set of rules.  Lycanthropy (before Curt Siodmak re-wrote the rules in The Wolfman) was not a simple curse where one was just bitten by a werewolf. This movie makes the lycanthropy a real curse, something bestowed at birth. It also takes out the “infection” aspect by explaining it as a form of possession. The film has a real fairy tale feel to it.

           

      Bafflingly it was the only werewolf movie that Hammer ever made. They put out an astounding 15 vampire films, 7 Frankenstein films, 4 Mummy movies, and at least 2 Jekyll and Hyde films, but only 1 werewolf movie. A sort of spiritual sequel was made in 1975, Legend of the Werewolf. Even though it stars Peter Cushing, it is not a Hammer film. Both films were based on the same novel, The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore and both screenplays were written by Anthony Hinds. Both star Michael Ripper in small roles. Legend uses a very similar looking werewolf, complete with white hair. The film though, is a sequel in spirit only and doesn’t live up to the quality of Curse of the Werewolf.

            

   

  In a lot of the publicity photos made for the film we see the lovely Yvonne Romain in the clutches of the werewolf. This was Hammer taking advantage of Yvonne’s obvious charms as these scenes don’t appear anywhere in the film. Yvonne and Oliver Reed never even have a scene together in the movie! That’s OK though, as those promos made for some excellent images.

        

        In the hierarchy of werewolf movies, most people are going to list one of three films as the best werewolf film ever. Old school fans will say The Wolfman with Lon Chaney Jr.  Everyone else will probably be split between The Howling and American Werewolf in London. I’m not sure which of those three I’d say is this best, but those are definitely not the top 3. Curse of the Werewolf, though not as standout as those films, is worthy of at least standing in their company, and belongs in any list of top 5 or top 10 werewolf movies.

   

Silent Night Deadly Night

Silent Night Deadly Night

1984

Director- Charles Sellier

Cast- Robert Brian Wilson, Lilyan Chauvin, Gilmer McCormick, Toni Nero, Britt Leach, Linnea Quigley

            

    This movie begins with little Billy being taken by the old folks home to visit grandpa on Christmas Eve. Everyone believes that grandpa is catatonic but when the adults step out of the room, leaving Billy alone with gramps, the old geezer comes to life and warns Billy that Santa is a vengeful force that punishes all of the naughty kids.

            

    On the way home, Billy’s family picks up what appears to be a stranded motorist in a Santa suit. Unbeknownst to them he has just robbed a convenience store and murdered the clerk!  This evil old elf pulls a gun on the family, shoots dad and sexually assaults mom before cutting her throat, all in plain view of little Billy.

   Orphaned and traumatized, Billy is raised in a Catholic orphanage. He, predictably, has a rather morbid view of Christmas. The Mother Superior (Lilyan Chauvin) is determined to make him into a normal child, even if it means punishing him until he learns to suppress his feelings. Billy’s childhood is filled with the inevitable mixed messages of a hyper religious upbringing. He witnesses two people having sex (which triggers the memory of seeing his mother’s assault). He is caught by Mother Superior, and to drive the point home that sex is “naughty” the Mother beats Billy for witnessing the act. He is haunted by nightmares, seen as an outcast by the other kids and as his trauma becomes more pronounced, the Mother Superior’s discipline becomes more extreme.

 Fast forward a few years and Billy has grown into a strong young man. He gets a job stocking in a toy store. The closer it gets to Christmas the more tense he gets. He meets a nice girl but can’t even enjoy a sexual fantasy; memories of his trauma intrude even into his dreams. Billy, meanwhile, is preoccupied with trying to be good and not “naughty”. The department store loses its mall Santa and the boss sticks Billy in the Santa suit.  His warped morality becomes evident when he tells a little girl that is squirming in his lap that if she doesn’t sit still he’ll have to punish her severely for being naughty.

But, against all odds, he makes it to Christmas Eve without snapping. At the office Christmas party the booze starts flowing and the girl that Billy had the hots for pairs off with a jerk co-worker who had been giving Billy a hard time.  Things get out of control and the co-worker tries to rape the girl. This is the final straw needed to break Billy.  He charges in, strangling the would be rapist with Christmas lights with a yell of “Naughty!” He then kills the girl too, telling her that “punishment is necessary”. And why not? His whole life, sex has been associated with violence.

Billy is now past the point of no return and sets out on a string of mass murder, working his way through the rest of his coworkers and then various members of the town. The most standout scene in the movie is when he kills a very topless Linnea Quigley by impaling her on deer antlers while he declares “Punish! Punish!”. He then gives her little sister a box cutter as a present before leaving the home!

The movie is obviously at its heart a slasher, and I wouldn’t say this was a deep examination of psychopathology like Manhunter or Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer. Having said that, the makers of this film either had some education about trauma or an intuitive understanding of it. The depiction of the effect of childhood trauma is pretty accurate, if exaggerated; stress, nightmares, isolation, the inability to connect intimately, the intrusion of the troubled psyche into the sex life, rigidly separating people into good and bad, and the continuation of the trauma cycle when the victim becomes the perpetrator.  

The movie, at first glance, appears to be gruesome satire paring morbid subject matter with festive holiday imagery. But this is a serious and very grim movie. It starts very dark and never lightens up. If you are wanting something fun to watch for Christmas, stick with Gremlins or Die Hard. Save Silent Night Deadly Night for when you want to be disturbed.