This one’s for all the bad little boys and girls out there. Santa promises to bring you something HORRIBLE this year.

The above two-minute long clip is from a movie I absolutely hated the first time I saw it, but have since fallen in love with its oddball charms: Christmas Evil, a twisted holiday tale directed by Lewis Jackson from 1980. When I was a gore-happy teenager, this film severely disappointed me since it contains very little bloodshed despite what the title promises. Completely frustrated with the movie, I considered it one of the worst things ever made after that initial viewing.

But, having watched it a couple times more since, I can better appreciate Jackson’s angry statement against the corporatization of Christmas rather than trying to pin the film as a simple slasher exercise like the Silent Night, Deadly Night films, which are truly awful. Still, the Santa portrayed by a magnificently deranged Brandon Maggart in the above scene is still one to make kids all over the world truly crap their pants in fear.

Happy Holidays from the Underground Film Journal!