Director: David Hess
Year: 1980
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Staying late over the holiday break, a group of girls at a boarding school find themselves stalked by a psychotic killer wearing a Santa outfit in retribution for an earlier prank the group pulled on a former student and must find a way to escape the killer's wrath before they're all killed.
Review:
Overall this one here was a pretty disappointing slasher. One of the main issues here is the fact that the film is just unbelievably slow and doesn't really offer up much of an enjoyable pace here, content merely to cruise along without really getting much of anything going. The early scenes of the girls getting ready for their party and ensuring that their festivities go uninterrupted is a long, never-ending series of bland, wholly unappealing moments here that just grind the film to a halt, not the least of which is also caused by the film's seemingly curious decision to start the massacre fairly early on, then instead let the bodies be discovered the next day and wait until the following night to continue things. While the decision not to carry out the single-night rampage is rather unique, instead this causes the film to appear as though it has two character-building montages here as we get the initial arrival and pairing off on day one then we get them doing this again on day two as now that they're aware of the killer at the beginning of the day it wastes all the time until later that night to finally unleash the killer again and this set-up isn't that enjoyable.
Still, beyond this the film's main detrimental strike comes from the majority of the actual horror factors involved not really being of much interest here, from bland and wholly un-suspenseful stalking scenes to bland kills that don't offer up much of any blood or gore and never really lets itself play with the supposedly-chilling idea of a killer loose in a dorm-room house the way this one could've as this one just goes about in a roundabout way of getting to the carnage. There's almost nothing scary about the killer here beyond the damage done to the victim's bodies, and that tends to really wash over this one quite easily with a series of forgettable scenes with a hilariously-nonthreatening Santa-suited killer running around in a matter-of-factly manner that doesn't come close to giving this anything to get worked up over, and all combined really takes this down a notch.
There are a few areas here that this does get right, namely from the fact that the film's body count offers up some potentially intriguing fun here with a lot of bland-conceptually but gruesomely-executed kills here, as the fact that there are two big rampages that knock them off in groups makes for a generally fun time in those parts with some decent chasing being done to satisfy the slasher fan in those moments. Those in and of themselves are much better than expected here just for the sheer cheesy fun they offer here as there's not much else about this one that works here only than the body count and how many stalking scenes there are, even though they're not always impressive.
Overview: *.5/5
A bland, unimpressive killer Santa effort, this one has some likable features but has more than enough to hold it down that it remains a generally disappointing and underwhelming feature. Those who are fine with the approach taken here, are hardcore holiday horror features, or the most ardent 80s slasher fanatic will have the most to like here while most others out there turned off by these features should heed caution.
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