Santa Claws (1996)

Santa Claws (1996)

Director: John A. Russo

Stars: Debbie Rochon, Grant Cramer, John Mowod

I know I know, it's too early for Christmas movies, but I gotta be honest here...if I reviewed this at Christmastime, I'd get depressed. That's why this gets an entry in the Awful Movie Month festivities.

This movie  has such a bare plot, that it would have to be sold in a plastic wrapper to people over the age of eighteen. Kid kills his 50 year old stripper mom and gross uncle in bed because he has dead daddy issues. In present time the now grown up kid has moved his obsession to what I assume is his neighbor, a scream queen (Rochon). He wants her for himself so he plots to kill her film coworkers, her cheating mulleted husband, and anyone else that gets in his way. 

And how does he kill these people? By dressing up as an awful movie character (the title of this crap) and stabbing them with a small rake. Yes, a fucking gardening tool. Not a cool one like a shovel or gardening shears...but a fucking tiny rake.

I had no expectations going into this, and came out with less. I'm not even sure how that's possible.

Six Things I've Learned From Santa Claws

1. The photographer husband has one of the best mullets I've ever seen. I hope he's doing a Joey Buttafucco one man show "Amy Fisher and Me".

2. This movie is a big advertisment for Scream Queens Illustrated, a magazine that had low level scream queens (mixed with REAL scream queens like Rochon, Brinke Stevens, and Linnea Quigley) doing badly shot playboy style nude layouts. I'm not even sure some of these women could scream, considering a lot of them I never saw in any movie whatsoever, much less one where screaming was required.  And trust me, considering the crap I watch for this site, I would have seen SOME of them.

3. where the fuck is the gore in this movie! When we have someone who helped create one of the goriest subgenre of horror films at the helm, I expect a little more. I'm not talking about jump roping with intestines, but sure as fuck more than putting small gobs of red nail polish on someone's fucking face and body! That's all there is!  Rake wound? little red nail polish. Gunshot to the face? A little dab will do ya.

4. I really enjoyed that they went from a nude posing/awkward dancing scene immediately into a nude shower scene with the same actress. I was hoping they would then cut to a nude driving scene and then to a nude eating cold leftovers on the couch watching an episode of Tales From the Darkside scene.

5. Apparently, putting sleeping pills in the drinks of the kids you are babysitting is a BAD idea. But hey, how else are you going to go out and kill people with two brats running around asking where the bathroom is!? "I'm busy putting nail polish on this woman's fake jugs, go piss in that trashcan!"

6. The fuck happened to you Russo!? Sure your movies weren't as well recieved as George Romero's but the Majorettes was cheesy fun at least. The only good thing about this film was Debbie Rochon (and that nutty killer guy as well). And to make it worse, you dragged Bill Hinzman into this! I'm convinced this was just an excuse for you and Billy Boy to stand around and watch women take their clothes off. If you at least admitted THAT I would understand. Would have picked better models (again, except Rochon) but hey, if big fake titties are your bag, jump on in!

John, I am disappoint.