Director: Rene
Manzor
Released: 1989
Starring: Brigitte
Fossey, Louis Ducreux, Patrick Floersheim, Alain Lalanne,
Francois-Eric Gendron, Stephane Legros
Plot: When Thomas is
left alone with his frail Grandfather on Christmas Eve it is down to
him to save them both from the psycho Santa who breaks into their
mansion.
Review: Since
hearing about this film on the “Cinema Sewer” podcast it has
become something of an obsession to track it down as every copy I
found was without subtitles or for some reason if it did have subs
they where in Spanish, but finally the internet came though and I was
able to get hold of a copy of this film which honestly was worth
every bit of hassle in getting to see it.
Playing in many ways
like a precursor to “Home Alone” we are introduced to the action
movie and technology savy Thomas while a song which sounds strangely
like “Eye of the Tiger” yet at the same time appears to be
Christmas themed blasts away in the background. Thomas right from the
start is quickly established especially when his introduced sporting
a Patrick Swayze mullet and dressed up like his action heroes as he
runs around his family mansion which we also find out he has wired up
with all kinds of security devices and traps as demonstrated in the
opening by him capturing his pet dog using a secret trapdoor.
Bizarrely his single
mother Julie (Fossey) doesn’t seem to have any qualms about her
son’s action movie obsessions or even more the fact that he is
cutting holes in the floor for trapdoors which she happily jokes
about over breakfast which I can pretty much tell you wouldn’t have
happened with my own parents. Perhaps its because he looks after his
frail and almost blind grandfather (Ducreux) that she gives him more
leeway, but its an adorably close relationship that Thomas has with
his Papy who is equally supportive of his Grandson’s hobbies while
no doubt for adding a couple of questionable activities to his list
of hobbies as he is in one scene shown having Thomas drive him
around.
After his best
friend Roland (Gendron) tells Thomas that Santa Claus doesn’t
exists he puts together a plan to catch the jolly fat man on video
using a surveillance system he’s wired up in the mansion which also
means getting to see some wonderfully retro computer screen of his
supposedly hi-tech system. Unfortunately the creepy and as it also
turns out psychotic Santa (Floersheim) who Thomas’s mother just
fired from her store after he got a little too handsy let alone
violent with a young girl and now finding out that Thomas is home
alone makes his way there to get his revenge.
Floersheim is
unquestionably one of the creepiest killer Santa’s that I have seen
as he spray paints his hair white with manic delight to his arrival
in the mansion where he straight away kills in front of Thomas his
pet dog while showing zero hesitation about such actions. From this
point on we enter into that same territory which proved such a
selling point for “Home Alone” as Thomas sets out to engage in
Guerilla warfare with this killer while at the same time trying to
ensure the safety of his grandfather. Unlike “Home Alone” or any
of his 80’s cinema kid counterparts Thomas doesn’t turn into a
wise cracking and fearless smart ass but instead remains a believable
in his actions as he is frequently shown as being scared for both
himself and his grandfather, to the point where he is shown during
one low point calling out for his mum. Thanks also to the opening 30
mins it is believable that he would be able to construct the traps
and gadgets he uses to battle the unnamed psycho
It should also be
noted that unlike “Home Alone” the violence here isn’t
slapstick nor is the intruding Santa some bumbling / near invincible
buffoon but instead a dangerous and genuinely scary psychopath and to
that end there is a real sense of realism I wasn’t expecting with
this film. Still we do get some fun traps and gadgets being put
together by Thomas such as a home-made crossbow which fires darts and
a tracker he attaches via slingshot to the psycho’s back so that he
is able to track his movements throughout the mansion while also
providing a fun nod to “Alien” as the killer is constantly shown
on the home-made scanner getting closer. The real standout moment
though involves a booby trapped toy train which fails to go off when
rolled towards the psycho who unwittingly rolls it back towards
Thomas giving us this incredibly tense moment where we don’t know
if he’s going to forced to abandon his hiding spot or not.
There is however one
random moment where when cornered by the psycho, Thomas is randomly
invited to partake in a game of hide and seek with the psycho going
off to hide. I’m not sure if he thought this was the game they’d
been playing all this time, or if its another of his attempts to play
with children like we see at the start of the film when he attempts
to join in a snowball fight with a group of kids on the street.
While the film being
grounded in realism might seem that it might take away from the film,
but instead it really brings a sense of tension to the film much like
the sprawling mansion which the film is set in. It also means that by
the end of the film we can see that Thomas much like his psycho
tormentor have really been changed both mentally and physically by
the events which have taken place over the course of the night and
there was something in those final scenes of Thomas being reunited
with his mother only to be shown on the inside that he has been
deeply haunted by what he has to be endured and like his action
heroes now forced to deal with the mental aftermath of surviving a
situation like this compared to the Hollywood version where a hug
from your mom makes things all better.
Unquestionably a
film worth the hassle of hunting down as this breezy yet surprisingly
tense thriller is an alt. Christmas classic sorely in need of an
audience.
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