(1980)
Dir - Lewis Jackson
Overall: MEH
With a title like Christmas Evil, (or You Better Watch Out and Terror in Toyland), one would possibly expect the worst. As a bit of holiday horror though, it forgoes being a numbingy unoriginal slasher entry and is instead sort of a psychological character study. There are too many production issues to make it an actual good movie, such as its noticeably almost non-existent budget, cheap soundtrack, lackadaisical pacing, and awkward humor, (awkward because it is difficult to tell how humorous it all is supposed to be in the first place). Still, it has a subversive charm that often carries enough weight to get by on. The cast is rather schlubby, but that is kind of the point at least where its main protagonist is considered. A disturbed, forty-something toy factory worker suffering from a strange, Santa Clause-fueled psychosis that makes him increasingly unhinged around the holidays makes for a premise that would seem absurd under different, more schlocky circumstances. It comes off more curiously engaging than it perhaps otherwise deserves here though, occasional stiff presentation aside.
(1981)
Dir - Joseph Zito
Overall: WOOF
The early 80s was slasher movie ground zero and Joseph Zito's The Prowler, (Rosemary's Killer, The Pitchfork of Death), came out the same year as Bloody Birthday, The Burning, Dark Night of the Scarecrow, Deadly Blessing, Don't Go in the Woods, Eyes of a Stranger, Final Exam, Friday the 13th Part 2, Frightmare, Graduation Day, Halloween II, Happy Birthday to Me, Hell Night, Home Sweet Home, Just Before Dawn, Madhouse, My Bloody Valentine, Night School, Nightmare, Scream, (no not that Scream), Strange Behavior, and Student Bodies. So here we are again with another goddamn one. Far more boring than even the most tripe and predictable of such films, enormous stretches of time drag on where no killings are happening, no naked boobs are even shown, and characters are just walking around, looking around, and talking around. So in other words, doing anything they can to stop even some rudimentary tension from building up around such uninspired material. It is as if Zito studied every other slasher movie that came out that year while forgetting to include, well, ANY other component to boilerplate, compelling filmmaking. There is even a moment where a police officer is put on hold for several minutes and with no music on the soundtrack, we are just watching and waiting and waiting and waiting and zzzzzzz....... If anyone can make it through even half of this one not only awake but actually engaged, then they must have watched a different movie also called The Prowler instead.
(1987)
Dir - Renny Harlin
Overall: GOOD
This sophomore effort from Finnish filmmaker Renny Harlin, (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, Exorcist: The Beginning), was his first horror film and it is a moderately ambitious and successful one. Shot on location at a soon to be demolished penitentiary in Rawlins, Wyoming, Prison is a big, loud, dumb, explody, and gory schlock-fest where the spirit of a wrongly put to death former inmate makes big, loud, dumb, explody, and gory things happen. One has to be forgiving with the plot threads that go nowhere and laughable logical gaps, but Harlin stages the violent, evil set pieces very well and the testosterone-ridden, ham-fisted performances are enjoyable instead of obnoxious as could easily have been the case. A young Viggo Mortensen makes for the typical cool, minding his own business, convict badass while My Cousin Vinnie's Lane Smith does the hardass, hillbilly warden thing to a tee as well. There are a couple of other familiar faces such as Chelsea Field, (Teela in Masters of the Universe), and Tommy Lister who plays a more benevolent and comparatively less brutish muscleman than usual. The film is certainly formulaic, but its premise is fool-proof enough and the tone consistently B-movie-esque that it makes for an adequate wasting of a hundred and two minutes if one has the time and the popcorn on hand.
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