BY ROD BARNETT

I was completely gob-smacked by this one, folks. From the title and description of this 1980 release, I was expecting a smarmy slasher film that used the holiday season for a cheap backdrop and even cheaper jokes. What I got instead was a very well-made character study reminiscent of Polanski's Repulsion. Although not as good as that classic, it stands proudly beside it as a fascinating picture of a slow descent into madness and murder. If anything, Harry Standling is a more sympathetic main character as we are shown in a brief prologue the genesis of both his fixation on Christmas and the reason for his awkwardness with people. At an impressionable age the young Harry crept downstairs on Christmas Eve to see Santa sexually gratifying his mother. That this Santa was actually his father didn't register and the traumatized boy never really got over the sight of Jolly Old Saint Nick pleasuring Mom. But let me tell you the story.....

Harry Standling (Brandon Maggart) is an introverted middle-aged man whose hobby is all things Christmas. Perfectly in sync with his obsessive regard for the season, he has worked in a toy factory for most of his adult life. Harry's years of experience have finally landed him a management job in the company and he seems to have thought that his new position would allow him to make better toys for kids. With the Christmas season approaching, he finds the hostile anti-holiday attitudes of his co-workers and the disappointment of no longer working directly with the toys getting to him. But what starts off looking like a bout of holiday depression begins to turn nasty.

Clearly sad and disappointed by the adults around him, he begins to focus on the joys Christmas brings to kids. For years Harry has kept detailed written accounts of the actions of the children that live in his neighborhood and bound books listing "bad" and "good" kids line his shelves. As he starts spending more time going through them, adding black & white marks, he becomes more unstable.

In his home workshop he fashions a Santa costume, paints an elaborate mural of Santa's sleigh on the sides of his van and begins to make plans. Learning from a snide PR man of his company's halfhearted stab at charity by donating toys to the local children's hospital, Harry is livid. Dressing as Santa he sneaks into the factory at night, stealing a van load of toys, and on Christmas Eve delivers them to the surprised and happy hospital staff. Elated by this near perfect moment of holiday cheer he tracks the company PR man to a church where he's attending a Christmas service. After waiting outside, a silent Santa, Harry is taunted by some of the churchgoers and stabs two of them to death with a toy solider! Driving away he next goes to the house of a co-worker who has insulted and belittled him repeatedly. After a failed attempt to go down the chimney he finds an open basement window, creeps in and kills the man right in front of his wife. Disturbingly, the dead man's awakened kids wave happily to the departing Santa just as their mother's screams ring out.

On Christmas Day the cops are running around hunting a killer Santa, even going so far as to put a bunch of them in a line up for witnesses from the church. But an APB on St. Nick on December the 25th isn't exactly the best move and does not net them their guy. Harry has spent the night in his van outside the toy factory and awakens to the realization of his plight. Afraid to go home he breaks into the place and, as if in a fantasy about really being Santa Claus, turns on all the toy making equipment. As news reports stoke the fears of the public Harry's younger brother Philip (Jeffery DeMunn) begins to think his brother is involved. He becomes convinced that his unbalanced sibling is the killer after a rambling phone call from him that afternoon. When night falls on Christmas, Harry ventures out again but ends up being chased through the streets by an actual torch-bearing mob until he escapes to his brother's home. An enraged Philip demands answers, resulting in a family fight that brings the tragic tale to a close.

In a film with many things to praise the first should be the performance of Brandon Maggart. He does a truly brilliant job of getting inside Harry's head, showing us the broken way his mind functions. The moment I knew he was simply not going to make a wrong step was in a sequence midway through his Christmas Eve rounds. He has stopped outside a community house and is watching a neighborhood party through a window. Spotted in his Santa outfit, he's pulled inside and asked to join in the celebration with children and adults alike. It's a beautiful scene that shows what his life could have been like as he happily dances with everyone and enjoys a few drinks. Maggart is note perfect here — he even elicits a chill as he says goodbye to the kids with a stern warning about being good.

Another thing to single out is the exceptionally fine cinematography of the film. For a movie made on such a small budget Christmas Evil looks incredible. From one of the three (!) commentary tracks included in this release I learned that director Lewis Jackson spent a lot his budget to get Ricardo Aronovich as his Director of Photography; his skill certainly makes the film a joy to look at. There are more than a dozen shots here that rival the best Christmas images I've seen captured in the movies, with some of them being heartbreakingly well composed. Jackson points out in brief liner notes that his prime visual inspiration was the Christmas paintings of Thomas Nast and it really shows. That a film of this type can be so beautiful puts to shame the sad Christmas movies pumped out every year by Hollywood.

As much as I liked the movie I have to admit it's not perfect. The last third of the film isn't as sure footed as the beginning It's as if the focus has been lost as Harry parades around the toy factory and it comes dangerously close to derailing as he’s being pursued by the mob of angry parents. But by the time the brothers have fought and credits roll over the haunting final image I found it easy to forgive these small hiccups. Of course, a movie about a murderous Santa Claus isn't going to be an easy sell for 90% of the public but I think plenty of folks would love this were it given a chance.

BY FRED BLOSSER

John Irvin’s 1980 movie version of Frederick Forsyth’s “The Dogs of War” approaches its subject with much the same blunt detachment and minute attention to detail that characterized Forsyth’s bestselling 1974 novel. It’s generally low-key tone and characters seem a far cry from today’s over-the-top action films in which mercenaries and paramilitary agents are usually depicted as aging musclemen (“The Expendables”), manic cokeheads (“Sabotage”), and comic-book caricatures (“G.I. Joe”).

Freelance soldier Jamie Shannon (Christopher Walken) returns home after a failed mission in Central America. He doesn’t have much of a life off the job. Divorced, he lives in a dumpy apartment in Washington Heights, keeping one gun in the refrigerator and another in a desk drawer. His only friend is a kid whom he pays to carry his groceries home; he doesn’t even know the kid’s name. When a mysterious businessman pays Shannon to scout out the military defenses of the insane dictator General Kimba in the impoverished African nation of Zangaro, Shannon takes the assignment and flies to Zangaro, posing as a nature photographer. His cover blown, he is arrested, imprisoned, beaten, and eventually thrown out of the country. Back in New York, Shannon’s reconnaissance having identified holes in Kimba’s defenses, the businessman resurfaces and offers Shannon the job of leading a mercenary coup against Kimba. Shannon recruits three friends from his old team, Drew (Tom Berenger), Derek (Paul Freeman), and Michel (Jean Francois Stevenin), puts together a deal for arms and equipment, and heads back to Zangaro to meet up with and lead a rebel army assembled by Kimba’s corrupt rival, Col. Bobi.

Much of Forsyth’s novel described, step by step, the ways and means of financing, organizing, and executing a military coup. It’s gripping stuff on the printed page, but not very cinematic. The film covers the same ground in about a half hour of running time. Filling out the story for the screen, the script gives Shannon (in the novel, he’s an Irish-born Englishman named “Cat” Shannon) more of a backstory and adds a couple of new female characters. In the novel, Shannon’s recon in Zangaro is uneventful. By putting him through the wringer, the movie punches up the action and gives Shannon a personal reason for agreeing to depose Kimba. Arguably, it also provides a stronger rationale for Shannon’s decision, in both the novel and the movie, to derail his employer’s plan to install the crooked Col. Bobi and instead put Bobi’s honest rival, Dr. Okoye (Winston Ntshona), in the Presidential palace.

The Twilight Time Blu-ray features a handsome transfer of the U.S. theatrical feature as well as the international version, which runs 15 minutes longer but doesn’t add anything of vital substance. There is a handsome souvenir booklet by Julie Kirgo, and the art on the keep case reproduces the U.S. poster art featuring Walken and his unbilled co-star, the impressive XM-18E1R grenade launcher used by Shannon in the climactic attack on Kimba’s compound. The Twilight Time Blu-ray, which is limited to 3,000 copies, is available HERE.