It used to be so easy to make fun of Pamela Anderson: the blonde who was perceived as a big-boobed bimbo who had a sex tape to boot. But now, Anderson is in a new phase of her career – and if you can’t take her seriously now, then that’s on you. Anderson has completely shifted her public persona, ditching makeup and landing a Golden Globe nomination. Helping her navigate this journey is her son, Brandon Thomas Lee, who she had with ex Tommy Lee.
Speaking with Variety, Lee said that Pamela Anderson’s resurgence has been building for years now, “The documentary [Netflix’s Pamela, a Love Story] and book gave Pamela the opportunity to own her narrative and really present that story to the world. When we had the opportunity to do that, it was something in the back of my head that I was always thinking about the goal of those projects — it wasn’t to bring opportunities, the goal of those projects was to get people to understand and get to know Pamela because there was so much misconception around her and who she was.”
Lee also said that he felt he owed Pamela Anderson a lot for all she did for him growing up; thus, he took on the role as something of a guardian, using the position of producer (on the aforementioned doc and The Last Showgirl) as a way to help. “My personal mission was to give my mom the opportunities she gave me as a child. She would do anything for me. She showed up and was a very good mother. And at a certain point in your life, you become a protector…It would have been very easy for us, or for me, to come up with some sort of scheme to make money off the Pamela that people thought they knew. It would have meant she wasn’t going to be happy, but she would have been making money.”
With her first Golden Globe nomination – in the category of Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for The Last Showgirl (read our review here) – Pamela Anderson will no doubt earn even more respect than she has been getting over the past few years. It’s no easy feat to grow out of a perpetuated persona, so good on Anderson (and her son) for pushing forward and changing not only her own image but the one people had of her.
What do you hope to see in the future for Pamela Anderson?
It used to be so easy to make fun of Pamela Anderson: the blonde who was perceived as a big-boobed bimbo who had a sex tape to boot. But now, Anderson is in a new phase of her career – and if you can’t take her seriously now, then that’s on you. Anderson has completely shifted her public persona, ditching makeup and landing a Golden Globe nomination. Helping her navigate this journey is her son, Brandon Thomas Lee, who she had with ex Tommy Lee.
Speaking with Variety, Lee said that Pamela Anderson’s resurgence has been building for years now, “The documentary [Netflix’s Pamela, a Love Story] and book gave Pamela the opportunity to own her narrative and really present that story to the world. When we had the opportunity to do that, it was something in the back of my head that I was always thinking about the goal of those projects — it wasn’t to bring opportunities, the goal of those projects was to get people to understand and get to know Pamela because there was so much misconception around her and who she was.”
Lee also said that he felt he owed Pamela Anderson a lot for all she did for him growing up; thus, he took on the role as something of a guardian, using the position of producer (on the aforementioned doc and The Last Showgirl) as a way to help. “My personal mission was to give my mom the opportunities she gave me as a child. She would do anything for me. She showed up and was a very good mother. And at a certain point in your life, you become a protector…It would have been very easy for us, or for me, to come up with some sort of scheme to make money off the Pamela that people thought they knew. It would have meant she wasn’t going to be happy, but she would have been making money.”
With her first Golden Globe nomination – in the category of Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for The Last Showgirl (read our review here) – Pamela Anderson will no doubt earn even more respect than she has been getting over the past few years. It’s no easy feat to grow out of a perpetuated persona, so good on Anderson (and her son) for pushing forward and changing not only her own image but the one people had of her.
What do you hope to see in the future for Pamela Anderson?
‘Tis the season to watch holiday-themed horror, so we here at Arrow in the Head have decided to compile a list of the Best Christmas Horror Movies! All of the films below are, at the very least, set around Christmastime, and some of them take the connection to the holidays further than that. Here are the top 12 horror movies (you know, because of the whole “12 Days of Christmas” thing) that we recommend checking out over the next week:
I COME IN PEACE (1990)
It’s easy to forget that I Come in Peace (a.k.a. Dark Angel) is set around the Christmas holiday, because Christmas is mostly just represented by some set decorations – and you’re distracted from those decorations by all the awesome stuff going on around them. Dolph Lundgren stars as Jack Caine, a Houston detective who doesn’t play by the rules. He’s stuck working with stuffy, suit-wearing FBI agent Larry Smith (Brian Benben), and these two have to put their differences aside to take down a hulking alien (played by Matthias Hues) who tosses razor sharp discs and extracts endorphins from human brains to synthesize a drug he’ll be selling on his home planet. The movie may not be Christmasy enough to watch on December 25th, but it’s definitely December viewing material.
DIAL CODE SANTA CLAUS (1989)
First screened in 1989, director Rene Manzor’s French horror film Dial Code Santa Claus didn’t reach North America until 2018 – at which time genre fans found out that a strange gem of a movie had been kept from them for nearly thirty years. Patrick Floersheim plays a store Santa who’s fired for slapping a child, so he decides to break into his former boss’s home. Unfortunately for him, the boss’s young son Thomas (Alain Lalanne) happens to be a little badass who idolizes Stallone and Schwarzenegger, and the home is a palace with booby-traps and hidden passageways. Although the kid believes the intruder is the real Santa, he doesn’t hold back when trying to protect himself and his elderly grandfather.
ANNA AND THE APOCALYPSE (2017)
A “Christmas zombie outbreak musical” doesn’t sound very appealing, as you might expect it to be packed with terrible comedy and songs that are just as bad, but somehow director John McPhail took the concept and made an excellent movie. Anna and the Apocalypse is a great zombie horror comedy (with some scenes involving the zombies that are legitimately emotionally devastating) that also happens to be packed with awesome songs… a few of which you might even end up listening to between viewings of the movie. This was based on a short by Ryan McHenry, the person behind the “Ryan Gosling Won’t Eat His Cereal” meme. Sadly, McHenry passed away at a much too young age before Anna and the Apocalypse went into production.
GREMLINS (1984)
One of the most popular movies of the 1980s happens to be a horror movie with a Christmas setting. Director Joe Dante clearly had a lot of fun setting loose an army of little creatures (brought to life with some incredible special effects) in the small, snowbound town of Kingston Falls. These maniacal monsters were accidentally spawned from one of the most adorable fictional creatures ever put on screen, a furry fellow named Gizmo, who helps his buddy Billy (Zach Galligan) try to rid Kingston Falls of his gremlin offspring before they ruin Christmas for everybody. Gremlins is a lot of fun and the special effects are still impressive to this day, nearly forty years later. Even when they’re not fully convincing, they’re still charming.
P2 (2007)
Produced and co-written by genre regular Alexandre Aja, director Franck Khalfoun’s P2 was a box office failure when it was released in 2007 (that bland title surely didn’t do it any favors) and it still feels like not enough horror fans have seen this one. Wes Bentley and Rachel Nichols turn in great performances in the lead roles, with Bentley playing a parking garage security guard who takes Nichols’ character captive on Christmas Eve, imagining he’ll be spending a romantic night with her. Instead it turns out to be quite an intense night, full of thrills, violence, and bloodshed. If you’ve liked Aja’s other works (Haute Tension, Crawl, etc.), it’s highly recommended that you check out P2 this holiday season.
KRAMPUS (2015)
After delivering an instant genre classic with his Halloween anthology Trick ‘r Treat, director Michael Dougherty set his sights on making a Christmas horror movie. The result was Krampus, which doesn’t seemed to be quite as popular as Trick ‘r Treat but does have its own solid fanbase. The story is about a family that has lost the Christmas spirit being tormented by the demon Krampus and its minions – including masked elves, living gingerbread cookies, a ravenous jack-in-the-box, and violent toys. The movie draws complaints about pacing issues and an unsatisfying ending, but there are a lot of fun ideas in it, and Dougherty assembled an impressive cast that includes Toni Collette, Adam Scott, David Koechner, Allison Tolman, and Conchata Ferrell.
SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (1984)
Silent Night, Deadly Night stirred up a lot of controversy when it was first released, and protests by parents who were appalled to see a movie about a killer Santa Claus were successful in getting the film pulled from theatres. They couldn’t stop it from achieving cult classic status, though. An out-of-character film for director Charles E. Sellier Jr., the creator of Grizzly Adams, this disturbing slasher is full of bloodshed, bare breasts, and awful people. When young Billy (Robert Brian Wilson) puts on a Santa costume and embarks on a killing spree, you fully understand why this is happening, because we’ve seen him being pushed to the breaking point by one terrible thing after another.
CHRISTMAS EVIL (1980)
It’s odd that people were so shocked and appalled by the idea of Silent Night, Deadly Night when you take into account that it wasn’t the first movie with a killer Santa Claus (or the second). In fact, just four years earlier director Lewis Jackson had brought us a killer Santa movie called Christmas Evil, about a Santa-obsessed man named Harry (Brandon Maggart, father of Fiona Apple) who comes to believe that he is Santa. On Christmas Eve, he drives around delivering gifts to the deserving children, delivering dirt to naughty kids, and murdering adults that have wronged him. This movie may put off some viewers with its slow burn style, but others absolutely love it: John Waters has called Christmas Evil the greatest Christmas movie ever made.
INSIDE (2007)
Silent Night, Deadly Night may be the most controversial movie on this list, but Inside (or À l’intérieur) is the most brutal. The debut feature from the French filmmaking duo of Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, Inside is about a mysterious woman (Béatrice Dalle) invading the home of a pregnant widow (Alysson Paradis) on Christmas Eve – and a deeply disturbing bloodbath ensues. Bustillo and Maury don’t show their characters or the viewer any mercy, and there are things in this movie that even massive fans of the horror genre might find off-putting. It’s a great Christmas horror movie, but Inside isn’t exactly a fun one to sit through. Bustillo and Maury got their feature filmmaking career off to a hell of a start.
BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974)
Director Bob Clark gifted the world with two Christmas classics over the course of his career, and they couldn’t be more different from each other. One is the family-friendly A Christmas Story from 1983, and the other is 1974’s BlackChristmas, a very dark and intensely creepy film about an insane stalker targeting the residents of a sorority house. He torments them with obscene phone calls, and between calls commits murders. There are some laughs to be had while watching Black Christmas, but overall it’s quite grim and Clark brought the story (partially inspired by an urban legend involving a babysitter – you know the one) to the screen in a masterful way. This one of the best horror movies ever made, and it’s worth watching every holiday season. There were remakes in 2006 and 2019, but ’74 remains the best.
A CHRISTMAS HORROR STORY (2015)
Fans of the Halloween-set werewolf film Ginger Snaps are encouraged to check out A Christmas Horror Story because this anthology happens to be set in Bailey Downs, the same small town where Ginger Snaps took place. Directors Brett Sullivan, Grant Harvey, and Steve Hoban were also all involved with the Ginger Snaps trilogy: Sullivan edited the first and directed the second, Harvey was second unit director on the first and directed the third, and Hoban produced all three. With A Christmas Horror Story, they bring us tales of a haunted school, a changeling, Krampus, and zombie elves. In the midst of all this, we also have William Shatner as an alcoholic radio DJ. This may not work as well as Ginger Snaps, but it’s still a good time.
BETTER WATCH OUT (2016)
The less you know about director Chris Peckover’s Better Watch Out before you watch it, the more you’ll get out of it. The film stars Levi Miller as 12-year-old Luke, who has a major crush on his 17-year-old babysitter Ashley (Olivia DeJonge). Ashley is watching Levi one night around Christmas when a masked person toting a shotgun busts in to ruin their night… And things get really crazy from there. This movie has some great, unexpected twists and turns as the story plays out, and every member of the cast (which also includes Ed Oxenbould, Aleks Mikic, Dacre Montgomery, Patrick Warburton, and Virginia Madsen) turns in a terrific performance. Better Watch Out is a pleasantly surprising film that very much deserves Christmastime viewings.
Are these some of the best Christmas horror movies out there? If there’s any you think we missed, sound off below!
Nothing quite makes my heart warm like a good slasher movie. And I know many of our readers agree. But the genre has been neglected far too much and is often left to low IQ fare. Every now and then someone comes along and clearly seems to care more than the average filmmaker. They see the genre for what it is: a canvas to be able to show off creative kills and tales of chaos. And thankfully producers Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Hilarie Burton Morgan are more than up to the task with their first feature-length horror film, Bloody Axe Wound. I really enjoyed the film and you can check out my review later this week.
I was fortunate enough to discuss Bloody Axe Wound with its stars Sari Arambulo and Molly Brown. I’ve been a fan of Sari’s since AP Bio, so I was pumped to see how appreciative she is of her time on the show. We discussed the unique relationships in the film, and why it’s important to not put a spotlight on something just because it’s different. Then producer Hilarie Burton Morgan gave us the full rundown of how the film entered production. We get all the details of why the script was chosen, if her husband Jeffrey Dean Morgan was always destined for a role, and her favorite slasher film. I could talk slashers all day so I was in heaven during this interview. Check it out in the embedded video above!
BLOODY AXE WOUND IS IN SELECT THEATERS ON DECEMBER 27TH, 2024.
Nothing quite makes my heart warm like a good slasher movie. And I know many of our readers agree. But the genre has been neglected far too much and is often left to low IQ fare. Every now and then someone comes along and clearly seems to care more than the average filmmaker. They see the genre for what it is: a canvas to be able to show off creative kills and tales of chaos. And thankfully producers Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Hilarie Burton Morgan are more than up to the task with their first feature-length horror film, Bloody Axe Wound. I really enjoyed the film and you can check out my review later this week.
I was fortunate enough to discuss Bloody Axe Wound with its stars Sari Arambulo and Molly Brown. I’ve been a fan of Sari’s since AP Bio, so I was pumped to see how appreciative she is of her time on the show. We discussed the unique relationships in the film, and why it’s important to not put a spotlight on something just because it’s different. Then producer Hilarie Burton Morgan gave us the full rundown of how the film entered production. We get all the details of why the script was chosen, if her husband Jeffery Dean Morgan was always destined for a role, and her favorite slasher film. I could talk slashers all day so I was in heaven during this interview. Check it out in the embedded video above!
BLOODY AXE WOUND IS IN SELECT THEATERS ON DECEMBER 27TH, 2024.
Action fans have plenty of choices when it comes to Christmas viewing. You can watch John McClane take down bad guys at Nakatomi Plaza and Dulles International Airport in Die Hard and Die Hard 2; root for Rambo as he destroys a small town in First Blood; thrill at the sight of Marion “Cobra” Cobretti taking on the Night Slasher; see James Bond deal with love, loss, and Blofeld in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service; have a Shane Black marathon, starting with the Martin Riggs / Roger Murtaugh pairing Lethal Weapon; watch Houston police officer Jack Caine battle an extraterrestrial drug dealer in I Come in Peace (a.k.a. Dark Angel); take in a viewing of Batman Returns… the list goes on and on. But one movie that doesn’t get enough credit for being a sci-fi action Christmas classic is director Charles Band’s 1984 film Trancers… and this despite the fact that the lead character has the coolest action hero name of all time: Jack Deth!
Brought to life through an incredibly entertaining performance from comedian/character actor Tim Thomerson, Jack Deth is a cop working out of Angel City in the neon-infused future of 2247 (which is why this film was also released under the title Future Cop in some countries.) For a decade, Trooper Deth has been tracking down the trancers, weak-minded people turned into zombie-like beings, “not really alive, not dead enough,” by the psychic powers of cult leader Martin Whistler. They can appear to be everyday normal people at one moment, then trance out and attack the next. Deth is obsessed with the eradication of trancers, to the point that he neglects all other duties, ignoring his work assignments. When he’s told to knock off the trancer hunt, he hands over his badge instead. This mission is a personal one. A trancer killed his wife.
Deth believes that he has already taken out Whistler and now he’s just mopping up the strays… He’s wrong.
Called in for a meeting with the High Council of the Western Territories, Deth learns that not only is Whistler still alive, but he has gone hundreds of years years back in time (or “down the line,” as the characters call it.) This film has its own unique form of time travel, as a person doesn’t just get inside a machine and zap themselves to a different date. Instead, they get an injection that sends their consciousness back into the body of an ancestor, leaving their own body in a coma-like state. To get their consciousness back to their own body and present, they inject themselves with another vial of liquid. Now set up in the body of a police detective ancestor in the 1980s, Whistler (Michael Srefani) is targeting the ancestors of the High Council members in Los Angeles, planning to eliminate his enemies by wiping them from existence. Deth is the council’s only hope. He has to follow Whistler back in time and stop him.
Deth arrives in ’80s Los Angeles during the Christmas season, his consciousness taking over the body of his ancestor Phillip Deth, a journalist who looks just like him except for lighter hair color and the lack of a facial scar. As he sets out on his mission to take down Whistler, he’s aided by the girl Phil met the night before Jack took over his body, a punk rocker named Leena, played by Helen Hunt… and since Leena is working as an elf for a mall Santa Claus, there’s “trouble at the North Pole” when Deth comes around and Santa trances out. That’s the highlight of the film’s Christmas elements, but we’re also treated to a punk rendition of “Jingle Bells” in a nightclub scene, there’s a gift-giving scene, a scooter chase interrupts some tree decorating, a trio of homeless men refer to themselves as three kings, and Leena wears her elf costume for a good stretch of the running time.
With Trancers, producer/director Charles Band delivered one of his best films, a great cult movie with an interesting story that’s nice and simple, and is so enjoyable to watch play out over a short and sweet 76 minutes that any lapses in logic are easy to overlook. Jack Deth is an awesome hero, inspired by the style of hard-boiled film noir detectives but dwelling within a sci-fi world, and the lighthearted Leena makes for a good sidekick. Art LaFleur plays a fellow trooper named McNulty in 2247, and the character is even more entertaining when he visits Deth in the ‘80s, his consciousness taking over an ancestor who happens to be a 10 year old girl, allowing angelic little Alyson Croft to act like a tough guy cop. Biff Manard is also fun as Hap Ashby, ancestor of one of the council members and a former pro baseball player, now an alcoholic living on Skid Row.
The film’s writers, Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo, went on to work on multiple James Bond video games, and it’s made apparent in this film that they’re fans of the 007 world when a character played by Telma Hopkins equips Deth with weapons and gadgets before his mission (the objects are sent back in time after him in a small box), much like Bond’s Q. Among Deth’s gadgets is “the long second watch.” The long second watch is one of those things that makes no logical sense, yet you just go with it. With the press of a button, the watch allows Deth to live ten seconds within what is only one second for the rest of the world. Everything around him slows down, people almost seem to freeze in place, but Deth is still able to move. Deth puts it to use after a gun has been fired at him and Leena. With the world slowed down, Deth can see the bullet passing through the air – so Trancers featured “bullet time” long before The Matrix did it!
Trancers launched a low budget franchise, and while your mileage may vary if you decide to venture into sequel territory (I love most of the sequels, especially Trancers III), the original film remains a delightful mix of action, science fiction, and holiday cheer. It fully embraces its eccentricities while offering an interesting, engaging story. For fans of cult cinema, hard-boiled heroes, or unconventional Christmas films, Trancers is definitely a gift that’s worth unwrapping.
After six seasons, Netflix’s Cobra Kaiis finally coming to an end, with the streamer announcing February 13th as the premiere date for the final episodes. Dubbed “The Finale Event”, these five episodes aim to wrap up all of the show’s major storylines in advance of Sony’s Karate Kid: Legends, which comes out this summer. That eagerly anticipated film is expected to be something of a standalone, with only Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso confirmed as part of the cast (so far) while Cobra Kai showrunners Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg are uninvolved.
SPOILERS AHEAD for Season 6 Part II!
The final episodes pick up in the wake of a disaster at the Sekai Taikai, where an all-out brawl between the rival dojos resulted in the death of Kwon, one of the season’s main villains. The Netflix synopsis states, “After a shocking result in the Sekai Taikai, Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai must reckon with their pasts while facing an uncertain future both on and off the mat. Almost 40 years after the events of the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament, it’s all been leading to this.”
Given the first-look images (see them below), it looks like the gang will still be fighting in the Sekai Taikai, which strikes me as a little hard to swallow, given how someone actually died in what’s essentially a tournament for teenagers. Nevertheless, I have to admit that Cobra Kai is one of my favourite current shows, with each bite-sized half-hour episode always a blast. The show started on YouTube Red back in 2018 but exploded in popularity once Netflix picked it up. One of the most rewarding things is how it gave William Zabka’s Johnny Lawrence, who was initially this two-dimensional eighties villain, new life as arguably the show’s main protagonist while also launching the career of Blue Beetle star Xolo Maridueña. It’ll be sad to see the show wrap up its run, although I’ll admit that season six, which will have run fifteen episodes by the time all is said and done, has gone on a little too long. Hopefully, they stick the landing.
After six seasons, Netflix’s Cobra Kai is finally coming to an end, with the streamer announcing February 13th as the premiere date for the final episodes. Dubbed “The Finale Event”, these five episodes aim to wrap up all of the show’s major storylines in advance of Sony’s Karate Kid: Legends, which comes out this summer. That eagerly anticipated film is expected to be something of a standalone, with only Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso confirmed as part of the cast (so far) while Cobra Kai showrunners Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg are uninvolved.
SPOILERS AHEAD for Season 6 Part II!
The final episodes pick up in the wake of a disaster at the Sekai Taikai, where an all-out brawl between the rival dojos resulted in the death of Kwon, one of the season’s main villains. The Netflix synopsis states, “After a shocking result in the Sekai Taikai, Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai must reckon with their pasts while facing an uncertain future both on and off the mat. Almost 40 years after the events of the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament, it’s all been leading to this.”
Given the first-look images (see them below), it looks like the gang will still be fighting in the Sekai Taikai, which strikes me as a little hard to swallow, given how someone actually died in what’s essentially a tournament for teenagers. Nevertheless, I have to admit that Cobra Kai is one of my favourite current shows, with each bite-sized half-hour episode always a blast. The show started on YouTube Red back in 2018 but exploded in popularity once Netflix picked it up. One of the most rewarding things is how it gave William Zabka’s Johnny Lawrence, who was initially this two-dimensional eighties villain, new life as arguably the show’s main protagonist while also launching the career of Blue Beetle star Xolo Maridueña. It’ll be sad to see the show wrap up its run, although I’ll admit that season six, which will have run fifteen episodes by the time all is said and done, has gone on a little too long. Hopefully, they stick the landing.
Santa Claus has made more appearances in films than Batman, Jason Voorhees, James Bond, and Elvis combined. People love their Santa Claus. Especially in the horror genre. But think about it for a second. This is a guy who spends the entire year isolated in the North Pole with an entire army of tiny elves to do his bidding and keeps tabs on our children throughout the year. Whether they are naughty or nice. Whether they are sleeping or awake. Then, once a year, he hovers over our homes like a New Jersey UAP and slides into our chimneys with middle-of-the-night gifts for our kids. It’s pretty frightening when you think about it. This is probably why on Tubi alone, you’ll find twenty-five or so different films that feature Santa Claus slicing and dicing his way through the night. It’s inherently creepy. So with that being said, welcome to “Best of the Bad Guys”, where we celebrate the best of horrors worst villains. On today’s episode, we’ve combed through hundreds of Santa Claus horror movies to bring you our five favorite moments where either Santa or someone impersonating Santa kills with yuletide glee. Here, in order of release date, are five of our favorite Santa Claus slayings:
In 1980’s Christmas Evil a toy factory employee becomes mentally unstable after walking in on his dad dressed as Santa about to go down his mom’s chimney. Which, to be fair is a stain on your memory you wouldn’t be able to scrub out with highly concentrated bleach. But no excuse for what comes next. After a lifetime of obsession with becoming Santa Claus himself (The last thing you would think you would want to do after witnessing him pleasing your own mother. But I’m no psychologist!), Harry ends up cracking up, believing he’s Santa Claus, delivering toys to sick children, and going on a teensy tiny little murder spree. This particular kill comes when Harry is standing outside as Midnight Mass releases dressed as Santa with a bag full of toys he stole from his factory. A group of major buttholes bully him. He reaches in his bag and tells the guy from The Purge “I have something for you”. The timing could not be more perfect as the uber douche responds, “I have superlative taste” right as Santa plunges the pointy part of Soldier Steve right into his eyehole. The replica head somewhat resembles the one from eye-pop scene in Friday the 13th Part 3D, or that one scene in Terminator but with the added wonder of this goo squirting out of it. So gross! He then pulls out a small toy hatchet and… wait a second… who is making these toys for children to play with? He pulls out the Chucky-sized, actually sharp hatchet and hacks the skulls of several others right in front of the entire church audience before pulling off in his van which may or may not turn into an actual sleigh flying off into the night sky later in the film.
Next up, the trophy kill in 1984’s Silent Night, Deadly Night. Once again we’re dealing with a psychotic Molotov cocktail of childhood trauma and sex that leads Billy to go on a murder spree dressed as Santa Claus. In this particular scene, two youngsters are about to be naughty on a pool table when a cat at the door interrupts them. So, Denise and Tommy are making out on a pool table. Or more so he is making out with the left side of her chin. Seriously dude, what in the Mark Wahlberg are you doing? As Denise checks on the cat, Billy pops into the frame, tells her he wants her punished for having those things out and making this video hard to edit and starts chasing her around the house. After a couple of misses with the axe, Santa picks her up and spots some extremely, sharp deer antlers on the wall. He lets her know what he thinks about her boobs one more time before picking her up as if he’s about to perform a powerbomb but instead slowly impales her on the antlers. You just know that deer is like “What the hell even is today?” The scene is equally cool and anguishing to get through as the antlers go in slowly, one on each side of her lower spine and we watch them painstakingly protrude through her skin. It’s dark. So dark, that it literally changes the filter of the film into a darker, grainier situation. It’s gnarly.
In 2012, a nasty little pseudo-remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night released titled just Silent Night. I won’t speak on the quality of the movie as a whole but there are multiple Santa kill moments here worthy of the list. One in particular is one of the nastiest and coolest axe-to-head scenes ever. Today, however, we’re going with the wood chipper kill. In the scene, a porn shoot is interrupted by our Santa who proceeds to stab a dude in the miscle-taint before chasing an of course topless woman down the street and into a Christmas tree farm. Excellent Christmas atmosphere and setting for a brutal kill. Even if some of the chase scene was filmed like one of those camera-on-meth moments from the Saw franchise. The topless wonder sees a gigantic wood chipper and in all of her mental prowess decides to hide close by. Santa pops out and chops her leg off, sending it flying into the air like a goddamn field goal attempt. Seriously, I fell in a Lowes once. Not my proudest moment. And my flip-flop went flying across the room just like this. Only this was a god-forsaken leg! Crazy business. Finally, Santa dumps her feet first into the stripper chipper so she can feel every moment of it. The guts shooting out violently from the other side was a lovely touch and I’m not sure how scientifically correct this kill is but my god did it have a strange realism to it. Horrible way to die.
Much like our next kill, which takes place in 2022’s Violent Night. This film sort of asks the question “What if John McClane were Santa Claus in a Die Hard film with more gore?” and ends with a final fistfight between David Harbour’s Santa and John Leguizamo’s Scrooge. Scrooge has Santa half crucified with a knife in his hand against what’s left of a building’s chimney when Santa grossly rips his hand free. He taunts Scrooge with the idea that he still believes in Santa, giving him the magical power he needs to grab a hold of Scrooge and suck them both up a chimney. Only, Scrooge doesn’t HAVE Santa’s powers, and if-so, fact-o, doesn’t fit through the chimney. So, he comes out the other end merely an abdomen as blood bursts through the winter night sky in an awesome fashion. All capped off with Santa laughing like John McClane and even throwing a subtle little “Ho, ho, ho” in there.
Finally, there was no way this list was going to exist with Art the Clown and Terrifier 3 being on it! To be honest, you could take just about any kill from Terrifier 3 and it would make this list because no one kills like Art. The mind naturally goes to the shower scene because Art takes a chainsaw and shoves it inside a man’s rectum. HOWEVER shamelessly promoting it, we’re leaving that kill out today because we covered it in this last episode of Best of the Bad Guys. Also, because this next kill includes Santa on Santa crime.
Art hilariously stumbles into a bar that includes the great Clint Howard, the Bartender Eddie, and a Santa Claus impersonator played by Daniel Roebuck (Who you might remember as the nasty strip club owner in Rob Zombies Halloween 2). After the gentleman buys Art a shot, thinking he is a fellow entertainer, Art spits it back in Santa’s face. It’s hilarious because you can tell that this very well may be a natural reaction from Art here. In his childlike way, he looked like he had no idea that the liquor was going to taste so bad and was genuinely shocked and pissed. He then follows this up by pissing in Santa’s lap and laughing at him. Art then unceremoniously shoots both Clint and Eddie but takes his time with Santa. He strips him down to his skivvies and proceeds to use a liquid nitrogen tank to freeze his limbs bit by bit before hammering away at them like some sick game of whack-a-mole. The special effects here are hauntingly amazing and it leaves you to wonder exactly what it would feel like to have giant chunks of your body frozen and removed by blunt trauma. Not a pleasant headspace. Speaking of heads, Art then goes to town on his face and in a most heinous moment rips his beard off, skin included, and mocks him with it. Art rips half of his face off before finishing his masterpiece by turning him from a monogamous, kind-hearted, if not half-drunk Santa Claus into the world’s most messed-up snowman.
Keep in mind, though these are the five Santa Claus murder moments that we chose to focus on today. There is a never-ending plethora, a buffet if you will, of the depraved, disgusting things that Santa Claus has done throughout film. In Silent Night, Deadly Night alone, the movie opens up with Billy’s mom being murdered by Santa Claus in a very traumatic moment that sets the stage for everything to come after. Later in the film, there’s an awesome sledding beheading that takes place. Throughout the rest of the franchise, there are several other notable kills as well. Including in Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 with the famous “It’s garbage day!” kill. Even if he wasn’t dressed as Santa Claus, it‘s still great all the same. There’s an entire film where Bill Goldberg goes through and murders folks dressed as Santa Claus. Don’t forget the insane amount of Santa Claus movies available on Tubi right now. There’s something sick and dark inside of all of us that wants to see this jolly creature go through and heinously murder folks. I’m here for it. So are you. Let’s stop pretending.
I’d love to leave you on a more positive note than Santa having his extremities turned into an ice sculpture of f*ck. But that’s what you came here for now, isn’t it? So, let me recommend a couple of movies that may not have made this list but feature some amazing Santa Claus murder, death, kill moments. There’s A Christmas Horror Story where we see Santa slay a bunch of zombie elves and are eventually welcomed to an even more haunting truth. And Christmas Bloody Christmas, a punk rock Christmas film where Santa Claus is the Terminator. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did and that you all have an amazing holiday season where the only thing getting dismembered are your bank accounts. Like the rest of us.
A couple of the previous episodes of The Best of the Bad Guys can be seen below. To see more, click over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
PLOT: A high-powered executive (Nicole Kidman) risks her family and career when she begins an affair with a much younger intern (Harris Dickinson).
REVIEW: You’ve got to hand it to director Halina Reijn – she’s not afraid to be controversial. Her last movie, Bodies Bodies Bodies, was a huge surprise, with it being positioned as a slasher movie but ending up as something of a hilarious prank played on horror fans. This one, Babygirl, tackles issues of consent, grooming, and coercion head-on but dares to allow the audience to make up their own mind about what’s appropriate or not.
It offers Nicole Kidman a very controversial part, with her exec, Romy (Nicole Kidman), seemingly having it all. She runs a wildly profitable company with a loving husband (Antonio Banderas) and a supportive family. Yet, right from the first scene, where we see her in bed with her husband, we note that something’s missing. Romy is no longer sexually satisfied with her husband, who’s too tender and loving for her taste. After making love to him, she sneaks away to watch bondage porn and seems to have appetites that she’s afraid to vocalize, such as the desire to be dominated.
Her world is turned upside down when a brash intern, Harris Dickinson’s Samuel, enters the scene. He seems to have her number right from the get-go, challenging her in a way that borders on disrespect but excites her. They start a BDSM-flavored affair, with Romy especially excited by the fact that with one phone call, Samuel could destroy her career. After all, she is a boss who has an affair with one of her employees and one at the very bottom of the company’s ladder.
Reijn doesn’t ask us to condone the relationship, but the notion of who is exploiting who is left open for the audience to decide. It’s a brave role for Kidman, who does things here many other actresses of her stature wouldn’t dare. In an era where movie makers seem reluctant at all to put sex on the screen, Babygirl is different in that it’s totally built around a sexual relationship many would deem inappropriate.
Kidman has good chemistry with Harris Dickinson, who continues to impress following a solid role in last year’s The Iron Claw. At times, he seems to channel Mickey Rourke in 9 1/2 Weeks, with his push and pull irresistible to Romy, even if he’s constantly violating her boundaries, such as visiting her home and family.
As the scorned husband, Antonio Banderas is shown to be incredibly sympathetic, with him loving and supportive – it’s just that’s not what she wants anymore. As Reijn allows us to observe Jacob and Romy’s affair, she also doesn’t give us an easy out by making the husband objectionable. If anything, he’s shown to be the ideal husband. There’s just an itch Romy has that he’s unable to scratch.
Like Bodies Bodies Bodies, Babygirl is stylish. She reteams with her usual cinematographer, Jasper Wolf. She includes a propulsive score by Juan Cristóbal Tapia de Veer, composer of HBO’s The White Lotus (to which this shares some thematic similarities). Technically, the film is pretty impeccable, although at close to two hours, the pace starts to drag in the last act. The film’s ending is somewhat anti-climactic, although perhaps leaving it so open was the intent all along.
While Babygirl might be too provocative to work as an awards play for A24, the company’s notoriety, and the premise will no doubt make it a hotly debated film once it hits theaters later this fall. It’s controversial, but it’s also one of the sexier films to come along in recent memory. Kidman deserves major praise for her consistent refusal to play it safe as an actress.
