Reviewed by Chris Wright, MoreHorror.com
Directed By: John A. Russo
Written By: John A. Russo
Starring: Debbie Rochon (Raven), Grant Kramer (Wayne), John Mowod (Eric), Dawn Michelucci (Angela), Savannah Calhoun (Savannah), Marilyn Eastman (Mrs. Quinn), Julie Wallace Deklavon (Peggy), Christopher Boyle (Young Wayne), Terri Lewandowski (Wayne’s Mother), Ed Lewandowski (Uncle Joe), Amanda Madison (Laura), Lisa Delien (Mary), Sue Ellen White (Debbie), Karl Hardman (Bruce), Mary Beth Boyle (Diane)
I wasn’t expecting much going in to this unknown Christmas themed slasher flick and I am truly thankful I wasn’t because this is perhaps one of the worst holiday slashers I have ever watched in my entire life! I tend to be fairly lenient on low budget films if I can find some redeeming quality in it but this is one of the rare times that I can’t find a single solitary good thing to say about this movie.
The plot is Wayne (Grant Cramer) is stalking a B movie actress wanting her for himself after being scarred for life seemingly as a child to the point of killing his mother and Uncle whom he found in bed together on Christmas Day. The plot is cliché. It has been done before. The opening act copies the plot to “Christmas Evil” as well as taking some of the plot from “Silent Night, Deadly Night” and the stalker mentality from “Maniac” with the mannequin he owns. What makes me cringe about this movie isn’t so much that the plot is a direct rip off of other movies, it is the fact that the maker of this movie was the co-writer of Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” as well as involvement on the colorized remake! How can somebody go from those great movies to this? It doesn’t make a least bit of sense to me.
The acting is truly terrible. Not a single actor or actress in this movie can act. None of the performances sold any scenes. There was no atmosphere and the gore is practically non existent so it didn’t even have special effects working in its favor. The scene that made me cringe the most is when a producer in studio shoots Wayne in the chest multiple times and it randomly does not kill him at all. Yet somehow at the end of the movie he dies. Who thought of this stuff?
I would never recommend this movie for anybody to watch. “Santa Claws” is essentially a pornographic version of three much superior horror movies. It has a 2.7/10 on IMDB but that is very generous as I give it only 1 out of 5 stars. I wish Santa had clawed my eyes out watching this train wreck.