ELVES (1989)

every time someone says the word GREMLIN, i cant help but imagine someones hand floating over a big red COPYRIGHT CLAIM button.

A young woman discovers that she is the focus of an evil Nazi experiment involving selective breeding and summoned elves, an attempt to create a race of supermen. She and two of her friends are trapped in a department store with an elf, and only Dan Haggerty, as the renegade loose-cannon Santa Claus, can save them.

in some cases, i prefer to watch old movies on DVD. There is some kind of strange magic to watching movies in that slightly curved square aspect ratio with that CRT glow that i have always found as comforting as a warm blanket. its not only the way you watch these kind of movies, but all 80s movies have there own unique unreality to them. a lot of this comes form the similar acting, similar scores, similar camera work, and the same 80s fashion and architecture most people reading this were born far to late to experience. i have always been curious about this Bliss thing i keep hearing about, and the closest i have ever gotten to that feeling

anyways this movie is really fucked up and even more bizarre. we get a cat drowned in the toilet by the most pointlessly evil character in movie history, a horribly abusive family that gets no reaction form the daughter, a little brother staring and commenting on his sisters "big tits", a perverted mall Santa getting stabbed in the dick repeatedly, a detective who asks one question and leaves the whole movie, a gun rack labeled GIFTS FOR MOM, and the acting from every soap opera the 1980's has to offer.

its a Christmas movie(?) with no snow, no real Christmas lights, and besides the mall Santa nothing about this movie says Christmas. its a bizarre mix of being so bad its good, and being so pointlessly cruel its hard to laugh. its crazy to me that a movie like this even exists in the first place, and the whole movie is packed full of strange choices that scream first time film maker. maybe that feeling is because this was director Jeffrey Mandel's first of four movies from 1989 to 1992, and i cant say i'm surprised by his short career. there are scenes that last only 30 seconds, the script is bare bones and uninteresting, the setting is painfully boring and barren, and you barely get any kills or creature sightings in this movie.

so if you are looking for a goofy B movie to watch this chrombus and you see this movie on some list of holiday horror movies, i implore you to pick something else. i'm a surprisingly big fan of the 2006 BLACK CHRISTMAS if you are looking for recommendations.

3/10