You Better Watch Out

In some ways, 1980's YOU BETTER WATCH OUT, aka CHRISTMAS EVIL, is one of the most honest and insightful Christmas movies I've seen.   John Waters agrees, and cites it as his favorite holiday feature.  That may not surprise you as this film deals with a murderer (with severe psychological baggage) dressed as Santa Claus.  The film's advertising made it appear as just another period slasher, but that is simply not accurate.  This is not akin to later crap like SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT, where the emphasis was on gory murders and the novelty of the killer for its own sake.

Writer/director Lewis Jackson has made a film about a man so in love with Christmas that he will take very drastic measures to preserve it.  Hmmm, maybe this inspired Waters to later create SERIAL MOM, which was about a suburban mother who murders those who violate politeness and the very notion of a Beaver Cleaver type of domesticity.  Frank (Brandon Maggart) is a single, lowly middle-ager with a dead end job at a toy factory.  He becomes increasingly frustrated with his boss' and co-workers' indifference to the very spirit of the holiday, and to charity in general.  Everything is done out of necessity for the bottom line.

Frank fancies himself the real Santa Claus.  His apartment is wall to wall ornamentation, and he keeps a book of who's naughty and who's nice.  He will spy on neighborhood children, noting the good ones who take out the trash and study hard, and the others who use foul language and peek at Penthouse magazine.  But in his distant past was the highly unfortunate Christmas Eve when he spied his mother being felt up by Mr. Claus (actually Frank's father, of course), leading to apparently irrevocable damage on his psyche.  This includes what he feels is the necessity of killing those whose Christmas spirit is not genuine.  Christmas Eve in present day will be a long, eventful night of gift giving to the deserving, and um, a different sort of giving to the likewise.

As a horror film, it succeeds with a creepy atmosphere, due in large part to one of the most disturbing musical scores I've heard in a while.  Quite indescribable.  YOU BETTER WATCH OUT's kill scenes, however, are crummy, poorly rendered insert shots that reveal the film's low budget.  For some viewers, that will be part of the B-movie charm.  And they may well be bored with this film, which is clearly more interested in its character study.  Jackson really succeeds with his themes and the human drama, and Maggart is very good in the title role.  My only knowledge of him prior was his role on the Showtime series in the '80s called Brothers.  Frank is a true one eighty from that, and I wish the actor had done more features.  Shame about the abysmal acting from some of the supporting cast.

The final scene is a beauty, worthy of a standing ovation.