User reviews

I also got a screener copy of PSYCHO SANTA thanks to the generosity of one of the people involved in this film. So, props for spreading the word about independent films that may otherwise not have a voice. People in the low-budget horror/exploitation industry are a tight-knit group of people who have good intentions and work very, very hard for very little payoff. They also take the time to answer e-mails and converse with fans... something their Hollywood counterparts never seem to have the time to do.

That said, this videotaped horror effort is unfortunately quite awful. I won't lie. It is VERY bad and I could go on for many reasons why I did not enjoy it very much, but it boiled down to two basic things...

1. The film is mercilessly padded out with scenes that never seem to end. It takes five minutes for someone to get from Point A to Point B, when it should take around 30 seconds max. I counted at least four scenes in this movie (there are probably more) that are stretched out for no apparent reason than to pad out the running time. Padded out movies are not only boring to sit through, but also make you lose complete interest in the film and what is going on in it. I noticed I had my trigger finger rested on the fast-forward button on my remote while watching this and I had to fight off the urge to use it many times.

2. There is VERY little dialog and very little actual content here; I don't think there's enough going on to merit a short film, let alone a feature length one. During one long and patience-shredding scene, a pair of burglars take several minutes to walk around outside and break into a house. If I recall correctly, the two did not say a single word to each other in that time. Even when they enter the house and drown a woman in her bathtub, they say nothing. So we don't know a thing about these two and thus could care less about them, what they are doing or what happens to them (in this case, getting killed off by the dead woman's monstrous son).

PSYCHO SANTA is a horror anthology with three tales and linking segments. The first story involves two women (a quite attractive and busty brunette and a redheaded goth chick who looks about 20 years older than her friend). They arrive at a fully-decorated-for-the-holidays cabin-in-the-woods to meet a friend, the less-attractive one takes a LONG shower to demonstrate she is pierced in more than one spot, the cute girl walks around outside for an eternity and then bops around in lingerie and a Santa hat for another 5 or so minutes. Then the two discover what happened to their friend. This segment has ONE good idea (the whereabouts of the missing friend) and a whole lot of tedium. Tale two (the worst of the bunch) involves the two burglars and the third story has a brother and sister (Eric Spudic and Krystal Stevenson) lost in the woods and encountering a facially-mutated psychotic Santa Claus. Little-known B-movie actress Kimberly Lynn Cole is in this segment for a few minutes. They don't even afford her one line of dialog. All she does is get stabbed and crawl across the floor for several minutes. The framing segment, by the way, has a young couple driving along a secluded road on way to a friend's Christmas party. They do talk in these scenes, but not about anything interesting.

I love horror movies and I love independent movies, when they are done right. To me, a B-movie done 'right' must provide a fast-pace, some campy and/or stilted dialog and plenty of nudity/sex and violence/gore. This one takes itself too seriously to come through as a comedy, is too poorly made to take seriously and does not provide enough exploitation elements to please Z-movie fans. I have nothing against films being shot on video or digital, even though the sound is often awful. It is all about how much people put into it. Stick with the underrated BLACK Christmas and the deserved cult classic Christmas EVIL when it comes to X-mas horror.

A few smoothly-directed and edited scene transitions and a couple of derivative, but OK touches, save this one from a "1" rating.

A friend of mine sent this to me for evaluation because I watch a lot of cheap horror films like he does. This is by far the worst 'horror' movie I have seen so far this year. It is like someone strung together their boring home movies and forced them upon the general movie-going public. It is cheap - stupid - annoying - lifeless and drags along at a snail's pace. There is not one single decent acting performance in this film, no interesting characters, no suspense and it seriously lacks in the gore department, which could have been a redeeming factor for movies like this one.

It was produced by a B-movie website and I went to said site and saw the 'reviewer' praising many movies I've seen that are beyond terrible. I know it was just his/her opinion, but hell - BAD IS BAD - Anyone giving a thumbs up to some of those bombs is obviously just trying to get free screener copies and thus is a worthless, biased 'critic'...

Speaking of the 'B' horror industry - I have noticed that it generally consists of people with little to no talent who just sit around praising each other's unoriginal home video crap. I hope THEY enjoy their OWN films, because no one else does. When this one gets out to DVD, it wish it a quick death at the bottom of the Blockbuster bargain bin. Sadly, this movie will probably make money... but how could it not? It obviously didn't cost anything! The people involved with this show complete disregard for their audience and that in itself is appalling enough not to drop a dime on this junk. End of story.

This movie wasn't the easiest to find...however, when I did manage to track it down...it made a lot more sense as to why that is.

Mostly, because it starts off more like a porn, than it does a horror film.

The whole thing basically takes place in one long and wholly unnecessary flashback sequence, during which a man recounts the story of Psycho Santa to his unprivy wife.

And this starts off with an equally long and unnecessary introduction to the backstory of the killer, with two probable porn actresses/lesbian lovers vacationing at a cabin over Christmas holidays.

Apparently, this is all meant to lead up to some sort of relatively explosive revelation...but it ends up being so anti-climactic...it's actually quite humourous.

As we'll come to see...the filmmakers really struggle when it comes to seizing those climactic moments.

Though you can chock up the blame here to extremely poor editing...albeit the awful story and poorly developed plot structure don't help much either.

All the cuts are extremely abrupt, and poorly timed, with no attention paid to giving transitions- between the narration sequences and vignettes- any sort of nuance.

And from here, things only get worse...as the story inexplicably shifts to two men robbing a blind woman's house.

At first, it seems like this segment has no viable contextual purpose either, other than to be act as a vehicle for another nude shower scene.

To their credit, it does eventually become clear that this all plays into the backstory of Chris...the deranged son of the blind woman and her husband...who would inevitably go on to become Psycho Santa.

He had been kept locked up, and confined to a room, by his parents.

But now he has been released...and is out for blood...killing anyone and everyone he comes into contact with...

The vignettes themselves are actually not so bad, considering it's a D-grade horror that was probably made on virtually no budget.

However, the whole aspect of connecting them with the guy and his wife in their car really kills the vibe and drags the whole thing down...especially considering the transitory editing is so poorly done.

It's collection of faults aside...this isn't even close to being the worst of the Christmas horrors that are out there.

And that is even considering the fact that they kind of lead you to believe that there is going to be a "whole Psycho Santa" reveal- after toying around with partial clips of him walking around with some sort of serrated blade- before totally disappointing you with another unoppourtunistic anti-climactic moment you can't help but shake your head at.

The fact that there are scenes that are actually a bit discomforting, really makes me think this film could have had potential.

But this was really hindered by some bizarre decision making, a poor plot design, and a failure to identify what moments needed to be seized upon in an explosive way.

So i'd rank it somewhere in the mid tier of D-grade class of Christmas horror films.

And give it a solid 2 out of 10.

I recently viewed Psycho Santa (2003) on Tubi. The storyline follows a young couple moving into a new house with rumors of a psycho Santa in the nearby woods, a plot they initially dismiss but may come to regret.

Directed by Peter Keir (Wolfika), the film stars Kimberly Lynn Cole (Body Snatchers), Eric Spudic (Creepies), Krystal Havens (Dead Clowns), Jason Barnes (Dead Clowns), and Michelle Samford (Cadaver Bayer).

This picture has a fantastic opening shower scene then takes a sharp downturn from there. While the cast, dialogue, and storyline are painfully lacking, the actresses are at least worth a viewing. Unfortunately, the horror elements, especially the kill scenes, are disastrously bad-some of the worst I've ever seen.

In conclusion, Psycho Santa is only worth considering if you're desperate for a poorly executed Christmas horror film. I would give it a 2/10 and recommend skipping it altogether.

This movie is worth a watch or two or three. How can you not like a Santa Claus that kills people? Eric Spudic does a great job for a up and coming actor, director, and producer. This movie is a must for anyone who enjoys b-grade horror movies like Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, Christmas Evil, Slumber Party Massacre, etc. We have plenty of gore and great looking female bodies in this slash-fest! I mean Eric Spudic knows how to get this done right as we have a awesome shower scene in the first 5 minutes of the movie. And the girls in this movie are excellent looking. Eric Spudic plays Josh who gets chased in the woods when his car breaks down at one point. I don't want to spoil the movie but if you are into slasher films check this out!!Slasher Reviewer gives this 5 thumbs up!!!Great independent horror!!

Traveling together to a holiday party, a couple trying to stay entertained on the way there decides to pass the time by telling the tale of a psychotic serial killer who lived in the area who dressed as Santa and attacked numerous people which causes them to wonder if he's still in the area.

This was a decent enough indie genre effort. Among the films' better features is the use of a holiday atmosphere within a solid shot-on-video indie aesthetic. It's nearly unmistakable to see the indie approach here, with the constant buzz and grain present alongside the guerilla-style shooting that takes place here even before taking into account the one-location setting which is where everything takes place. This is enhanced nicely by some fine enhancements to the holiday spirit where this one plays pretty nicely with the song being played as a controlling mechanism for the killer which is integrated rather well here. This lets the film focus rather nicely on the decent setups involving the killer coming into play at random points. The opening involving him stalking the victim through the junkyard is a fine starting point with some more suspenseful tactics than expected while the later flashbacks here to Santa taking out the girls partying in the remote cabin or the thieves breaking into the house have a lot to like. Playing up the killer's inhuman nature and some rather brutal kills, this here offers up a fine entrance point where the later encounters on the girl in her house or the siblings lost in the woods come across as solid enough scenes to bring about quite a lot to enjoy here. There are some issues here that bring it down. One of the better features with this one comes from a scattershot and discordant plotline that makes for a rather underwhelming and confusing time. Presenting the backstory of the psycho Santa killer as a series of anthology vignettes in this form as it does manage to jump around to these encounters as it doesn't need to be a closeted film in this structure. This cheap feeling is the other big drawback here, with the general lack of presence or general atmosphere with the simplistic storyline, toned-down locations, and one-take feel that really combine together to give this a short-changed feel.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Full Nudity, and Language.

The kind of people who like psycho Santa movies are not exactly aficionados of great film. They expect slashing bloody scenes, brutalities, bad acting, some ineptness to laugh at. This film actually tries to make an interesting movie with careful set-ups, understated acting that shows some ability of the performers, and the directing knows something about editing together scenes to show suspense. The comments made by people about this movie indicate a decided lack of interest in anything less than puerile. This was a film made by someone with little money, hence videotape, but shows some study of the art of suspense, using techniques employed by Hitchcock. Alas, the director may have chosen a genre in which his audience is not worthy of his efforts. This film can actually be watched by adults with a brain to pass time.

Psycho Santa (2003)

* (out of 4)

Pretty bad anthology film has a guy and girl driving when he announces that he can't stand Christmas. She then asks why and the guy then tells three different stories set around Christmas time. The first has two girls going to the woods to meet a friend where they get slaughtered. The second story deals with a couple thieves while another has a boy and girl in the woods with a psycho Santa. This thing clocks in at 72-minutes, which feels about 67-minutes too long. This film is pretty short but it feels ten times longer and the main reason for this is that everything that happens just goes on and on for no reason. To be fair, the story here doesn't have enough for a five-minute movie let alone one this long so to make up for this we just get a bunch of scenes that just drag on. Just take a look at the first story and you'll notice a sequence where one girl takes a shower while another goes for a walk to pick up stones. We just keep cutting back and forth between this stuff for no reason. The second and third stories also features stuff that just drags along and after a while you just feel cheated. The performances are below average, the special effects aren't memorable and in the end there's very little to check out here.