ELVES (1989)

THE CARD:

A Grisly End to a Career; A Catalog of Bent Wangs; Crypto-Nazi Grandpa; Crypto-Nazi Imaginary Beings; Crypto-Nazi Valley Girls; a useful purpose for non-virgin blood; Christmas Cat Dip; (s)elf-powered puppets; and the thankful absence of Will Ferrell beating midgets.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Bitchy teen waitress Kirsten (Julie Austin) has never had a nice X-mas.  All her life she’s had to deal with her insufferable family including her extremely nervous Mom (Deanna Lund), her pervy TMNT-fan brother, and her wheelchair-bound badly accented Grandpa (Borah Silver).  And so to battle her holiday depression, she enlists the aid of her mentally-challenged girlfriends to venture into the forest and perform an arcane ritual to ruin everyone’s X-mas.  She accidentally cuts herself and bleeds into the grave of long-entombed creature. So what at first was a cry for help quickly turns into an accidental conjuring of an evil elfin spirit, and I ain’t talking about double-chocolate dipped chip cookies. 

Speaking of cries for help, former cop and recovering alcoholic Mike McGavin (a very sad-looking chain-smoking Dan Haggerty) shows up at Golem’s department store and begs for a job.  He eventually gets the coveted job of store Santa after the former jolly fat dude gets Lorena-Bobbited by the evil elf which is now on the loose in the store and apparently hates wieners.  Kirsten, who works in the store’s diner, befriends Grizzly Santa and one night while locked in the store, the pair is attacked by German goons on the trail of the resurrected demon-spawn in a furry hat.

No, I won't work past five on the 24th, Fatso!

The next day, Mike and Kirsten launch an investigation into the nature of the monster and its khaki-clad followers and discover that elves were worshiped by the Nazis and subsequently genetically engineered by Kirsten’s Grandpa in order to raise an army of angry toy-making freedom haters.  They also find out that on Christmas Eve, this particular alpha-elf is going to stuff virgin Kirsten’s silken stocking to jump-start the Master Elf Race, aka the Littlest Reich.  Oh, and there’s this weird incestuous twist tossed  in that takes Mike over the edge and so he starts whaling on anyone that might look “whimsical”.

You said you'd pay me in cash!!!

So what follows is a Magical Pixie Apocalypse that brings the forces of evil (German Goons & Uber-Elf) against the Forces of Good (Virginal Kirsten) against the Forces of Tubby and Phlegmy (Poor Ol’ Dan Haggerty).

THE FINISHER:

 

The tradition of shitty horror movies set at X-mas continues with the abjectly cheap Elves, a relatively and perhaps deservedly obscure X-mas horror title.  Ok, so this wasn’t James Cameron’s sequel to Elf.  Strike one.  Also, Haggerty didn’t bother to bring along a big ass bear to do some Nazi-chomping.  Strike two.  In defiance of its own title, there is only one fricking elf in the film.  Strike effing three.  And it’s a hatefully ugly little thing, kind of like a $.99 Store version of a mini-Voldemort only not good.  And you never see the full body, only the top half which moves way too puppet-like.  The idea of evil elves battling Santa Claus in a department store on X-mas Eve sounds like a no-brainer, and the casting of Haggerty sounds even more inspired.  But somehow the creative forces behind this thing decided that piling on incest, racism, animal abuse, and an uncomfortably horny kid made for fun holiday horror fare.  Well, actually it does kinda work at times, but the inept execution takes the edge off and ultimately it comes off as just mean-spirited and creatively bereft.  Another huge problem is that you only see Haggerty in a Santa suit for about ten seconds.  What the hell, man?