Elves

Dir: Jeffrey Mandel

1989

***

Pretty much all Christmas horror films are bad but it seems as if the best ones, or should I say, the best of the worst, were all made before 1990. Elves is pretty bad but, I actually quite liked it. The story is about as absurd as any Christmas horror had been before and since and I think that’s what I love about it. It all starts when teenager Kirsten (Julie Austin) accidentally cuts her hand during an "Anti-Christmas" pagan ritual with her friends Brooke and Amy in the woods. Rather unexpectedly, her spilled blood somehow awakens an ancient demonic Christmas elf. The elf we learn, is the central figure in a modern-day Neo-Nazi plot to finally bring about the master race that Hitler had always dreamed of conquering the world with. Rather than a race of pure-blood Aryans, it is revealed that Hitler instead dreamed of a race of half-human/half-elf hybrids (it is also revealed that elves figured heavily into a pseudo-cult religion that the Nazis practiced in secret). Kirsten is also a figure in this plot as she is the last remaining pure-blooded Aryan virgin in the world, her grandfather being a former Nazi who was once involved in the plot (but is now reformed); he is also her father, as inbreeding was somehow considered crucial to maintaining a pure Aryan bloodline. Unaware of all these sinister goings-on, the non-festive Kirsten continues to sulk her way through the Christmas season as she works at the snack counter of a local department store. Mike McGavin (Dan Haggerty) is an ex-cop who lost his badge when he lost control of his alcoholism. Jobless, penniless, and recently served a notice of eviction from his ramshackle trailer home, Mike turns to his old friend – the manager of the department store – for help, and winds up becoming the store Santa after the prior Santa is murdered by the elf. Without a proper home, Mike sneaks into the store at night to sleep in the storage room and live off the snack counter left-overs. One night, he hears Kirsten and her friends, who have also sneaked in, frolicking through the store as they wait for their boyfriends to show up for an all-night party. The shadowy Nazi group arrives instead, planning to kidnap Kirsten and find the elf so the master race can finally be made reality. With Mike's help, Kirsten escapes with her life, though her friends are not so lucky. Promptly fired for breaking into the store after hours, Mike and Kirsten are able to devote their time to unraveling the plot. After making a Christmas Eve visit to the local college library and later breaking into a professor's home to demand information, Mike realizes what is afoot and sets out to protect Kirsten. Mike, Kirsten and her grandfather have a final climactic showdown with the Nazis and the elf in Kirsten's home, culminating in the woods where Kirsten destroys the elf by performing a ritual involving an "elfstone" from her grandfather's study. The following morning, Kirsten huddles in the now-inexplicably destroyed forest as it begins to snow for the first time that winter. The film ends on the image of a fetus, suggesting perhaps that the plot was successful despite the elf's seeming inability to actually copulate with Kirsten before its demise. It is amazing. I have criticized Christmas horror films of being too complicated in the past, suggesting that many of them should just concentrate on the slasher aspect of the horror but elves is very different. You don’t see much of the Elves but what you do see is golden. The Nazi experiment plot is the stuff of b-movie wonder and what is bad about the film is fairly forgivable. I really liked the characters too and each death is fairly inventive. The best thing about it though is that Grizzly Adams himself is the alcoholic ex-cop Santa hero that every Christmas horror needs. The best Christmas horror films are the ones that take themselves less seriously and the ones that are as ridiculous as they can possibly be. The quality of the film isn’t good but the acting isn’t bad. The script is better than most but the important aspect – the bit that nearly every modern horror gets wrong – is the editing. Its never stunted, it might be bad but it flows rather well and doesn’t look like its been filmed in someones garage. It’s a bit odd that the Elves are referred to as Trolls for most of the movie but apart from that it is a terrible film that is puzzlingly entertaining, making it one of my favourite Christmas horror films of all time. At this point any Christmas horror film I don’t hate feels almost like a masterpiece in some respects.I suppose it is a masterpiece in some respects, one of the best worst films ever made.