8 Films to Keep You Awake - A Christmas Tale

 ***/*****

Part of the long-forgotten Spanish horror mini-film series, 8 Films to Keep You Awake, “A Christmas Tale” was well regarded by many as the best of the lot. I think so, too, as probably if one were to watch the series, it might recall “The Goonies”, 80s suburban kid adventures, and Stephen King stories. Set at Christmastime, although the setting is perhaps not typical of what one might consider cold and grey (you do see their breath when they talk, so that might be one consolation), kids encounter a pit containing an injured woman in a Santa suit, later discovering from a news report and bulletin that prints in the sheriff’s office that she robbed a bank and is on the lam. The kids could tell the police and turn her in but learning of the money she stole, they decide instead to starve her and wait for her to tell them where the loot is! When she eventually escapes from the pit—after giving them what they requested—the kids must try and distance themselves from her (she finds an ax buried in a tree stump) while hoping outsmart her at an amusement park. They have developed a fantasy that she is a zombie that must be killed so advising a plan to stab her in the left eye, through the brain (as a cheesy zombie film on VHS tells them), at the amusement park. The running time is 68 or so minutes and the kids (except for the girl who tries to talk them into running a rope to her and letting her go) are not the likable sort you would hope to root for. Instead they torment their captive, sometimes dropping food and drink in the pit, other times mocking her situation by talking to her about the money, while also threatening to leave her down there. They have the rope, her freedom, at their disposal, not allowing her to exit the pit. The ending, though, does leave us wondering how she can after 45 minutes of her not being able to, with her condition—quite worse for wear, and that’s putting it mildly—escaping and getting her revenge. The ending will be polarizing to some. The climactic scene at the amusement park, where the kids lure their escapee, has the Daniel Larusso wannabe kid using his crane kick to drop her down a water slide into an exposed rebar, right into her head. No one would survive that, and I think that was the twist at the end…despite all their efforts to make sure she was dead and buried, in the pit, her prison for almost the entire tale, this woman would not be denied.

Here is a possible addition to the Christmas horror season, if you will. I'm not sure it will be easy to find because I have my copy from when it first found a release for me to see it thanks to Netflix DVD.

I think the little film is at its very best when the woman is free, her face withered from the length in the pit under the inhospitable elements (rain, cold, lack of nutrition), madness overtaken her because of the kids’ mistreatment, with ax in hand, her bum knee causing her to drag a leg. The camera loves to shoot her face full of rage and dark intent, and the makeup work is perfectly dreadful. She just wants to kill them slow, with that ax, while they really know all bets are off. No longer can they afford to play games…they better make sure she is executed all nice and proper. Well, they fail despite the visceral damage inflicted on her. That finale might be what doesn’t work for some viewers. It is preposterous. At certain points in the film, the kids are watching the zombie film, two adults asking a wise authority on the subject of the undead about the “magic” involved. This sort of works as a catalyst in stirring the kids’ imaginations, as they take the material a bit too seriously. Ultimately, they learn the hard way that happy endings in the films they watch doesn’t always translate to real life.

The Christmas part of the little film is mostly the psycho dressed as Santa, carrying an ax, with dialogue between the kids mentioning the season as they converse about their captive, what to do with her and the money retrieved. This isn’t an overt holiday themed horror short film. I do think there is enough here, though, if you are interested in adding it to a Christmas horror list. The kids, to me, except for the girl who has empathy for the woman trapped in the pit (she cries when the boys take food from her meant for the captive, and the guilt on the girl’s face speaks volumes), although one among them does eventually consider letting her go once the money is in their possession, are often the villains of the film. They bring a lot of what happens to them—including the tragic ending—on themselves. It didn’t have to be this way.