Santa Claws

I had pretty low expectations for this. On paper this seems like a typical cheap B-grade slasher-horror film. In reality it's even worse.

It is cheap and a slasher-horror but calling it B-grade would be flattery. The plot is very basic and what there is doesn't make much sense. Production values are incredibly poor. Direction is woeful: some of the scenes seem more like a slapstick comedy than a drama.

Dialogue is laughable and, allied with this, performances are poor. Worst of all is the guy who plays the slasher-murderer. So bad you'd think it is a comedy.

Nothing positive at all about this movie except than it is quite short (83 minutes) so at least the pain of watching this is over quickly.

I recently watched Santa Claws (1996) on Tubi. The storyline revolves around a horror scream queen and soft porn star navigating a divorce while juggling the challenges of parenting and work. With support from her neighbor, who harbors a crush on her, she embarks on a new chapter, all the while hoping to mend things with her ex. As the plot unfolds, mysterious deaths occur both at home and work, adding an unexpected twist to the life of our scream queen.

The film, written and directed by John Russo (Midnight), features performances by Debbie Rochon (Slime City Massacre), John Mowod (FleshEater), Marilyn Eastman (Night of the Living Dead), and Karl Hardman (Night of the Living Dead).

Despite a promising premise, Santa Claws suffers from weak acting, subpar dialogue, poorly constructed sets, and a mediocre soundtrack. The film includes numerous sex scenes featuring women with "enhancements," adding a redeeming element. While the female cast are gorgeous, the kill scenes lack quality, though they offer occasional humor. Notably, the killer's interactions with a sex doll resembling the main character provide amusement and kept my attention.

In conclusion, Santa Claws is a flawed blend of slasher and soft porn genres that may appeal to those seeking such a combination. With bad acting and dialogue, along with inconsistent production quality, I would give it a 3/10. However, if you have specific expectations for a mix of slasher and soft porn, it might be worth your time.

I have to admit that this flick is pretty terrible and the only reason to watch it would be if you are a fan of Debbie Rochon. The reasons that this movie is so terrible is you have a very unintimidating and laughable killer. Here's a line from him. "I'm not Wayne, I'm Santa Claus!", then you have very unattractive women save Debbie Rochon dancing horribly to bland stripper music, very little gore, and bad sound dubbing. But there are a few good sides to this flick. It's cheesy, Debbie Rochon, more Debbie Rochon, more, and more Debbie Rochon, and John Russo in a badly acted cameo. What more could you want. For a badly acted, cheese fest, I give it a 5. For just an all around terrible horror flick, I give it a 3! But get it anyways to see Debbie Rochon in an early role!

John Russo nearly hits rock bottom with this disastrous cheapie misleadingly promoted as another killer-dressed-as-Santa-Claus-movie.

Raven Quinn (Debbie Rochon) not only has to deal with a cheating husband (John Mowod) but also with trouble from women's groups and her in-laws when she accepts the lead role in the racy movie "A Scream Queen Christmas." If things couldn't get any worse, Raven also becomes the target of an obsessed psycho, her next-door neighbor Wayne (Grant Kramer), who has a shrine to her in his home, drugs her kids, messes around with a mannequin and kills cast and crew participating in the movie with a three-pronged garden claw.

There's virtually no gore or violence, but there are long scenes of young women with large silicone knockers stripping out of glittery costumes to pad out the running time. Debbie Rochon is easily the best this film has to offer in terms of good-looking babes and the only one of the bunch I found to be really attractive. (She's also pretty fun to watch with her clothes on, as well). It's also fun spotting Marilyn Eastman, Karl Hardman, Bill Hinzman and John Russo (all of whom appeared in the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD) in small roles here. Otherwise this is a complete waste of time.

Russo also made the T & A tie-in tape SCREAM QUEEN NAKED CHRISTMAS featuring Kramer, Rochon, Christine Cavalier (from W.A.V.E. Productions) and others from this movie reprising their roles (and removing their clothes).

Score: 3 out of 10 (thanks mainly to Debbie)

Despite my life-long romance with the horror genre, then I had never seen this movie before, nor actually ever heard about it. But as I stumbled upon it here in 2024, by random luck, I opted to sneak it into my Christmas movie marathon, yes of sappy romantic Christmas movies, just to break the string of endless sap.

However, I have to say that the movie's cover didn't exactly paint writer and director John A. Russo's 1996 movie as a particularly great movie. And in all honesty, I harbored zero expectations to the movie. But then again, maybe writer and director John A. Russo had something grand up his sleeve.

The storyline in the movie was nearly non-existing. So it wasn't as if I had been missing out on a particularly grand horror movie experience here. Writer John A. Russo failed to deliver anything impressive with the script and storyline.

Essentially, the movie felt like little more than a sad excuse for John A. Russo to show off naked ladies.

The only performer on the cast list that I was familiar with was Debbie Rochon, and it is only because I've seen sufficiently many low budget movies. The acting performances in the movie were fair, despite the fact of the actors and actresses having a simplistic script to work with.

The special effects in the movie were exactly that, special. The gunshot wounds were laughably bad, as were the rake puncture wounds. It was essentially nothing but fake blood placed in circles at where the wounds were supposed to be. For a movie made it 1996, it was incredibly amateurish and ridiculous to look at.

"Santa Claws" was a movie that snuck in under the radar unnoticed, and it will just as quietly fade into oblivion and never be seen again.

My rating of writer and director John A. Russo's 1996 movie lands on a two out of ten stars.