HNUM²

A Christmas Tale – Paco Plaza


You’ll know the name Paco Plaza. If you don’t, seek out [REC] immediately. Before he, with Jaume Balagueró, directed one of the best zombie movies of recent times he worked on an episode of Películas Para no Dormir (Films to Keep You Awake, the Spanish Masters of  Horror.)

It’s the mid 1980s in a small Spanish town.  A group of kids discover a Santa at the bottom of a well, and soon find out she’s a wanted woman.  Instead of going to get the police, they decide to keep her trapped until a reward is offered.  They’ll then turn her in.  They later discover what the police are after her for.  A two million peseta bank robbery.  Realizing that the reward wouldn’t be close to 2 million, they decide to get the stolen money from her and then anonymously turn her in.  Things don’t go quite to plan so they decide to starve her until she gives it up.

Without getting into too major spoilers, things go wrong and the thieving Santa ends up dead.  Unfortunately, kids are very impressionable and after seeing the method for reanimating corpses in the latest B-movie, decide to give it a try.

I think this movie captured the feeling of the era it’s set.  I could almost see it as a cash in on The Goonies.  The first part of the movie definitely has that feeling.  They even have a little Data-esqu kid.  He’s not Asian, though.  Just obsessed with The Karate Kid.  It’s not long into it when the similarities with The Goonies cease and it becomes a fairly effective little thriller.  After discovering the existence of the 2 million pesetas the kids split into two sides.  One who want to starve Mrs Santa until she hands over the money, the other, well, they kinda want to go along with the plan but feel sorry for her and try to keep on feeding her.  This leads to a few interesting moments between the two groups, and some decent acting from the kids involved. This goes on until the final act of the movie.  Then it becomes straight up horror.

Discovering the hole empty, they believe Mrs Claus to be a zombie.  And they know the way to destroy zombies.  They learned it in the same place they learned the reanimation procedure.  Zombie Invasion. They come up with a plan to get her dead for good.  This plan involves luring her through the unused amusement park they hang out in.  This leads to a couple of really tense moments as the plan goes wrong, and some really creepy imagery as the emaciated Mrs Santa lumbers after the  fleeing kids.  There’s something very Jack Torrance about her.

The contrast between the lighter first half and the much darker second half works really well.  There’s no real moment when the two halves don’t feel as one.  It’s a well crafted movie that I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend.  All the kids to a good job with their roles.  There’s a great look to the movie and there’s enough to keep most people entertained.