It was around December of 1993, I was four at the time and the mall in my town was packed. My mother, doing some last minute shopping suddenly found a bin. Not just any bin. But a bin filled with movies. Christmas movies! And they were priced at a dollar each. Well, my mother just couldn’t resist. She blindly grabbed a couple and bought them. It was a snowy night. The fire was lit and the Christmas tree was by the window. The pile of videos my mom had just bought were at the table. My sister and me picked a movie that looked appealing, it was called SANTA CLAUS.
So mother popped it in. It wasn’t until it started playing that I noticed what looked like Satan in the background of the video jacket. What our family (except my father, who hated children’s films) saw was indeed shocking. The movie’s condition was terrible, like some strange 8mm film that had been hidden in a damp cellar. I remember it being the first dubbed movie I had ever seen, and to this day, the worst. I remember how frightening and un- jolly the Santa Claus was. I didn’t understand why there were so many kids in his workshop, I always thought they were elves. And why wasn’t he at the North Pole? I mean, floating castles? Come on! I remember how the little red devil man scared shit out of me and over time, became a frequent visitor of my nightmares! But the one scene I can most clearly remember is the scene where Santa brings this little boy into a weird laboratory with a glass window, and this little boy wishes for parents. Then these awful foil boxes appear and this man and woman rise up in a zombie-like fashion. It scared the crap out of me and still thinking about it gives me chills. I remember being shocked at how religious the movie was. From an impressionable child who’d been watching Disney Films and THE WIZARD OF OZ in an obsessive state had never heard the word “Jesus”, “Hell”, or “Satan” in a film made for children. And the brief images of hell in the movie etched a Catholic idea of it in my head for years until my ideas on religion eventually changed. Till I was at least 6, I had seen the film at least 3 times and each time watching it in complete and utter terror.
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