Plot: Christmas, 1971. Five year-old Billy Chapman goes to see his grandfather in a psychiatric institution. While his parents are away, his grandfather asks him if he has been good and warns him that Santa punishes bad children. Driving home, they are stopped by a man dressed in a Santa suit who has just robbed a convenience store. The man shoots Billy’s father and rapes and slits his mother’s throat, which Billy thinks is Santa come to punish him. Afterwards he is placed in a Catholic orphanage where he is subject to cruel abuse by the authoritarian mother superior. Growing into a strapping teenager, he is given a job in the storeroom at a toy store. When the store’s Santa falls ill, the manager makes Billy put on the Santa suit. This causes Billy’s mind to snap and he kills all those in the store and then goes out into the street with an axe dressed as Santa, determined to punish those who have been bad.
Good times,
-GH