"Elves" has got more Nazi occultism, eugenics, animal murder, human murder, elf murder, smoking, incest and Dan Haggerty than almost any other holiday movie out there. Even more than the Grizzly Adams Christmas special. It's the kind of surreal crap only to be found once upon a time on a dusty video store shelf.
Kirsten (Julie Austin) and her friend's (Laura Lichstein, Stacey Dye) have formed the "Society of Anti-Christmas", because I guess they really hate Christmas. They gather in the wood's one night around a forbidden book of Kirsten's grandfather's to perform a ceremony. After she shows the gal's her design for their mascot, the "Virgin of Anti-Christmas" ("I dreamed those art deco boob's. Cool, huh?"), she accidentally cuts her hand, spilling blood on the ground. The girl's high tail it out of there without noticing that the blood has summoned an evil "Elf" from the ground. The creature is a rubbery, inarticulate little creep who stalks Kirsten for the rest of the running time.
Kirsten's home life is an abusive, dysfunctional house of horror's. Upon returning home, her grandfather (Borah Silver) jack slaps her twice in the face for taking his book, then her insane mother (Deanna Lund) informs her that her savings account will be cleaned out as punishment. This movie should really be about Kirsten calling the Department of Social Service's, but she actually seems to take everything in stride. Later, she is spied on by her Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pajama clad pervert brother Willy (Christopher Graham) while in the shower.
"I'm not a pervert, I like seeing naked girl's"
"I'm your fuckin' sister!"
"And you got fuckin' big tit's, and I'll tell everybody I saw 'em!"
This flick is front loaded with some seriously mind twisting dialogue. Thing's get weirder when as punishment Kirsten wrestles him...on a bed. I don't know, either.
Willy is attacked in his sleep by the Elf. Afterwards he describes it looking "like a ninja, but a Gremlin...it was a fucking little ninja troll". You know, one of those. I desperately had to resist the urge to just let this review turn into a transcription of every line of dialogue in the movie.
We're introduced to disgraced ex-detective Mike (Dan Haggerty) outside the department store where Kirsten works looking a little bit homeless, a little bit mentally ill and a lot bit alcoholic. He's watching a street band who's real instrument's apparently make the sound's of synthesized instrument's. The parade of nightmarish tragedy in Kirsten's life continues when at the very same time that the store Santa is propositioning her for a blowjob, her mother is at home drowning her cat...in the toilet. The store Santa is promptly fired and then is stabbed to death in the dick while he is chopping out line's of blow. Is this the most consistently entertaining Christmas movie? Maybe.
Mike scores the newly vacant store Santa job. Needing a place to live, he crashes at the store after hours. The three girl's wanting a late night place to try on ugly 80's outfit's, eat donut's and hook up with dude's are also in the store after closing. A group of Nazi cultists who have been following Kirsten invade the store killing one of Kirsten's girlfriends in the process. Her other friend is stabbed to death by the Elf. Mike comes to Kirsten's defense and unloads some serious ammo on these sleazy Third Reich bozo's. Kirsten and Mike are bound together by this experience, and needless to say both are fired the next day when the authorities and management discover the bloodbath.
Through sly detective work by Mike- and by that I mean he barges into a guy's house on Christmas Eve demanding to know about Elves and Nazi's- and thing's learned from Kirsten's grandfather, we find out that Elves were genetically engineered by the Nazi's to carry the DNA of the master race and when bred with a virgin on Christmas Eve they will usher in what is foretold in the book of Revelation. Now we know why everyone's after Kirsten. A shocking plot twist late in the picture regarding her parentage kind of makes this the "Chinatown" of apocalyptic Nazi yuletide conspiracy movie's.
Haggerty's performance as the world weary, down on his luck ex-detective is pretty damn good. He plays it so low key you can't tell if he's phoning it in or not. I'd like to think he was psyched to deliver line's such as, "I wanna know the connection between the Elves and the Nazi's." I know I would be. He smokes so much that this movie should come with a Surgeon General warning. I'm pretty sure he eats cigarette's.
"Elves" is a "bad" movie, but it isn't a bad movie. Jeffrey Mandel keeps the batshit fun moving along at a good clip and it has a sense of humor about itself. It's available on YouTube, but if you're in LA, it's playing this Sunday 12/21 at the world's greatest movie theater aka Cinefamily. I highly recommend checking it out, as I bet it plays great with an audience. Fella's make sure to wear your TMNT pj's, and ladies bring your art deco boob's, it's sure to be a Haggerty good time.
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