Fear of Santa Claus pt 12 (Elves, 1989)

There are two memorable things about the movie Elves.  It is about little Nazi monsters that are an experiment to create racial purity that seek to mate with some teen girls.  Ew.  It also stars Grizzly Adams himself, Dan Haggerty.  Haggerty died back in January of 2016…and thankfully was able to bury this with 29 acting credits.  Because I have seen Axe Giant: The wrath of Paul Bunyan and as terrible as that film is, it is the better of the two films.

There are, of course, other things that set this film apart.  Not in good ways…but apart none the less.  There is the German Grandpa who displays his concern for his grand daughter by slapping her.  The mother who only seems to derive happiness from making her kids miserable  (she drowns the family cat!).  The little brother who tells his older sister that he likes looking at naked girls…this is when she catches him peeping at her in the shower.  He also swears like a sailor.

Then there is the Santa who tries to molest high school aged Kirsten in front of the store.  Thankfully he is killed by an elf so Haggerty can get a job as the new Santa.

The Elves seem to be focused on Kirsten and her family.  And then the Nazis show up, hoping that the Elves mate with Kirsten, because she apparently is genetically pure. This film has one of the saddest exchanges regarding sexual activity ever.  Kirsten explains how she is saving it for someone special.  Her friend explains that rather than risk confrontation with a guy by saying no to sex, she would just rather go through with it so he does not get mad.

Frankly, the plot makes no sense.  The elves are part of an experiment in genetic purity?  Little warped monsters provide the necessary genetic material for a race of pure superman?  This seems kind of unlikely…there is also a big Chinatown style twist about an hour in.  To, you know, class things up a bit.  Also, apparently they do not need conventional means for creating a baby as the film implies Kirsten is pregnant at the end.  Well, not so much implies as explicitly shows us a fetus with a heartbeat.

While this is not quite Troll 2, is practically runs off the road into it.  Elves is a badly acted film where people fight puppets that are less stiff than some of the actors.  It is a genuinely awful film.

I will leave you with this exchange from the film:

“Are we gonna be alright?”

“No, Willy.  Gramps is a Nazi.”