Rish Outfield's reviews
Basically, this was a much cleaner, much less satisfying version of Silent Night Deadly Night, wherein a poor middle-aged employee at a toy factory (Brandon Maggart), delusional and depressed, begins to see himself as Santa Claus, and (going all the way back to a childhood trauma on Christmas Eve) he dresses as St. Nick and sets out to reward the Nice and punish the Naughty on the list he's made based on his day-to-day observations.
Unfortunately, it focused so much on the poor man and his attempts to change the world around him that no one in their right mind would want him to fail (or be stopped by the police). But at the same time, he was so obviously disturbed that you couldn't like him or root for him, but just feel sorry for him (and ultimately yourself). Christmas Evil is all so bleak and downbeat (until the inexpressibly dumb ending), that there's not a second of fun, justice, or entertainment value to be had. There was something extraordinarily TV movie about this film, which proceeded at the pace of a salted snail. The story wasn't bad, really, but it took its own not-so-sweet time to tell itself. Also, there were a couple of nasty characters (particularly a horrid little boy vocally fond of pornography) that never receive their comeuppance (and said kid even receives a Christmas gift from ‘Santa,' which we never see opened). And the ending may not have conceivably sucked more.
Christmas Evil is not at all a good title, for the reasons I've just mentioned, especially since there's no one in the film that's Evil in the capitalised sense of the word. You Better Watch Out, as it is also known, is a much better moniker, but still implies a more chilling threat than this movie presented. By whatever name (someone said it's also called Terror In Toyland), it wasn't an unholy piece of animal waste (like, say Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things), but it was so mediocre and non-entertaining that I can't imagine anyone liking it.
I'd Recommend It To: Basically, the only reason we rented this was because we wanted holiday movies, and we both liked the title. Don't you make the same mistake.
Note: Tyranist insisted (nay, decreed) that someone named Patricia Richardson who appeared briefly was a Future Celebrity. Heck, non-Future Celebrity Jeffrey De Munn is in it, and he's in "Storm of the Century" and the "X-Files" movie (not to mention "Shawshank Redemption"). Well, I lost that argument with tyranist. But don't worry, I took it out on his kids.

The tyranist's thoughts
This one fits in that awkward a little too real, a little too much of trying to explain the killer category for me. That made it difficult to watch since I find those stories generally contain very little of what I like in them. Instead, we follow the lonely, miserable, psychotic villain around and examine his pathetic life while he decides who to kill and who to let live.
Why is it that any killer dressed like Santa Claus has to have some profoundly disturbing childhood memory that eventually sets him off?
I found the movie uncomfortable to watch, but well put together anyway. If you enjoy this type of film then this one won't let you down. Aside from the ending that is. I believe that the ending of this movie is the single most inconsistent ending I have ever seen. Well, except for maybe Cutting Class, but this one is inconsistent in a different way.
So be warned that this one is a little awkward and uncomfortable, but you might like it anyway.