Elves (1989)
Christmas at Plopcorn Towers, is a time of merriment, fun and Christmas
jumpers so when it was time to sit down and watch our Christmas movie we always look forward to something fun and festive. However, there’s always been one burning question that has haunted us in Christmas past: Why has there never been a Christmas film featuring Grizzly Adams, Nazis and Incest? Well would you believe it, not only has someone fulfilled our wish but they did it way back in in 1989; long before we even realised we wanted it.
The story is based around that classic theme of a young, pretty girl who is raised by her nasty mother and wheelchair-bound grandfather in a sleepy little town somewhere no-one has heard of. Kirsten and her friends are tired of their boring lives and love to break the rules so much so they take one of her grandfather’s books and head out into the forbidden forest in the middle of the night.
With the three girls all huddled around their candles you would think they were going to conjure up some mysticism to get our elves but no, they are only there to talk trash about their upcoming tryst with some guys, one of whom allegedly has a yard-long cock. However, during the girl chatter a freak Yankee candle glass accident occurs and we get the ‘birth’ of our elf who pushes through the smouldering earth with a grotesque clawed hand giving a ‘sign of the devil’ finger salute.
After some initial shenanigans, including a cripple-slap on Kirsten by her Grandfather, we are introduced to the hero, Mike McGavin, played by Dan Haggerty who is most famous for playing Grizzly Adams. Initially we mistook Mike for a bum but it turns out he’s a chain smoking, down-on-his-luck detective – well that’s handy!
Mike and Kirsten cross paths when Mike is using the store as his home and Kirsten has arranged with her girly mates to get their men into the department store so they can have a bit of Christmas hanky-panky, providing the excuse to treat us to some white teddy and suspenders action, though nothing to get too excited about. At this point the elf has also taken up residency at the store and we are introduced to the Nazis, who also turn up to the store.
So now we have the Nazis, Grizzly Adams, 3 young girls and the elf, all stuck in a department store. You’d be forgiven at this point if you thought Benny Hill was about to show up for one of his ‘sexy parties’ where everyone runs around chasing each other but quickly the superfluous members of the cast are killed off by the Nazis or the elf, leaving us with only the main players.
Thankfully Grizzly Mike manages to usher Kirsten out of the store so she can go home to where it’s “safe” whilst he goes off to find out more about elves. Grizzly Mike follows the trail while smoking his way through 100 camel lights and we are presented with two not so plausible reasons for the existence of elves, the most credible of which is that the Nazis genetically produced elves to carry the seed of the master race and they must breed with a perfect human specimen at midnight on Christmas Eve to create this master race. We remind you at this point this was the most credible explanation…
Meanwhile Kirsten can’t find her cat because her mum killed it, just so we are left in no doubt she is a bad ‘un, not content with the cat killing mum continues to be a bitch to her daughter and at the height of their row, when Kirsten complains that her Dad has never been there for her, her mum blurts out that her father is in the other room.
“But Grandfather is in the other room?” Kirsten responds to much shock. And then the penny drops. In fairness this was a more unexpected reveal than “Luke… I am your father…” That’s right people; her Grandfather is also her father in a plot twist we like to call the Josef Fritzl manoeuvre. That is pretty messed up but worse still is when Kirsten confronts him about it he tries to go into detail about how it happened and why. “She was not conscious, I drugged her, I took no pleasure in it”. So finding out that her Grandfather drugged and raped his own daughter does anyone call the old bill? Instead we see Kirsten’s evil Step mum and step sister– no wait, actual mum and sister (these are the same person) get killed by the elf after getting all “joker” mental in the bath.
This moves us on nicely to the finale of the film with Grizzly Mike tackling Nazis, and Kirsten’s Grandfather and Father and getting killed in the ensuing fight (same person again). Unsurprisingly Kirsten and her brother then run into the forbidden forest and are chased by the elf that is now looking to get his Christmas nuts in and start the master race.
At this point it should be apparent the in order to outrun the elf Kirsten and her brother need do no more than isle along at a slow pace yet somehow old stumpy-legs seems to catch up with them in no time. The reason for this is the special, and we do mean special, effect that is The Elf. You see, often the way these features build tension means we don’t get to see the full creature until late in the movie, and this is true of Elf. However, in this case there is a distinct impression this is done for no other reason than the model is piss-poor, looking like it was made in a school project.
The elf is about 2 feet tall, has almost no mobility in any of its body parts to the point where can only be seen walking from the knees down and in a way that resembles a toddler with severe leg issues. At the opposite end of the model is the head, which is best described as shockingly shit. Worst of all is the creature’s mouth, which, due to the lack of any puppetry function, is constantly open like some sort of evil sex doll.
Besides the very poor creature there are a lot of unexplained or odd things in the film, as you would expect: We could tell you about Grizzly Mike chain-smoking at virtually every point in the film, (including when brushing his teeth – probably sponsored by Camel) or we could ask the question “If Kirsten is the spawn of her Grandad and Mum then who the hell is the father of her brother?” – “OK, I took a little please in it that time….”
So in summary, it’s got a poor plot, some not so good acting, a chain-smoking semi-famous star, a terrible monster, Nazis, incest and a hint of nudity… that ticks a lot of boxes in our book. The only thing that it’s really lacking is elves plural.
There’s only one of the poor fellas and he can barely move and stuck in his ‘blow up doll pose’. We actually felt quite sorry for the little bugger who appeared to be a special needs monster who never did get to come down Kirsten’s chimney. Or did he?
Shame they never made Elves 2 really.
We gave it 
plops so let us know what you think below?
Review by Martin & Kevin – 21st December 2017
