Christmas horror flicks have become an increasingly regular occurrence as filmmakers seek to balance the year-round affection for terror with the bells and whistles of the holiday season, but doing so back in the late 1970s and early 1980s ran the risk of making enemies on the highest rungs of the political ladder.

Writer and director Lewis Jackson’s Evil Christmas wasn’t prosecuted under the law like so many of its ‘Video Nasty’ contemporaries, but copies were seized and confiscated under the Obscene Publications Act, underlining that not even Santa Claus himself was immune from the wrath of Mary Whitehouse.

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At first glance, Christmas Evil could be accused of being nothing more than an exploitation flick that transforms Santa into a force of evil, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake instead of presents.

However, it also has some genuinely impressive cinematography and does a remarkable job of balancing its myriad of disparate tones. Sure, it’s a horror, but it’s also a story about unresolved trauma, and one that’s got lashings of dark comedy, a surprising amount of character-building, no shortage of introspection, and even touches on notions of identity and conformity after Harry goes public in his Santa garb after spending his life doing it in private.

A Waters-approved ‘Video Nasty’ it may be, but Evil Christmas doubles as an unexpectedly complex rumination on the darker side of the human condition. It’s still a blood-splattered horror at the end of the day, but it’s one with plenty of things to say beyond the brain matter and entrails.