PoP! Top 6-Pack: Santas Who Hurt the Soul

The PoP! Stars narrow it down to the cream of the crop in categories ranging from (but not limited to) Comics, Movies, Toys and Geek Culture in general. This is the PoP! Top 6-Pack.

What could ever be unwholesome about a man who enjoys small children sitting on his lap before he slinks about your home in the dead of night whilst everyone inside is sound asleep? Come to think of it, Santa is pretty damn creepy. These Santas, however, are the worst of the worst.

This is about an inch away from Rule 34 territory.

6. Sandy Claws from The Nightmare Before Christmas – We’re going to start off light and get progressively worse. Santa from the Tim Burton classic isn’t horrifying on his own. He’s a pretty straight-forward Santa, really.  The horror here comes from how poorly he’s treated by everyone else. In this gem, the ACTUAL Boogie Man tortures a bound Santa Claus during a musical number after he’s been kidnapped by three Hellish trick-or-treaters and crammed down a sewer pipe. What the hell did Santa ever to do anybody to deserve that crap!?

You'd best have a copy of Little Men, Big Sticks in stock.

5. Santa from the Clerks Holiday Special – This is the Santa that rents porn from RST video. The elves do get restless in the off-months, you know. At any rate, he’s not afraid to go taller for cheap labor as Jay and Silent Bob soon find themselves working in Santa’s workshop, nestled safely between Quickstop and RST (of course). He’s still sporting enough, though. He leaves Weebles when he leaves. And who doesn’t love a Weeble?

Holy bejeezus! Just LOOK at it!

4. Composite Santa from Robot Chicken – Clearly, composite Santa is made from Nightmare Fuel®. Just look at him. That’s creepy. And come on, he tries to take down Goku! Freakin’ GOKU! It doesn’t work, though (obviously), and composite Santa (one-half Santa and one-half Frosty the Snowman) soon finds the chilly half of his ass melted right off, leaving just half of a Santa, bringing the creep factor up significantly. Man, I love Robot Chicken.

Santa's got a bag of PAIN!

3. Robot Santa from Futurama – Robot Santa lives in a death fortress on Neptune where he has enslaved the indigenous people to do his bidding. He also has an insane error in his mad robot brain making his guidelines for the “nice” list impossible, meaning instead of presents, every X-Mas, Robot Santa descends upon the Earth giving out pain… Laser-powered pain. Is it funny? Believe it. Wrong? Oh, yes. Deliciously wrong.

I think I've met this one.

2. Willie Stokes from Bad Santa – We’ve all cracked an alcoholic mall Santa joke, but Willie IS that guy. Plus, he’s a thief. He and his “elf” rob a new mall every year – that is, when he’s not wallowing in his own self pity or pissing on himself as smiling children look on, wondering why Santa smells like Daddy’s kisses (too dark?). Willie gets a high spot on the list because he’s easily the most realistic of the bunch. And besides, when else are you going to see Santa beat the hell out of a skateboarder kid?

Yes. That's a man in a Santa suit. With an axe.

1. Billy Chapman from Silent Night, Deadly Night – This is the big one. This is what therapy is made of. This is the plot of 1979′s Silent Night, Deadly Night. Billy goes to visit his grandfather in a mental hospital. The supposedly cationic grandfather tells Billy that Santa punishes naughty kids. On the way home, Billy’s parents are murdered by a man in a Santa suit. Billy lands in an orphanage where he is further traumatized and abused via “punishment” from the nuns. He grows up and gets a job at a toy store where he gets forced to play Santa at Christmas. This leads to Billy going on a murder spree dressed as jolly Saint Nick rambling on about “naughty” people and “punishment” the entire time. Not surprisingly, folks were a bit outraged by the movie when it came out, despite it being far from a children’s film. Really, it’s just good slasher fun, but it’s definitely got an edge so many movies from that era didn’t. Even now, there’s just something off about movie with a killer in a Santa suit. It’s been done before and since then, but never as good as in the classic Silent Night, Deadly Night.

Dry your eyes and sound off. Everyone loves a good ole shock to the childhood.

Filed Under: Columns • PoP! Top 6-Pack

Tags: Bad Santa, Christmas, clerks, Deadly Night, Futurama, Movies, Robot Chicken, Santa, Silent Night, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Tim Burton, TV