DIAL CODE SANTA CLAUS

Thomas is a nine-year-old boy who lives with his mother and grandfather in a large house on the outskirts of Paris. On Christmas Eve, the boy intends to film Santa Claus to prove his existence, so he installs a series of closed-circuit cameras inside the house and prepares for the gift-bringer's arrival. Meanwhile, in the city, Thomas's mother, who manages a shopping mall, fires one of the Santas because he beat a little girl, but this is actually a psychopathic madman who, dressed as Santa Claus, heads straight for Thomas's house. Just as Luc Besson was gaining popularity with the general public with a model of cinema clearly inspired by the American landscape, René Manzor was doing the same and returning to the French public a small thriller for older children destined to become a cult for that generation. It is inevitable that watching "Un minuto a mezzanotte" does not remind you of the family classic by Chris Columbus "Home Alone"... whether it's the Christmas setting, the lively protagonist, his predisposition to sell his skin dearly and, last but not least, the "Intruders" who want to violate his private property. Columbus's film was released in cinemas the year after Manzor's, so there is no intention to imitate, also because "Un minuto a mezzanotte" immerses the Christmas atmosphere and the boy's nighttime adventure in a context of horror that has little to do with Macaully Culkin's success. In the moderate wave of Christmas horror films that hit cinemas during the 1980s, "Un minuto a mezzanotte" attempts the card of the killer Santa Claus, made famous by the first chapters of the "Silent Night, Deadly Night" saga but already popularized in the 1970s by a famous episode of the film "Tales from the Crypt" by Freddie Francis. In Manzor's film, as tradition dictates, the one wearing the red and white Santa Claus outfit is a criminal psychopath who, unlike other examples of the genre, remains a mystery until the end but is effectively described by small gestures that show him as a man with compulsive-obsessive behavior and an innate hatred towards children (exemplary is his gesture against the little girl in the shopping mall). Having painted his beard and hair white with snow spray, he becomes one of the most credible and frightening among the killer Santa Clauses in cinema history, played convincingly by Patrick Floersheim. From this character and his terrifying intrusions, the horror/thriller part of the film emerges, without which it would have been a boys' adventure comedy as was very fashionable in the second half of the 1980s. However, Manzor succeeds much better in the thriller component as he has on the other hand a character who is as unpleasant and unconvincing as few. Little Thomas, played by Alain Lalanne (who will later have a role mainly in the production of visual effects for blockbusters like "Avatar" and "The Dark Knight"), is the stereotype of the smart kid. We will see him immediately dressed as Rambo engaged in making "war" on his dog, already dealing with traps and various tricks he has scattered around the house, moreover we intuit his predisposition for technology and computers in particular, which soon turns into absurd dialogues or monologues in which Thomas speaks and explains in non-existent computer jargon, with big words thrown in randomly because they sound "intelligent". So, on the one hand, there is a tough and even scary villain, and on the other, a protagonist for whom it is really difficult to root, so much so that this strange short circuit of the parts goes against the intentions of the film itself. Except for a repetitiveness in the second part, where the clash between Santa Claus and Thomas is dragged out a bit too long, "Un minuto a mezzanotte" is still a rather enjoyable and fun film, one of those films that probably, if seen in adolescence, manage to stay with you in a more significant way. Of course, seen with adult eyes, "Un minuto a mezzanotte" is a good entertainment product that shows many limitations but certainly has no pretensions. In Italy, distributed on DVD by Jubal Classic Video. Add half a pumpkin.