by: Dr. Boogie

...CONTINUED

"Move bitch! Get out of the way!"

God, I've been in that same situation so many times. Santa even hits a button to sound his sleigh horn, but all that gets him is a nice "suck it!" from Mrs. Talbot. So he decides to take it to the next level:

With a quick thrash of the reins, Santa nearly doubles the speed of his sleigh and rams Mrs. Talbot. Inexplicably, this causes her to suddenly drive much faster, veer off the road, hit a ramp, and crash. Santa is understandably impressed with his achievement, and I am too, frankly. Old people are terrible drivers.

Getting back to the main characters, Mr. Green is giving Nick and Mac their Christmas gifts. And what has all their hard work gotten them? A clock and a snow globe, respectively. Truly, this is the season of giving.

On the ride home, amidst some Christmas-themed hip hop, we learn that Nick doesn't really care for Christmas on account of some crappy gifts he's received, and that these two will likely develop some kind of cute romance.

Nick's grandfather keeps an unusual number of locks on his door. Maybe he just likes the added feeling of security. Or maybe he is as nutty as that old crank Mrs. Talbot let on.

Suddenly, a crash, and the lights go out. Is Santa getting things off early? Could this be one of the few horror movies that don't have a lot of dull exposition before a ton of murders in the second and third acts?

No, it's just grandpa getting a cheap scare out of his grandson. Why the hell didn't he answer when Nick called him? He dodges the question by telling him not to say "hell" a lot. Why have that rule when they live in frigging Hell's Township? He dodges again by muttering about not taking the lord's name in vain. The crashing sound, he explains, was him dropping a box of light bulbs, and he dropped a second box when he decided to grab his grandson on the shoulder with one hand.

In case you haven't picked up on it yet, grandpa is a couple splinters short of a Yule log. He's been busy screwing around in his basement making, among other things, a nutcracker that shoots bullets for some reason, and a bunker.

And a hidden one, no less. I wonder how grandpa managed to have a bunker installed in the house without Nick finding out about it before now. Furthermore, if he wanted it to be some kind of shelter, why hide it? Grandpa has only one thing to say:

"I'd rather be crazy and alive than ignorant and dead!"

But what about being book smart and infirmed?

These questions and more when we come back. First, a word from our Santa:

Santa is working as a Salvation Army bell ringing Santa for some reason. Raising money for bison feed, perhaps? Whatever the reason, he is mugged by a man who thinks that charity bell ringers carry a lot of cash on them.

Well that tears it. Nobody mugs a philanthropic psychopathic Santa and gets away with it! Santa busts out some nasty grapples on the mugger and then prepares for his finisher:

Santa takes the candy cane he was sucking on, sees that he's made a nice point on it, and drives it into the mugger's eye. The mugger screams in pain, so Santa slams him into the wall.

But Santa knows you can't just leave a corpse in the middle of the sidewalk. Time to take out the trash!

Adding to the absurdity of this scene is the appearance of a couple walking down the street as Santa picks up the dead mugger. They come out of the alley and walk the other way, having heard neither the struggle, nor the mugger screaming. They also don't notice the towering, unkempt Santa standing over a dead body as they leave, and they certainly don't turn around when they heard the corpse slamming against the inside of the dumpster.

Anyway, so Nick was being weirded out by his grandpa...

Nick is trying to figure out why his grandpa doesn't like Christmas, and why he keeps making coy allusions to Santa being a mean guy. Instead of answers grandpa blows a fart in his face as they leave the basement. Despite that setback, Nick demands to know the truth. Grandpa relents, and takes him to see yet another secret.

Inside of a safe that rises out of the floor in his closet, grandpa has a book that details the backstory of a certain jolly old elf. It's written in Norse, but grandpa knows enough of the language to read the book, and to chide Nick for not being able to read the book.

In short, Santa was born as a result of an immaculate conception involving Santa and some other virgin. His birthday came to be known as the "Day of Slaying" because of all the mysterious deaths that would occur. The Christians decided to hold mass on that day, thus turning the Day of Slaying into Christmas. Hell of a conversion. The book even has a picture of Santa's evil bison:

But the doorbell rings before the story can continue.

It's Mac. She's come by to hand out Christmas gifts. For grandpa, she has some wolverine meat that her dad killed and butchered himself.

Her dad appears to be at least as insane as Nick's grandpa. Nick's gift is slightly less terrible.

Nick is astonished. It's not everyday that a pretty girl gives you a handgun. He asks her a very intimate question: "Are you fucking retarded?" An indignant Mac explains that this gun is "more than meets the eye."

It's actually a Transformer knockoff that looks even more like a real gun than the original Megatron. She claims Nick has said he always wanted one, in spite the fact that he didn't recognize what it was when he first saw it.

"I'm as happy as a 'Make a Wish' kid."

Geez, way to stick it to dying kids, Nick. Mac was right; you are a jagoff.

Meet Pastor Timmons. He runs a tiny fire-and-brimstone sort of church. During his sermon, he calls on his flock to give bills rather than change. Because he's encouraging them to give larger amounts? Sort of.

He really just needs some singles. As small a town as Hell's Township is, it seems he no trouble disguising the fact that he's spending collection plate money on strippers.

You know who else likes strippers? Santa. What he doesn't like, however, are bouncers that interfere when he wants to "stuff some stockings".

Santa punches him in the face, grabs the wreath off the door, and uses it to toss the bouncer over his shoulder. But that's just the warmup.

There's still more madness to Santa's Slay!
Click here to continue onward to page 3!