Elves 1989

In a bleak, offbeat Christmas tale, Kirsten, Julie Austin, is a moody teenager who drifts through the holiday season while working at a department store snack counter. During an “Anti-Christmas” ritual in the woods with her friends Brooke, Laura Lichstein and Amy, Stacey Dye, a spill of blood awakens an ancient demonic Christmas elf who becomes the spark for a chilling conspiracy. This elf is tied to a modern-day Neo-Nazi plot that envisions a world shaped by a master race, a grotesque twist on Hitler’s dreams that centers on half-human, half-elf hybrids and a secret pseudo-religion the Nazis allegedly practiced in secret. Kirsten herself is positioned as a pivotal figure in the scheme, described as the last remaining pure Aryan virgin, with her grandfather, Borah Silver, a former Nazi who has since reformed, once involved in the plot and hinted to have a paternal link through inbreeding in an attempt to preserve a pure bloodline.

Unaware of the danger surrounding her, Kirsten continues to move through the Christmas season with a quiet sullenness while the city’s heart beats around the department store where the elf’s influence begins to unfold. Mike McGavin, Dan Haggerty, an ex-cop who has fallen from grace—badge lost, job gone, and eviction looming—finds himself drawn back into the world he thought he’d left behind. He ends up in an unlikely position of power after the previous store Santa is murdered by the elf, and he steps into the role of Santa, sleeping in the store’s storage rooms and subsisting on snack-counter scraps as he navigates a life that has collapsed around him.

When Kirsten and her friends slip into the store late at night for a private celebration, they are discovered by the shadowy Nazi faction, who intend to kidnap Kirsten and secure the elf to advance their master plan. Mike, seizing the moment, helps Kirsten escape, and the two team up to unravel the growing threat. Their investigation takes them from late-night library visits to a daring break-in at a professor’s home to demand information, prompting a revelation that the threat is more complex—and more dangerous—than they realized. In these moments, they turn to Professor O’Conner, Paul Rohrer, whose expertise at the local college library provides crucial clues that help them understand the scope of the plot and the danger Kirsten faces.

As the danger tightens, Kirsten, her grandfather, and Mike prepare for a final, high-stakes confrontation with the Nazis and the elf. The climactic showdown unfolds across Kirsten’s home and the surrounding woods, culminating in Kirsten performing a ritual that uses an elfstone from her grandfather’s study to destroy the elf once and for all. In the cold aftermath, Kirsten huddles in the now ravaged forest as snow begins to fall for the first time that winter, a somber image that underscores both loss and fragile hope. The film closes on a stark, unsettling note: the image of a fetus, suggesting—though never definitively stated—that the plot’s dark ambitions may have found some form of renewal despite the elf’s demise.