Even if Santa’s Slay was a rubbish movie – which it isn’t, it’d still be worth a look for its opening sequence. The sequence consists of an evil Santa Claus (played by Bill Goldberg) systematically murdering a celebrity filled family. (consisting of, among others, James Caan, Fran Drescher, and Chris Kattan). Even though what followed can’t quite live up to that brilliant introduction, writer/director David Steiman does an exceptional job in making sure the film never really takes itself to seriously. But to be honest, with a former WWE star playing Santa, you wouldn’t expect it to.
As we learn, Santa Claus – is (duh duh duh) Satan’s son – and is on the losing side of a bet after losing a curling match to one of God’s angels, which turns out to have made Santa spread joy all over the world. The film, which takes place immediately following the end of the bet a 1000 years later, follows Santa Claus as he arrives in the small town of Hell (so appropriately named) to wreak havoc on Christmas. Of particular interest to Mr Kringle is young Nicholas Yuleson (Douglas Smith) and his eccentric grandfather (played by Robert Culp), for reasons that are revealed in the film’s finale (the grandfather turns out to be the angel).
It is clear that Steiman has taken several key concepts from other black-comedy movies (think Gremlins). But this turns out to be one of the movies minor flaws, even though the concept is good, the horror aspect isn’t conveyed as well as it could be. Therefore, the movie turns out to be more comedic than horrifying. But still a killer Santa movie surely can’t be missed, for ANY reason.
Around the one-hour mark, the film begins to run out of steam and is shown as a lukewarm pursuit of Santa hunting down Nicholas and his would-be girlfriend (played by Lost‘s Emilie De Ravin). But this is still a worthy movie to the Christmas sub-genre (clearly beating it’s predecessors such as Deadly Night). Even though some of the performances are weak, in particular Smith’s, and the script needs tinkering in places, especially the ending. Great performances from Goldberg make the movie a must see for all you cheesy horror fans. Yule (sorry, so sorry) be stupid to miss it!
Line of the movie: Santa: “Ho, Ho, Hoesss”
Verdict: 8/10
