Contrary to popular belief, Old Saint Nick (wrestler Bill Goldberg) is actually the son of Satan. A thousand years ago, he lost a bet with an Angel and was forced to play the role of the gift-giving Santa Claus. The time on the thousand-year deal has run out. . . and Santa's not happy. This Christmas, Santa isn't looking for milk & cookies. He's looking for blood & guts!
When it comes to shlocky comedy-horror, it doesn't get much more fun than this bad boy. Even the synopsis alone was enough to make me laugh without a single frame of film watched. As you can tell by the story and title, Santa's Slay is not a film to be taken seriously. The film opens with, quite possibly, the best opening scene in slasher history: A wealthy, greedy, corrupt family (made up of Fran Drescher, Chris Kattan, Rebecca Gayheart, and James Caan) is viciously murdered by Santa Claus using a series of awesome weapons (including a turkey leg and, get this, a bowl of egg nog). Thinking the film would burn out its awesomeness from that one scene, I expected the inevitable lessening of quality & entertainment after the explosively cool beginning. Luckily (and surprisingly), the film maintains almost all of that enjoyability throughout the entire film. Technically, the film's pretty good. Visually, the direction, cinematography, and gore all work very well and make it a fairly good-looking picture. The script's not bad as far as the story goes, but the dialogue definitely needed another re-write to polish up some of the awkwardly inserted jokes and attempts at funny one-liners. The acting's pretty bad by the main actors of Emilie de Ravin (Lost, The Hills Have Eyes) and Douglas Smith (Big Love), but the supporting cast of Bill Goldberg, Robert Culp, and Dave Thomas deliver adequate performances. Overall, the flick's fun as hell and that's all it wanted to be. It's well made, but could've done more with a bigger budget. If you're looking for some offensively entertaining holiday horror that works as a nice throwback to the '80s-style cheese, give this one a look.
Obligatory Christmas-Horror Elements:
Final verdict: 7/10. You shouldn't have. . .
-AP3-
When it comes to shlocky comedy-horror, it doesn't get much more fun than this bad boy. Even the synopsis alone was enough to make me laugh without a single frame of film watched. As you can tell by the story and title, Santa's Slay is not a film to be taken seriously. The film opens with, quite possibly, the best opening scene in slasher history: A wealthy, greedy, corrupt family (made up of Fran Drescher, Chris Kattan, Rebecca Gayheart, and James Caan) is viciously murdered by Santa Claus using a series of awesome weapons (including a turkey leg and, get this, a bowl of egg nog). Thinking the film would burn out its awesomeness from that one scene, I expected the inevitable lessening of quality & entertainment after the explosively cool beginning. Luckily (and surprisingly), the film maintains almost all of that enjoyability throughout the entire film. Technically, the film's pretty good. Visually, the direction, cinematography, and gore all work very well and make it a fairly good-looking picture. The script's not bad as far as the story goes, but the dialogue definitely needed another re-write to polish up some of the awkwardly inserted jokes and attempts at funny one-liners. The acting's pretty bad by the main actors of Emilie de Ravin (Lost, The Hills Have Eyes) and Douglas Smith (Big Love), but the supporting cast of Bill Goldberg, Robert Culp, and Dave Thomas deliver adequate performances. Overall, the flick's fun as hell and that's all it wanted to be. It's well made, but could've done more with a bigger budget. If you're looking for some offensively entertaining holiday horror that works as a nice throwback to the '80s-style cheese, give this one a look.
Obligatory Christmas-Horror Elements:
- Subgenre: Slasher
- Christmas Carols: Thankfully, the film's soundtrack is entirely made up of Christmas music and actually includes some carolers!
- Snow: Oh, there's plenty.
- Person in a Santa suit: If you see him, you better watch out!
- Violence/Gore: All throughout, there are some of the best themed kills I've ever seen. Egg nog, candy canes, wreaths, etc., are all used to take down Santa's victims. Also, Santa doesn't always need a weapon, as he can throw in some of his pro-wrestling moves too.
- Sex/Nudity: There's a strip club scene if you're a fan of fake, err, jingle bells.
- Scares/Suspense: There are a couple jump scares, but not many. It wasn't really trying too hard to be scary.
- Mystery: None at all, but who needs mystery when you've got laughs galore?
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Final verdict: 7/10. You shouldn't have. . .
-AP3-