Santa’s Slay

You probably already know that if you switch the letters of ‘Santa’ around you get Satan. Well, they took the lame joke into a movie. Not surprisingly, Santa’s Slay is as lame as its source material. But that’s also part of the point.

Turns out the rumours are true. Santa’s all a big fraud. He exists but he’s actually Satan. You see, some time ago Satan was playing a game of curling – yes, curling – and lost a bet. Now he wanders the world killing people or something to that extent.

Santa’s Slay makes little sense. Basically, you’ve got the not so jolly fat man (played by former professional wrestler Bill Goldberg) running around a sleepy town called Hell killing everyone who crosses his path. There’s a little mystical mumbo jumbo and a young boy (Douglas Smith) trying to stop him.

The film is meant to be a tongue-in-cheek horror and on some levels it does achieve its goal. The opening scene in particular is most inspiring, featuring the largest ensemble of has-been actors found outside of TV’s The Surreal Life and Hollywood Squares. James Caan, Fran Drescher, Chris Kattan and the Noxema Girl – I mean Rebecca Gayheart – all sit down for a nice holiday dinner. Within a couple of minutes they’re all dead, slayed by the hands of the bad Santa and his creative decapitation methods.

When you bring together so many B-actors for a single scene, there’s really only two options of why it’s happening: 1) you can only afford them for one scene or 2) you’re not taking yourself seriously. While it’s likely that a bit of both are the real reason, I’m leaning more towards number two. It works to set the film up as something not to be taken seriously.

But at the same time, the Santa’s Slay really is quite bad in some spots. It screens like a collection of gags and creative killing methods all played out in the context of the holiday season. It’s not scary and it’s often so riddled with clichés that it’s not funny either. Thus, Santa’s Slay stands as one of the ultimate Christmas B-flicks. For my time, it’s no Jack Frost or Jack Frost 2, but it does have a couple inspiring moments. Santa’s Slay‘s appeal will likely rest in those who like good ‘bad’ horror and in those who are sick of Tim Allen Christmas movies.