Plot Synopis: When a full moon strikes on December 5th, Saint Nicholas arrives to town on his horse. He doesn’t come bearing gifts, but instead murders naughty (and nice) people to avenge his fiery death centuries ago.
Matt Stetler
The legend of Saint Nicklaus states that on December 5th good children get treats and bad children get put in a sack and get taken to Spain. First off, that’s quite the condemnation on Spain. Apparently there’s some deeply hidden stuff going on there. Secondly, if this legend is still true, the makers of Saint Nick should be taking residence in Spain. What a totally blown opportunity Saint Nick is. What starts off as a horror film that was being based on a Christmas legend from Europe ends up becoming a nod to 80’s slasher films, but not in an endearing way.
Saint Nick starts off in the 1400s, explaining the legend the film is based upon and takes a somewhat serious tone with doing so. It thenjumps ahead to the 1960s, giving some backstory to a character we’d meet up with later. It still maintains a serious tone and even has some decent splatter/gore effects. Then it jumps ahead to present day…and this is when Saint Nick goes from nice to naughty. It tries to become a slapstick horror comedy but it just fails to really do so. Part of the problem is the actors can’t seem to decide if they want to be in a horror/comedy or a comedy/horror. Performances are either to over the top or painfully wooden. Add to this, that for some reason the film is dubbed and not subtitled. The dub job is one of the worst I have ever seen and heard. The actors they hired to do the dubbing must not have getting well paid or the catering must have be awful, because there is zero emotion in most of the voices and some of them are so cartoony it is laughable…but not in a good way.
There have been Christmas themed horror films in the past (Jack Frost and Santa’s Slay for example) and most of them work to. I think that’s because they all knew their subject material would be viewed as goofy, so they went with it and totally embraced the “fun” aspect, making their films work. Dick Maas couldn’t decide if he wanted a serious horror film based on legend or a goofy comedy/horror based on legend. This tug of war ultimately ruins this film. Characters get introduced, only to be killed minutes later and the ones that manage to stick around for more than five minutes are all stereotypical portrayals you’ve seen before and thus you don’t care about any of them. Give yourself the best Christmas in July gift you can and leave this lump of coal out of your queue.
Why you should put this in your queue: The kills and gore effects are surprisingly well done.
Why you shouldn’t put this in your queue: It’s just a mess of movie being held together by a European Christmas legend. It can’t make up its mind what it wants to be, when all it turns out to be is a waste of time. If you’re looking for a film that’s story is based upon a legend (based on the Salem Witch Trials), check out Paranorman (available for instant streaming). It successfully accomplishes exactly what Saint Nick was trying to do, plus its family friendly and a damn good film to boot.
Justin Oberholtzer
The most interesting aspect of “Saint Nick” is seeing how another country celebrates Christmas. Amsterdam celebrates the holiday on December 6th, hence why Saint Nicholas strikes on the 5th. They never refer to him as Santa Claus, nor does he resemble our version. He does don red, but he wears a robe to resemble a saint/priest. He also doesn’t have elves, but Black Petes who assist him. This results in people donning blackface to portray them during the holidays. I’ll admit, that’s a little uncomfortable.
Once you get past the cultural differences, you’ll notice this is just another generic slasher. A decent one, mind you, but not one that does much different. Sure, the mythology of Saint Nicholas is interesting, but Dick Maas doesn’t delve into it much. We see him get burnt to a crisp in the beginning, then he just kills whenever a full moon is in effect on December 5th. This may be intentional to play up the urban legend factor, as stories change between people, but he’s missing a grand opportunity in doing so.
As you’d expect with a slasher, most of the characters aren’t that intriguing. You’ve got the randy teens that get picked off one by one, as well as cops that don’t believe the story. The only character with depth is Goert Hoekstra (Bert Luppes), a detective who’s family was murdered by Saint Nick in 1969. He’s spent the past forty years researching the legend and knows the only way to kill him (which I won’t spoil, but it’s rather weak). Obviously, his fellow officers laugh at this theory and he gets put on suspension for basically going postal over it. He’s the only character in the film I truly cared about.
Maas does sneak in some commentary into the proceedings, such as attacking Christmas for being commercialized and taking jabs at the recession in the Netherlands. Other than that, it’s basic slasher stuff. Saint Nick arrives and offs victims in gory fashion, with each scene admittedly being done well. The problem is they don’t stand out. The Christmas theme won’t carry it, as the holiday has seen it’s fair share of horror representations. If you’re in the mood for another, this is a passable watch, but not an entirely satisfying one.
Why You Should Put This In Your Queue: If you like slashers (Christmas ones, specifically), this is passable. The kills are decent and well staged. The character of Saint Nick is interesting, albeit not entirely fleshed out.
Why You Shouldn’t Put This In Your Queue: If you don’t like slashers, this won’t do much for you. Even if you do, this may feel too generic to elicit much of a response. Also, the Netflix version is dubbed, badly I might add.