MasterChugs Theater: ‘Santa’s Slay’

Posted on December 21, 2007
Filed Under MasterChugs Theater | |

The final entry for “SANTA DOESN’T LIKE YOU AND HE’S A BAD, BAD MAN” is here, and boy, is it a doozy. Be prepared for a whopper of a bad movie, because this Santa is buff, bad, big and a bad actor. Really, if you’ve seen any of the other movies in this theme, that last bit shouldn’t surprise you in the slightest. Hope your stockings are hung over a barricaded chimney because here comes Santa’s Slay!

Santa isn’t who you think he is. In an ironic twist that finally brings a bit legitimacy to this column, it would truly appear that Santa is a bad, bad man. So bad in fact that he’s actually a spawn of Satan. The only reason he’s been spreading joy and happily “Ho Ho Ho”-ing is because he lost a rock sliding bet with an angel. Santa’s loss required him to be jolly ol’ St. Nick for a limited amount of time–1,000 years, to be exact. Well, it’s Christmas time again, and guess what? Those 1,000 years are now up, so Santa, being the true hellspawn that he is, is now free to come to earth and make his dream of a blood-red Christmas a reality.

Let’s be honest here right off the bat: Santa’s Slay is insipid. Santa’s Slay is inept. Santa’s Slay is inbred. You read that correctly–I said “inbred” since this is the only conceivable explanation why those with the money and the power gave David Steinman, a former assistant to the creatively-bankrupt Brett Ratner, the green light to write and direct. To spare further embarrassment this man must be summarily circumcised from the rolls of working writers and directors living in LA-LA Land and/or Lapland. The greatest thing about the movie is that 6′4″, 285-pound, Jewish, former NFL player and five-time WCW and WWF world wrestling title holder Bill Goldberg takes on the role as Santa and is truly a mean one. That’s not exactly what one calls a strong selling point.

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 Rebecca Gayheart all sit down for a nice holiday dinner (and in real life, all non-Christian). Within a couple of minutes they’re all dead, slain by the hands of Santa Goldberg and his creative decapitation methods. Now, 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, 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. It really only consists of Goldberg beating people to death wherever he goes. He goes to a strip club, people die. He finds a bunch of carolers, he destroys them all. There is a flimsy plot about some teenagers and a crazy old grandfather, but then Santa Goldberg shows up and kills someone and the plot is tossed away.

To be fair, nothing that I say or do should deter you from seeing this movie, because, let’s face it, film criticism ultimately has no meaning whatsoever when it comes to a film about a pissed off Santa slayer. So let me take this opportunity to wish you and your loved ones happy holidays and have a wonderful New Year! Just remember that you have all been warned.

Written by Chris "Chugs" Taylor