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It’s no secret that Christmas is far from my favorite holiday.  Perhaps it’s because I’m always a broke sonofabitch who hates buying presents, or because it’s the time of year when every selfish, sinful heathen pretends like they give an eff about their fellow man.  Whatever it is, I find the whole thing way overrated.  But I’ll be damned if I don’t love me a good Christmas themed horror movie.  They’re way too few and far between if you ask me so imagine my surprise when I went over my Aunt and Uncle’s house for the holidays a few years ago and found my cousins giggling like little girls while Bill Goldberg lit Fran Drescher’s hair on fire and shoved a Turkey leg down James Caan‘s throat.  Clearly I needed to own this movie IMMEDIATELY.

So apparently Santa is actually the son of Satan who lost a bet to an Angel and had to spend a thousand years spreading Holiday cheer as opposed to his preferred Holiday fear.  Ain’t it bout a bitch that the thousand years runs up and Santa is fucking pissed!  From Chris Kattan (Thank GOD!) to sexy naked strippers.  No one is safe from Santa’s killing for the sake of killing. 

There’s no way around it, Santa’s Slay is a dumb movie.  And I’m not talking about “Oops, I failed remedial math” kind of dumb.  It’s all the way into “Don’t worry, baby, I don’t need a condom.  I’ll just pull out” dumb territory.  But no one ever said that dumb can’t be hella entertaining.  First time director David Steinman wisely brings the run time in slightly under 80 minutes resulting in lightning fast pacing filled to the brim with a never ending supply of deaths and phenomenally horrible one liners.  Who in their right mind can resist Goldberg picking up a copy of A Christmas Carol and saying “Christmas can sure scare the Dickens out of people.”  Genius.

Santa’s Slay is by no means a high budgeted film.  It seems like a good amount of the budget was spent on the tone setting opening of epicness with many favors called in for that cast.  Not everyone will find the humor in the movie, but if you find yourself entertained by this opening then congratulations.  You are the movies target audience.  To my shock, the movie has a very polished and professional look to it.  It’s a big looking film that is able to pull a lot of production value out of its ass. 

Douglas Smith is a capable enough lead with a low annoyance factor.  Emilie de Ravin (as most of you know from Lost, but I have fond memories of her as that scheming whore Tess from Roswell) is adorable and charming as usual.  And what of wrestler Bill Goldberg in the title role of Santa?  Can he deliver a believable performance?  Absolutely not.  But luckily his dialogue is kept to a minimum with the part requiring him to merely look intimidating which I suppose he successfully accomplishes.

It’s funny how in 1984 conservatives threw a shit fit over a killer in a Santa suit dispatching victims in Silent Night Deadly Night.  Boy how times have changed twenty years later as not a creature is stirring over this film’s content (Wow, lame pun.  My apologies).  Mayhaps it’s because there is not one second of Santa’s Slay that takes itself seriously.  It’s all played for laughs.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but something about the film’s mean spirited nature helps me forgive its shortcomings.  On the other hand, the ending is less than forgivable.  Nothing happens…it just kind of ends.  If there was a place to add a couple extra minutes it would have been to this anticlimactic finale.

Santa’s Slay is the definition of dumb fun.  It’s fast, entertaining, and all around not a bad film to revisit annually with a group of friends on a cool night with an Irish Coffee or five.  While not all the jokes work and Goldberg’s future acting career seems less than promising, it’s best to just sit back and turn your brain into the off position.