HO-HO-HORROR FOR THE HOLIDAYS! Saint Nick (2010)

I've been a tad MIA the last month due to me and the hubs picking up and moving our asses on out to the dang 'ol country!  But I'm back and ready to take on this dreaded holiday season here at To Avoid Fainting with the good, the bad, and the downright ugly of the Christmas horror films!  All December long I'll be posting reviews for these films (with a few random non-Xmas related films sprinkled in) to make this cheery holiday a little more bloody.

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Let's kick this off with 2010's Dutch dark comedy/horror film Sint (Saint or Saint Nick in the States).

Running Time: 85 minutes

Release Date: Oct 31, 2010 (Razor Reel Fantastic Film Festival) & Nov 11, 2010 (Netherlands)

 

 

I realized I had this film on my Netflix queue for a good while now but never felt compelled to watch it because the cover wasn't the most inviting as far as promising films go.  And probably because I hate Christmas a lot.  When I got the idea to watch Christmas horror films for the blog, I didn't realize quite how many holiday-themed horror films there are out there!  I mean, I'm sure the majority are shit but that's half the fun.  After seeing a few people around the internet posting about watching this movie, I thought I'd take the plunge and I'm sure glad I did.

Saint Nick (I'll keep the American title because freedom, right?) is Dick Maas's return to horror from his popular 80's films The Lift and Amsterdamned.  On December 5th of 1492, former bishop Niklas (Huub Stapel) and his gang of assholes met their demise at the hands of pissed off villagers; 'ol Nik and his pals would go from village to village creating a shitstorm and stealing kiddos for ransom.  Naturally, every December 5th that coincided with a full moon would bring Nick and his ghostly friends back to kill a bunch of folks.  Through a nicely executed flashback to 1968 we see just what kind of damage a dead but still pissed off Saint Nick and his "Black Peters" (yes, it's what it sounds like.  The Netherlands' answer to Santa's elves but in blackface.) can do when a young Goert (Niels van den Berg) finds his family slaughtered to all hell.  

Fast forward to present day and we're introduced to the characters who we know will die soon/end up the sole survivors alongside an older, now-policeman Goert (Bert Luppes).  With December 5th and a full moon looming, it's up to Goert to convince the authorities and everyone else that their Saint Nick celebrations suck and the unexplained attacks happening aren't random, but at the hands of a dead ass Niklas and crew.

Saint Nick didn't pull out all the stops budget wise, especially when it came to the more CGI-heavy scenes but there's just something about Saint Nick riding over rooftops on his undead horse that is kind of badass and fun.  I will compliment the cinematography, though, as some of the scenes were actually really nicely done.  It helped you forget the low budgetness of the film.  Saint Nick suffered the same as Blood Glacier did in terms of the fucking awful dubbing.  The voices never match the actor and make it sound more comical than it's meaning to come across.  Give me subtitles any day!  Oh, and the racism..yeah, the "blackface" racism...that was a little hard to swallow...

If you can get past that, it's pretty funny in some parts and reminded me of Dead Snow with it's tongue-in-cheek dark comedy bits.  Saint Nick isn't afraid to kill every one they can in this film; especially kids!  Kids are dying left and right in this one.  Dick Maas does not skimp on the carnage and action in this film, instead making it over the top at times but keeping the gross out to a minimum, with most of the kills happening just off screen.  I was particularly fond of a certain decapitation scene with Nick's razor-sharp staff.

Despite the kind of shitty writing of the film, it was a fun holiday slasher flick that was oddly reminiscent of a few Carpenter films; mostly Halloween and The Fog.  Saint Nick won't be my in my top favorite holiday horror films but it's a good one to watch over a glass or 8 of spiked egg nog with some pals. The Dutch don't fuck around when it comes to their folktales, apparently.

2.5/5 offensively dressed white men in blackface

  

Check it out on Netflix!