Upon debuting in WCW, Bill Goldberg became arguably the first (or second, behind Stone Cold Steve Austin) most popular wrestler in the world. He went on an unprecedented streak of 173 victories and zero losses. In Santa’s Slay, as the demonic son of Satan, he continues this insane streak by killing upwards of 30 people in the span of 78 minutes. In the film’s opening sequence Goldberg Claus decimates the likes of Rebecca Gayheart, Chris Kattan, Fran Drescher, and James Caan!
Santa’s Slay is a film that surprised me very much; I went into it with very low expectations — Goldberg could never cut a decent promo in the ring, much less carry a film on his wide shoulders — but those expectations were completely shattered. This is an outrageous and fun flick — deliciously cheesy and filled with Christmas camp. You may roll your eyes at some of the sophomoric humor (GONAD, rather than NORAD as the sleigh tracker), but occasionally even those bits had me laughing out loud.
Why exactly is Santa so angry and murderous? Well, it turns out that he has always been this way. He was conceived as the son of the devil thousands of years in the past, and prior to becoming the jolly old gift-giver he is commonly known as, Santa was a violent bully. He derived pleasure out of torturing elves and generally went about causing destruction and mayhem wherever he roamed. Then one day an angel descended down from heaven. This angel and Santa had a curling competition. The angel wagered his eternal soul, while Santa bet that if he lost, he would be kind, jolly, and deliver presents to all the good children all over the world for the next 1000 years. In an animated sequence of the same style as the 1960s Rankin/Bass Frosty the Snowman or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer TV specials, we see a cocky Santa roll his curling stone right to the edge of a hole in the ice. The angel then wins the contest by bowling his stone into Santa’s, causing it to fall into the water. Thus is the beginning, against his will, of Jolly Old Saint Nick.
The film opens at the end of this 1000 years of kindness with Santa already on his rampage. A scene that start out as typical sitcom holiday special is turned into B-movie gold when Goldberg bursts through the chimney and kills an entire family with implements such as a turkey leg, the star topper of a Christmas tree, and a flaming mouthful of brandy. He even punts a pomeranian for good measure. Even if you have no desire to watch this film (the wrong choice to be sure), you should check out the hilarious opening sequence.
After the title credits which feature a variety of badass Santa pictures throughout the centuries, the movie properly opens in Hell Township on Christmas Eve. Nicholas Yulson (Douglas Smith) and his girlfriend, Mary ‘Mac’ McKenzie (Emilie de Ravin) get the night off early from their jobs at a Jewish deli. Mac drives Nicholas home where we are introduced to his crazy grandpa (Robert Culp). Grandpa is obviously paranoid with triplicate locks on the front door and a basement bunker that has several TVs of surveillance footage. Both Nicholas and Grandpa share a disdain for Christmas and the ability to read Norse. You can see where this is going right? Halfway through his reign of murderous mayhem, Santa targets Mac and Nicholas. Then the truth about Grandpa’s paranoia and an old Norse family connection to Santa Claus come out in the open.
The plot of this movie is fairly simplistic — run away from the Psycho Santa while he kills everyone around him. What keeps the viewer engaged are the inventive, but not really gory kills, and the fully comedic characters through-out. Santa shoves a candycane through the eye of a mugger. He lights fire to a strip club. He delivers exploding presents to potty-mouthed children on Christmas day. Also, his sleigh is drawn by a man-eating buffalo!
Some great characters to look out for in this are: an old lady who curses like a sailor and chain smokes while swerving all over the road, Dave Thomas as a sleazy pastor who steals from his church congregation to have spending cash at the strip club, and a brief cameo from wrestler/actor Tom “Tiny” Lister, Jr. (Zeus!). All in all, Goldberg and the two leads are the weakest actors in the film, but it doesn’t matter because there are so many great characters in the peripheral of the movie to make up for it.
Along with the acting, the writing is a bit spotty in places. This is more to do with the actors’ inability to handle the lines more than the the lines themselves. It is also a bit choppy because rather than pure dialogue, each character speaks in a series of one liners. Some are hilarious: ‘Don ye now your gay apparel’ said to the homosexual police captain in a Santa get-up. Some funny, but a bit mean: ‘I’m as happy as a make-a-wish kid.’ Some just fall flat: ‘We’re trapped in a closet on Christmas with Santa trying to murder us. How fucked up is that?’ Goldberg’s Santa Claus also speaks mainly in one liners: ‘unfortunately, you’re time is about to expire.’ Patient wrestling fans have to wait until after the credits to hear him drop his in-ring catch-phrase, ‘who’s next?’
Santa’s Slay was written and directed by David Steiman. Due to its high production values and campy humor, it has already muscled a permanent place in my holiday rotation. So, kick back with some hot cocoa, invite your friends over, and witness the greatest wrestler-turned-Santa since Hulk Hogan in Santa with Muscles. Only, this one is better, because heels are always cooler!
16 December 2013 | Categories: Movie Reviews | Tags: 2000s, Bill Goldberg, Comedy, Sana's Slay, The Twelve Slays of Christmas, wrestling | 6 Comments	
Zombies are alive and well — er rather, undead and sickly — in mainstream popular culture right now. That fact is evident from the immense popularity of The Walking Dead, as well as the numerous zombie walks, runs, and flash mobs across the world. This saturation of the living dead became clear to me with a recent theatrical version of Night of the Living Dead performed by the Daegu Theatre Troupe in Daegu, South Korea. This is a low-budget — made more for love than for money — theatre production put on by English speaking expatriates in the Asian country. A diverse cast of expats lent an international charm to the show, as it featured actors who were Koreans, Kiwis, South Africans, North American, and from the UK. This makes you wonder where exactly this mysterious farmhouse that shelters these seven folks could be, but this version was played more for fun than the unrelenting and depressing horror of George A. Romero’s original theatrical masterpiece. Thanks to the magic of the theatre, you can be swept away from the very intimate space (seating perhaps a few dozen audience members) to a post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland.
This staged version capitalized a bit more on the inherent cheesiness of dead people trying to eat the living. The actor playing Harry, in particular, had some very sarcastic lines and a deadpan delivery that made this viewer crack-up. Also funny were the special effects. While Romero used cuts of meat from a local butcher shop, here in Korea ramen was used as guts and rice was puked up in reaction to the grisly viscera of a pregnant zombie and the protruding newborn hanging from her belly. Just like in Romero’s films, here all of the zombies seemed to be real characters. One unfortunate ghoul was on a single roller skate, and the woman next to me did a great job of loudly chomping and groaning whenever one of the human characters would come nearby. That’s right, there were zombies planted in the audience, although they were difficult to differentiate from those overzealous fans who decided to get made-up in costumes before a night of Halloween partying!
There were some changes from the 45-year-old original film. First of all, the interior setting was split between the living room and basement areas of the house. Scenes ‘upstairs’ and ‘downstairs’ were differentiated with lighting, although (unfortunately) there was no extra exposition with the characters Harry, Helen, Tom, and Judy prior to joining Ben and Barbra upstairs. A large projection screen on the far wall played TV news reports and also recapped the beginning cemetery scene with Barbra and Johnny. Obviously, there was no truck explosion, but instead characters were graphically dispatched in a feasting of ramen guts and a plastic severed arm. This happened after a cheesy moment of love and lines (and music) mimicking Armageddon more than Night of the Living Dead. But the cheese that stole the show was the denouement of Sheriff McClelland and his posse saving the day. They still accidentally shot Ben, but they retained their lighthearted charm with their Reno 911 inspired hotpants and mirrored aviator sunglasses.
I was fortunate to sit in the splatter zone, and while there were no head squibs — ubiquitous to so many zombie films — there were catheters pumping copious amounts of red liquid onto the patrons. Another surprising bit of splatter came from the molotov cocktails — waterballoons — used to ward off the horde of the living dead. Overall, it was a very fun night of zombie chills and laughs. If you ever get a chance to see some live horror theatre, then go and watch — I highly recommend it!
31 October 2013 | Categories: Stage Frights | Tags: Comedy, George A. Romero, Horror Theatre, Night of the Living Dead, Zombies | Leave a comment