Saint Nick is a Christmas-ish flick that has been lurking around in my Neflix queue for a really long time. I'm always in the mood for a killer Santa film around the holiday season, although in the past I've opted for Rare Exports and Christmas Evil. This one is about St. Nicholas Day - which I'm pretty sure we don't care about here in the US - although I don't go to church or anything so who knows? There's no "St. Nicholas Day Savings Spectacular!" sales though, so I assume it doesn't exist here. So even though it isn't a Christmas film proper I was pretty excited. A Santa-ish guy slaughters naughty kids? And anyone else who gets in his way? Sign me up!
Sadly, I was pretty let down. I don't know if it was my anti-Christmas mood (I'm sort of a scrooge), but it didn't sit well with me. It's decently made - there are some solid deaths with creative gore (too much of it CGI sadly) and a decent mean streak - but ultimately the whole thing is kind of hollow. There's this corny semi-comedic tone that kind of ruins everything - the jokes rarely land and it muddles anything that could be considered scary or tense. And I don't know if it's meant to be scary - it's more like a zom-com with a wintry twist (St. Nick has helpers that are basically zombie pirates). But ultimately, the most damning flaw is a really, really poor English dubbing job. It's so distracting that it made it difficult to enjoy the film on its own merits. I would have loved to see it in Dutch with subtitles, because just about everyone in this version sounds like a complete doofus.
Saint Nick is also the rare horror movie was more educational than enjoyable for me. I knew next to nothing about St. Nicholas (or his day), and now I know he's... a good excuse for pre-Christmas partying? And he makes it okay to dress in blackface? (He has helpers called "Black Petes" - and it's acceptable to dress up in fancy renaissance fair garb and don blackface makeup to emulate them.) And something with shoes and kidnapping naughty kids. (Comparable to our naughty vs. nice list - although the punishment for being naughty is a bit more strict elsewhere, I guess.) So now I at least have a vague point of reference for St. Nicholas day from this point on. Now, bring on the Krampus...
Back to our movie - it starts with a prologue from the 16th century, where a corrupt pope-ish looking Saint travels from town to town with his band of marauders, collecting (i.e. stealing) money - and if the townsfolk don't pay, they snatch their kids. But on this day, the townsfolk have had enough - they strike back and kill Saint Nicholas. However, since he has the power of God on his side (or because it's a horror movie) he has the ability to return to this town on the eve of every St. Nicholas day when there is a full moon (every 30-40 odd years), and exact his revenge on the people of the town.
Flash forward to the late 60s - it's St. Nick's Day and there's a full moon, and a family is hanging out getting in the holiday spirit. The eldest boy (still just a kid) is sent out to the barn to do some random chore, while St. Nick breaks into the house and violently murders his family. Even his younger brother and sister get it! So it's nice to know that children are fair game in this movie.
Flash forward (again) to the present day - once again a full moon on the eve of St. Nicholas day. The young boy from the last flashback is now a grown man and a police officer. He's become obsessed with the case of St. Nicholas, and has warned the entire police department of the doom that will descend on their town on this very night. (He even wrote up a nice report!) Of course, no one believes him, and his commanding officer forces him to take a vacation. But it's not just American cops that take matters into their own hands...
And just so the movie isn't following around a semi-haggard middle-aged cop, we also have the requisite teenagers to be killed and/or save the day. We meet them in school, where apparently it's common practice to exchange dildos for St. Nick's Day (?) They are a pretty stock, uninteresting crew, but eventually they run afoul of St. Nick and his ridiculous CGI horse. Our main teen teams up with the cop to take on St. Nick. Will they be able to eradicate this holy terror once and for all? Or will they just be two more victims of St. Nick and his zombie pirates? Tune in to find out!
The most distracting thing in Saint Nick is the terrible, terrible English dub. It just sounds so lifeless and half-assed. I could never get into the story because I just kept focusing on how bad it was. I think there are only a handful (or less) of voice actors, and they have the same bland delivery for each character. Plus, there is this mountain of a man that works for the police force - they give him this SUPER low voice that is just cartoonish. I would have loved a subtitle option, but I guess Netflix thinks people don't want to read... And some of the meaning of the dialogue had to be lost in translation. How else could you explain a line like "you're just as much of a bitch as you are a best friend?"
But I don't know if the best voiceover work in the world would have saved this one for me. The tone just doesn't work. It goes for broad comedy, but comes across as trying too hard. The action is well staged, but too wacky to really be effective. There is never really any tension - it's always undercut by the "comedy." Plus, once all of the characters are in place, you sort of know what is going to happen - there aren't many surprises along the way. There are some nice kills in there though, if you can swing a little CGI embellishment.
SPOILERS AHEAD! Although it's pretty obvious where this one is heading... Being formulaic in and of itself isn't bad, but you really have to have a little something interesting to offer. One would think that blowing up a boatload of innocent children (!) would help to that end, but no dice. (And it's not like they show it. They imply there is a boat full of children on St. Nick's boat, and then they blow it up 20 minutes later, never mentioning the kids. Taking out a couple of kids is one thing - killing a whole bunch of them in one fell swoop is pretty ballsy though.)
I guess I kind of liked the grizzled old cop, played by Bert Luppes. He just has this good, frazzled look to him. But still, the dubbing is so distractingly bad, it's hard to vouch for his performance. Or anyone else's for that matter.
Overall, it's not really worth a watch, If you're hard up for Christmas-fare with a couple of good kills, maybe it'd work. Go for the subtitles if you can. It's just hard for me to muster up much excitement for it.
I would not recommend this film.
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