Werewolf Santa (2023)

Similar to Two Front Teeth, Werewolf Santa is a (very) low budget comedy/horror production with a premise designed to attract attention. And also similar to Two Front Teeth, this doesn't manage to overcome its limitations, making it more of an oddity than a "real" movie. Despite a handful of elements deserving praise, this isn't worth tracking down unless you're a huge fan of ultra low budget, tongue-in-cheek genre flicks. That's a long way of saying it's not bad for what it is, but what it is, ultimately, is already kind of bad.

That being said, I want to acknowledge that this is absolutely a case where I was not watching the movie the way it was almost certainly intended to be watched, which in this case means "high." The movie lampshades this in the opening minutes and later uses marijuana as either a plot point or a throwaway joke, depending on how generous you're feeling (Were-Santa consumes edibles early on, which give him the munchies, which... you get the idea). I can't chime in on whether this would be funnier and more compelling if watched under the influence, and therefore will be describing and reviewing the movie from the perspective of a sober viewer. If you're planning to watch otherwise, you may want to disregard my opinion completely.

Moving on.

Aside from its lead actress, the movie's best aspects are its premise and rough outline. The movie follows Lucy, an aspiring YouTube monster hunter, as she returns to her hometown on Christmas Eve hoping to track down a werewolf she believes exists due to encountering one as a child. She brings her (sort of) boyfriend, Dustin, home with her to operate the camera and - after briefly introducing us to her divorced parents - discovers a man dying from an animal attack. Her and Dustin immediately start investigating and soon witness Santa (the real one) get mauled in a park by a werewolf. Santa almost immediately turns and starts devouring townsfolk.

For reasons I'm not going to try to explain, Lucy's parents join her, Dustin, and childhood friend Rupert as they attempt to hunt down Were-Santa and end his killing spree. Dustin only makes it to around the halfway mark, at which point Rupert takes over camera duties and slots into the role so similarly, I kind of suspect he was added part way through filming due to scheduling conflicts around the actor playing Dustin.

Regardless, the movie shifts from location to location as the heroes fail to kill Santa. Eventually, Lucy is bitten, though unlike Santa she doesn't turn at first. Her father gives her advice - he's secretly the werewolf who bit Santa in the first place, but because he's the head werewolf, he has a limited amount of control. Rupert, the resident nerd, informs them that if her father dies, all the wolves beneath him will most likely turn back. Lucy's reluctant to shoot her dad, but he effectively sacrifices himself to save her and Christmas. Once he's dead, Santa turns back into his jolly old self.

Oh, and a year later he gets abducted by aliens, because these things always end on a gag.

I'd argue the movie has a pretty good skeleton: as the story progresses, the dysfunctional family comes together and reconciles their differences, so this is folding the "classic Christmas movie" plot into its silly horror story. I like that the movie opens with Lucy and her mother's relationship broken, while her relationship with her father is seemingly fine, then brings us to a point where she needs to shoot her dad to save her mom. In theory, that's a good structure.

But while the outline has premise, the dialogue falls flat. The jokes driving the bulk of the film just aren't funny, and - considering how heavily this leans towards comedy over horror - that's a pretty major issue. The tone doesn't do those jokes any favors: this really isn't directed comedically. That said, there are a couple moments early on where the deadpan delivery and blank reactions to news that Santa's been turned into a monster hungry for human flesh got a chuckle out of me. So kudos for those lines.

Also, setting aside whether it was the right tone or approach for the movie, the style and decision to shoot this as found footage do intermittently conceal just how cheaply the whole thing seems to have been made.

But as I mentioned in passing at the start, the movie's MVP is Katherine Rodden, the actress playing Lucy. The writing around her character doesn't make sense, but she makes Lucy interesting. Hopefully this results in her getting bigger and better roles: she's genuinely good in a movie that just doesn't work.

Speaking of stuff that doesn't work....

There's so much. The movie has multiple prologues, including an extended bit where the entirety of Moore's "A Visit from St. Nicholas" is read over a slideshow of comic book inspired sketches. While this is clearly supposed to establish a comic book tone and world, it mostly just preps you for how boring the movie is going to be (and, as I alluded to early on, implies the viewer should probably be high). Also, it follows a brief intro in which we meet Lucy via her videos, the last of which teases the appearance of Were-Santa later in the film, so cutting to arguably the most famous English language Christmas poem on Earth doesn't accomplish much, at least aside from establishing that "comic book" thing I mentioned, which....

Okay. Here's how that's mainly used: a handful of times throughout the movie, a comic book style yellow description block appears as a sort of interstitial to explain something that's happened. I'm fairly certain most, if not all, are to cover for brief sequences they didn't manage to film: short scenes that should be, but aren't, present. I'm sure they were doing the best they could with limited time and resources, but it leaves you with the feeling you're watching an unfinished movie.

Though, honestly, I might have preferred a few more of those in exchange for cutting out some of the filler sequences. Despite having a runtime around an hour and ten minutes, the movie drags. The dialogue and characters aren't where they'd need to be to elevate the production. The makeup and costumes would be fine if the jokes landed, but as is they're cheesy elements in a mostly boring film.

Let's talk Christmas. There probably should be more meat here than is present. While they're now more often viewed as fall creatures, stories of werewolves being active at Christmas (to say nothing of European traditions holding that those born on or around Christmas were destined to become werewolves) have a long history. If the people making this were aware of that, they didn't fold it into their movie, opting instead to stick with the typical rules popularized by Hollywood.

One of which, that only someone who loves the person cursed with lycanthropy is capable of killing them, is teased with some interesting implications that aren't really addressed. The movie points out this is a potential weakness for Were-Santa, as everyone loves Father Christmas. It also sort of sets up a potential conflict here when we're informed Lucy doesn't like the holidays. Perhaps she'll actually be unable to kill him, because she's the one person who doesn't love Santa. But they abandon both threads early on, with Lucy unable to bring herself to shoot Santa simply because... well... he's Santa.

Likewise, the movie only sort of teases the implications of having the "real" Santa contained within the werewolf. He's driven to break into homes by an unconscious desire to deliver gifts (at one point he shoves body parts into sacks, as if they're gifts), but these details are more jokes than meaningful aspects of the story. Were-Santa doesn't spare the innocent in a "naughty-or-nice" riff, for example (in fact, he eats a baby at one point). There's a lot that could have been explored that wasn't, but - to be fair - this really isn't the kind of movie that's trying to make a statement or delve into mythology.

I meant what I said about this not being bad for what it is, but that qualifier is a big one. Unless you're a connoisseur of this kind of quirky, low-budget genre flick, it's really not worth tracking down (at least not if you're sober). It's virtually impossible for one of these to overcome its production and budget limitations, and there's no shame in not managing to do so.

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