Frightfest 2023: ‘Werewolf Santa’ Review
Stars: Katherine Rodden, Mark Arnold, Emily Booth, Joe Bob Briggs, Cory Peterson, Roxanne Gregory, Charlie Preston | Written and Directed by Airell Anthony Hayles
You’d think Christmas horror films up until now had covered it all. Where can you go after all the killer Santas, snowmen and elves? Well, not too long ago, Krampus was the new thing for genre filmmakers to make a holiday film about and there’s been a few decent movies on that subject – none better than the 2015 film. Last year we got a couple of great new Christmas-themed horror movies with Violent Night seeing David Harbour as Santa saving Christmas and a family and the even more original but brilliantly violent Christmas Bloody Christmas, which featured a killer robotic Santa on the loose. 2023 doesn’t seem to be the year where Christmas horror runs out of ideas because now we are getting Werewolf Santa.
How Santa turns into a werewolf doesn’t come from some convoluted story. Lucy has a YouTube show called ‘Monster Hunters’ that doesn’t do so well. A trip back to her home town for Christmas ends up with her catching Santa getting bit by a werewolf live on camera, as she uncovers a long-standing cover-up and the chance to gain a lot more viewers.
As you probably expected, this is a low-budget horror movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously. There’s no real attempt to make a ‘real’ horror movie that will scare you and/or stick with you for a long time after. But what you will get is plenty of jokes (good and bad), lots of gore and thankfully lots of snow too. In fact, perhaps one of the things that Werewolf Santa does best is make the film as Christmassy as possible, and that is an absolutely win for me. If you’re making a horror movie set at Christmas – and much of Werewolf Santa is set on Christmas Eve – then make it feel like Christmas (or at least how I wish Christmas was because I never see snow). There is plenty of snow, there’s Christmas music on whenever possible and decorations are up in the houses. It might feel low budget but it also feels a lot like Christmas. The gore isn’t quite as impressive. It is there but most of it is the cheap trick of intestines being piled up on the body with fake blood everywhere. To be fair, it always looks decent enough but when the fifth body looks the same it doesn’t have quite the same effect.
Director Airell Anthony Hayles (who has Satan’s Grotto and The Krampus Calendar to his directorial name, both of which I need to check out) puts together a really fun cast here. It’s a genius idea to have Mark Arnold (Teen Wolf) in a prominent role and Arnold is very entertaining. We also get Emily Booth as the mum of the main character (and if you’re about the same age as me that will make you feel very old!). If you are from the U.K. and a fan of horror but are somehow unaware of Booth, she was THE ‘goth girl’ in the late nineties/early 2000s and starred in Cradle of Fear, Evil Aliens and Doghouse. Like Arnold, she’s a lot of fun in the role. In the lead, Katherine Rodden is a good choice as Lucy. Hayles also gets Joe Bob Briggs to lend his voice (and image) in a couple of animated sequences, ticking plenty of boxes for genre fans.
Although we do see Santa as a werewolf for quite a lot of the movie, it never looks quite as good as you are probably hoping – this is almost entirely because of budget restraints. But, I enjoyed seeing something new when it comes to horror and Christmas. At a little over an hour, Werewolf Santa never outstays its welcome and it runs along at a good pace. You can add this to your pile to watch this December.
*** 3/5
Werewolf Santa screened as part of this year’s Pigeon Shrine Frightfest London.
