by: Dr. Boogie

...CONTINUED

"Who's your daddy? Father Christmas!"

Well hey, there's Santa Claus! What are the odds? At this point, he's really taking his time with these two. He parked his sleigh on the roof so that he could discard his jacket and go in through the school's smokestack, and he produces a glowing candy cane just to get a quick scare out of Nick and Mac.

They run, and Santa follows. He even busts out a new trick:

Geez! What part of Christmas is a fire-breathing Santa supposed to evoke? And why didn't you kill Nick with that fireball, Santa? Was it too much to ask for you to take him out sooner, rather than later?

They eschew running down another long hallway to the exit in favor of ducking into the library.

It seems like they've given Santa the slip, until he sees their reflection in a mirror. Rather than engage them directly, Santa tosses them a gas grenade, starts reading "A Christmas Carol", and torments them with bad puns ("Boy, Christmas sure scares the Dickens out of people!"). When the gas finally becomes too much, the kids make a break for it. But Santa is ready for them.

Book 'em, Santa!

Initially, I enjoyed seeing Nick get smacked in the head with a book. But in the following scene, his whining increases tenfold because of it. He starts off simply stating "god dammit, that really hurt," which is pretty whiny by itself, but soon, it gets to the point where he looks and sounds like he's going to start blubbering.

I want to slap this kid so hard.

As they flee from Santa, they wind up running onto the school's ice hockey rink. They appear to be surprised by this, even though Nick has been wearing his school's hockey jersey for the better part of the movie. They both slip and fall, and Nick starts whining some more. It gets so bad that Mac has to comfort him like a mother tending to a fussy infant just to stop his sniveling. He starts whining about how his grandfather is dead, and how he has nobody left, and in a move she will probably regret later, Mac reminds him that he has her. They lean in for a kiss, girl and boy-child, but look who's come to ruin the mood.

Santa doesn't have any good one-liners about running people over with a Zamboni, but I'll give it a shot: "Time to get Zambonered!!" Just imagine Santa saying that as he slowly rolls toward the kids. The kids panic at the steadily approaching ice resurfacer, so Nick shines his flashlight in Santa's eyes.

"I'm Santa Claus, not fucking Dracula!"

True, but it's hard to argue with results. Santa is just distracted enough for the kids to run off to the side. Unfortunately, Santa's new ride turns on a dime, and one again, he has them in his sights. He is about to crush them when...

His Zamboni gets caught on one of the school's irradiated curling stones. Who could have perpetrated such a prank?

Why, it's grandpa! He's returned! And he's wearing white after Labor Day? Bad move, angel grandpa. Santa identifies him as the very angel that challenged him to that fateful bet a millennium ago. He even remembers his name, which sounds something like "Ilsecrate Yuleson", but which subtitles identify as "Hellsgate Yuleson". Santa also claims that grandpa Hellsgate gave up his immortality "for an earthly woman", in spite of the fact that he has just reappeared as an angel after having been flattened by Santa's sleigh.

But how did Santa know to look for grandpa in Hell Township? Santa produces a letter, written by none other than Nick himself, asking for a "Mini-Bake Oven". God, that fucking kid... Santa doesn't give the date the letter was written, but if I had to guess, I'd say it was written a week ago.

And so the two of them prepare to renew their bet. Grandpa still goes to hell if he loses, but if he wins, Santa becomes good forever. And this time, grandpa goes first. He kisses his... angel badge, I guess you'd call it, for good luck, and throws.

Grandpa's stone stops right on the edge of the hole. He seems happy, even though this same turn of events happened with Santa just prior to him being enslaved for a thousand years. He wishes Santa the best of luck, and Santa makes his throw...

D'oh! Grandpa should have been on the lookout for that move. Who knew that eternal damnation was as simple as tossing someone down a hole?

That just leaves Nick as the last Yuleson. Unless grandpa really is still an immortal angel, that part is a little murky. Before any tough questions can be asked, Nick's world clock goes off, alerting them that it is now midnight, Greenwich Mean Time. That means Santa's reign of terror is over, right? Not quite. Santa explains:

"You know, most people make the same mistake. The correct time at the pole is completely
discretionary, because the poles are where all the time zones actually converge."

Or, in short, "Christmas is over when I say it's over!" Well not if Nicholas Yuleson has anything to say about it!

Nick produces his grandpa's nutcracker gun and fires a chestnut at Santa, just as Santa is breathing a fireball at him. The nut blasts through the fireball and embeds itself in Santa's chest. Nick's action quip: "Chest... nut." I hate this kid so much.

So Santa's dead, but Nick is still down one grandpa. Or is he?

Miraculously, unbelievably, grandpa has managed to save himself from plummeting into the depths of hell by digging his angel badge into the side of the hole. Nick and Mac go to haul him up.

What do you mean quarter-inch deep chestnut wounds to the chest aren't fatal? Well I just don't know what to believe anymore. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to flattened all three of the protagonists at once, but Santa instead decides to flee. Grandpa claims that this is because he was bluffing before when he said that Christmas ended at his discretion, and that he is powerless now. He says this because he wasn't around to see Santa breath fire after the clock struck midnight, but then again, maybe that walnut has sapped his remaining strength. Grandpa closes the portal to hell with his curling stone and the three set out to finish Santa. Almost.

Grandpa is stopped by some kind of force field. Why? No one asks. So instead of following through with his own plan of getting rid of his rival for good, grandpa says he'll "be around", then vanishes. Nick is nearly reduced to tears again.

As dark out as it is, the skeet shooters are still where they were when Nick buzzed them. Nick explains that this is their opportunity to shoot a "flying buck". It's slightly more believable than Santa being a demon that they must slay, so the skeet shooters setup to take down Santa. They even give Nick a gun so he can take a shot, too.

Typically, you don't put scopes on shotguns because they're supposed to be used fairly close to... ah, nevermind. The skeet shooters unload at Santa, but to no avail. Now it's time for Nick to take his shot. This is his chance to prove his manhood to his girlfriend and everyone else who knows him or has heard about what a weenus he is. He takes aim...

"The hell," you say? A rocket just came out of nowhere and blew Santa to bits. But where did it come from? Did grandpa invent some kind "missile-toe"? Ahaha, "missile-toe"! That's genius!

Ahem, no it was nothing like that.

It's Mac's dad. Turns out he really was as crazy as he seemed when he was off-camera, and then some. Good thing he is so crazy. He saved Nick from having to be the hero.

Back at Nick's school, a pair of paramedics have been brought in to remove an impaled Santa from the flagpole. But what's this? It's not the real Santa, it's just Pastor Timmons. The others believe that he must have been the killer Santa Claus, even though he was conducting the Christmas choir during the bulk of the slayings, but Nick and Mac know the truth. Nick doesn't seem that concerned that Santa is still unaccounted for. He remarks that his "saga is just beginning". Whatever, loser. Just keep that girl, Mac, with you, or you're dead meat. The two of them share a loving embrace amidst the paramedics sawing Pastor Timmons' body off the pole, and Mac's dad loading the "hell-deer" carcass onto the front of his hummer.

The End...

Or is it!?

A sleigh-less (and slay-less) Santa is forced to catch a plane back to the North Pole. Will his sack of exploding presents make it past the TSA? Will he be ready next year for the next chapter in Nick's "saga"? Find out in Santa's Slay II: Yule Harder!

And that's your movie about a homicidal demon Santa Claus. Among the deleted scenes is one from the grandpa's basement where grandpa accuses Nick of "whining like a little ninny". I guess they felt like it would be too much to have the characters actually say what the audience is thinking. Also among the deleted scenes is a semi-humorous epilogue wherein we learn that grandpa's name is neither "Ilsecrate Yuleson" nor "Hellsgate Yuleson", but rather "Ailsa Craig Yuleson". Ah, that was right on the tip of my tongue.

You can definitely tell that the director was not taking the story too seriously, and it works because of that. As a semi-serious holiday monster, Goldberg isn't quite as good as the Leprechaun, but at the same time, I would love to see a movie that features both of them. He may not speak in rhymes all the time, but like the Leprechaun, Santa always looks like he's having a fantastic time, regardless of the scene.

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