Santa (2014)

santa

It’s Santa! Or is it Krampus? In either case, directors Dionysis and Manos Atzarakis have a real winner on their hands with the very short but utterly creepy “Santa.” Though it’s barely two minutes in length, “Santa” garners enough of a story element and set up to become utterly horrifying; Especially considering the tropes of Santa being a welcoming and loving presence on Christmas night.

Set on Christmas Eve, a young girl awakens to the sound of Santa in her living room. What she finds standing there is something she can barely comprehend. And she doesn’t have time to, either. The only thing of annoyance I can say about “Santa,” is that I wish there were more. I can picture this as a feature length horror fantasy, or at least a thirty minute short tale. In either case, the Atzarakis’s are able to use their resources wisely and show us only little bits of the Santa that is by no means visiting children for cookies.

Many of the shots are wisely framed to suggest an utterly horrific monster that we are unwilling to see face to face, and once the final scene presents itself, we’re a witness to a horrible demon. The monster design for Santa is fantastic and I especially love the very crafty shots of its long fingers and decrepit face. I really would love to see a longer version of this concept with a greater narrative, but as a short but sweet dose of Christmas themed horror, it works and works fantastically. I hope Dionysis and Manos Atzarakis give movie fans more movies like this in the future. If “Santa” is any indication, they have potential to deliver an excellent feature length horror film in the very near future.