Saint Review

While today (Dec. 21, 2012) is not the end of the world, it may as well be for the 156,000 people on earth who will die today.  Just sayin’. 

Last year I wrote a movie review for a new classic, Rare Exports.  This year I decided to do the same, with another foreign offering:  SAINT.  It’s a Dutch flick that came out in 2010, and the version I watched was dubbed rather than subtitled.  At times it reminded me of my novel, The Wild Hunt, weaving European myths and history to come up with a horrifying holiday tale.

Sadly, that wasn’t enough to save this movie.  It’s a pretty standard slasher film, too much like John Carpenter’s The Fog at times.  There were a few great sequences, however:  St. Nick riding his horse along the cityscape of Amsterdam, for example, or breaking into a local hospital to steal kids from the children’s ward.  Although the characters were cookie-cutter stereotypes — the slutty girl, the clueless boy, the grizzled cop who’s too old for this shit — the special effects were actually pretty good.  Kudos to whoever came up with the makeup and costume for St. Nick.  SAINT has a short runtime, 85 minutes, so that works in its favor.  I sat through the whole thing, which I won’t do if I hate something outright. 

My rating?  Two shrugs and a meh.  Pop in Gremlins instead.

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