PopHorror Let's Get Scared
When it comes to Christmas, I’m a bit of a Scrooge. With few exceptions, I really don’t care for anything Christmas-related. One of the rare exceptions is Christmas horror films, which I absolutely love. Recently, I was given the chance to check out Bruce Blain’s new short film, Mad Santa. I have a soft spot for killer Santa movies, so I was looking forward to checking it out. Find out what I thought of Mad Santa down below.
Mad Santa was written, shot, edited, and scored in 48 hours for the Vancouver 48 Hour Run N Gun Horror Film Festival where it won the coveted Audience Choice Award. The film also received Honorable Mention at the Los Angeles Short Film Festival in March and several nominations at the Vancouver Bad Ass Film Festival. Mad Santa was written and directed by Riverdale’s Bruce Blain and stars Blain, David Bloom (Shooter 2007), Chloe Cruz (Hot Box 2019), Ashley Fetters (The Phoenix Solution 2014), Supernatural’s Carrie Anne Fleming, and The X-Files’ Bonnie Hay.
Mad Santa is a fun and vicious little film, an intense and visceral watch with a pitch-black streak of humor throughout. Bruce Blain makes a suitably menacing and imposing Santa Claus, terrorizing several people for the film’s duration. While the film isn’t a gorefest, it is fairly violent, and the intensity makes it feel more graphic than it is.
Another thing I really enjoyed about Mad Santa is that, in a twisted way, it’s a revenge story, which is one of my favorite subgenres of film. The ending is absolutely hilarious… at least, it is if you have a fairly dark sense of humor.
Final Thoughts
Anchored by a menacing performance from Bruce Blain, Mad Santa is a blackly comic and intensely violent Christmas horror short that is well worth checking out. You can check out Mad Santa at the YouTube link below.
