Werewolf Santa

I recently watched Werewolf Santa (2023) on Tubi. The storyline follows Santa as he's out delivering presents on Christmas Eve when he's attacked and turned into a werewolf. Meanwhile, a local blogger with a struggling YouTube channel finds her hometown plagued by werewolves-an unexpected turn that might just be the big break she's been looking for.

Written and directed by Airell Anthony Hayles (Spider Inside Hernandez), the film stars Katherine Rodden (Blood Clots), Mark Arnold (Blade Runner 2049), Emily Booth (Inbred), and John Bloom (a.k.a. Joe Bob Briggs).

The film opens with a fun animated sequence narrated by Joe Bob Briggs, which, along with the Santa Claus orgy in the woods, ends up being one of the most memorable parts of the movie. The ladies in that scene are certainly eye-catching, but beyond that, the film falters. The jokes fall flat, the werewolf costumes look like something from Party City, the corpses are unimpressive, and there aren't any notable kills. But hey, at least there's a Santa orgy...

In conclusion, Werewolf Santa is exactly as bad as you'd expect. I'd score this a 3/10-unless you're in the mood for something intentionally terrible, in which case this might be just what you're looking for.

I honestly believe that I could make a better movie and I cant act and I haven't exactly got a big budget to deal with either. But for the 70 minutes I spent watching this film with my family we all had a laugh watching the bad acting, the absolute no sense writting. I can be forgiven for a film with a low budget and a unique name but this was awful. They did at least try and comparing this to some big budget Hollywood films this one at least had some character to it. At the end of the day I laughed my way through this movie and had a good time watching it, maybe I'm laughing at how bad it is rather then the film itself. But like I said I could do better.

Were to start?

The poster looks good, Emily Booth looks fantastic (as always) and that's where it ends!

I had high expectations for this when I saw this advertised in a Facebook group and really looked forward to seeing it as I thought it would be great to watch. After sitting through 70 minutes of it, I was wrong, so, so wrong!

I am thinking both Emily and Mark (Arnold) have fallen on hard times and are doing any roles to let them pay their bills as this wasn't a movie. This was more like a high school drama project that was created by a student who was either in a rush or had procrastinated for most the year and needed to 'put something out' to be marked!

Dialogue between characters was basic, the humour/jokes weren't funny and hardly landed, in fact the funniest part was in the trailer for the movie (the "I'll get me coat" line) For being a horror movie there was very in the way of horror or jump scares.

The only horrific thing about the movie was the was the look of the werewolf/Santa! I am sure we've seen scarier Halloween masks from the local cheap shop. As for the actor who played Santa/the wolf you could tell they were putting everything into the role however they seemed to be bereft of any acting ability or screen presence, I would maybe consider a new career in woodworking as they are that wooden I thought at times they had just hung the wolf suit up on a coat hanger.

I have a feeling a lot of the positive reviews will be from the cast and crew but do yourselves a favour and give this a miss.

Can I mark this lower than one?

This is called 'Werewolf Santa,' it was evidently made on a tiny budget and it's a found footage movie. One would be daft to anticipate a masterpiece. But even with expectations lowered to rock bottom this simply isn't very good. The hilarious possibilities for werewolf Santa mayhem are never realized, the characters are poorly-developed and the direction is fairly incompetent from the perspective of spatial coherence. All of which might be forgivable if the dialogue was funny, which it generally isn't aside from a few dry one-liners. The premise merited a manic, high-energy gorefest but this one stays stuck in second gear through a tepid finale.

This film seems to have been officially released on Youtube for streaming.

Which is appropriate, because it's a film about a group of cryptozoology hunting youtubers who have set out to find werewolves, during a full moon, on Christmas Eve, in Hastings, UK.

Only to witness Santa being attacked by one of the werewolves, while taking a pee break in a public park.

Turning him into a werewolf (as you might have suspected by the title).

Of course, the whole thing is quite cheesy.

Making it bad in the so-bad-it's-good kind of way.

I was certainly entertained, anyways.

Sure, it's stupid.

With lame costumes.

And mediocre special effects.

But it's stupid, Christmas, fun.

And worlds better than anything put out by Quiver, or Uncorked Entertainment (whose films even I can barely sit through).

It's got a found footage type of vibe, but, more appropriately, falls into the category of social media horror, similar to films like Caviar and Resurrected.

And even features an introduction from the legendary Joe Bob Briggs.

All-in-all, it's a fun little horror-comedy that's definitely worth watching.

Especially if you like What We Do In The Shadows, because, more than anything, it reminds of the Kiwi show Wellington Paranormal (which preceded WWDITS).

5 out of 10.