SYFY has released a trailer for Letters to Satan Claus, their upcoming horror movie about an evil Santa. You can check it out above. The film, set in “The Christmasiest town ever,” centers on Holly Frost, a reporter who goes back to her hometown and, after a particularly bad day, writes a note to Satan, leaves it in Santa’s mail box, and everything goes to hell. It looks, basically, like a demented parody of Hallmark and Netflix Christmas movies, filtered through the lens of the Silent Night, Deadly Night franchise or Black Christmas. The combination is oddly compelling, even if the effects look…well, like a Syfy or Hallmark movie.
The Santa/Satan confusion isn’t a new premise: there ws a 2014 story in The New Yorker about children who accidentally address the Dark Lord by misspelling Santa, and there are plenty of gags about it (and even a pretty funny animated short) on YouTube. This is the first time (we know of) that it as become a mainstream feature film for mass consumption.
There are dozens of Christmas-themed horror movies, and quite a few of them feature some variation on an evil/haunted Santa who takes pleasure in killing innocent people. Sometimes, as with the Christmas episodes of Invader Zim and Futurama, it’s a robot. Occasionally it’s the real Santa, having flipped his lid like in the Weird Al song “The Night Santa Went Crazy.” Still other variations are just guys in Santa suits being creepy.
Directed by Emma Jean Sutherland, the film stars Karen Knox, Miriam McDonald, and Juno Rinaldi. Sutherland worked as the assistant director on Christmas Catch and Christmas With a Prince, both more traditional versions of the kinds of movies that Letters to Satan Claus is parodying.
Knox has appeared on several episodes of shows like Barbelle and Slo Pitch. McDonald might be familiar from her nearly ten years on Degrassi: The Next Generation, where she appeared as Emma Nelson. Rinaldi appeared in Workin’ Moms and 5ive Days To Midnight. She also had minor roles in episodes of a bunch of Vancouver-based genre shows like Arrow, Fringe, and Psych. The whole production is pretty Vancouver-centric.
The trailer teases its arrival in winter 2020. Keep your eyes on ComicBook.com for more news on Letters to Satan Claus as they become available. Expect another trailer as the movie comes closer in the fall and early winter 2020.
Tim M. Hill helped bring Digital-Overload from a weekly newsletter to a full-fledged news site by creating a new website and branding. He continues to assist in keeping the site responsive and well organized for the readers. As a writer to Digital-Overload, Tim mainly covers mobile news and gadgets.
