but it could end with her.” Lussi Meyer is in desperate need of a job and finds one at the prestigious Blackwood-Patterson publishing house. With the help of her former author, the flamboyant Fabien Nightingale, Lussi must track down her anonymous Secret Santa and figure out the true meaning of the cursed object in her possession before it destroys the company-and her soul.more
#Secret santa series#
Suddenly, her coworkers begin falling victim to a series of horrific accidents akin to a George Romero movie, and Lussi suspects that her gift is involved. The hazing reaches its peak during the company’s annual Secret Santa gift exchange, when Lussi receives a demonic-looking object that she recognizes but doesn't understand. It’s the ’80s, after all, and horror is the hottest genre.īut as soon as she arrives, Lussi finds herself the target of her co-workers' mean-spirited pranks. Prestigious Blackwood-Patterson isn’t the perfect fit, but a bizarre set of circumstances leads to her hire and a firm mandate: Lussi must find the next horror superstar to compete with Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Peter Straub. Out of work for months, Lussi Meyer is desperate to work anywhere in publishing. Prestigious Blackwood-Patterson isn’t the perfect fit, but a bizarre set of The Office meets Stephen King, dressed up in holiday tinsel, in this fun, festive, and frightening horror-comedy set during the horror publishing boom of the ’80s, by New York Times best-selling satirist Andrew Shaffer. Secret Santa is definitely a gift worth unwrapping.The Office meets Stephen King, dressed up in holiday tinsel, in this fun, festive, and frightening horror-comedy set during the horror publishing boom of the ’80s, by New York Times best-selling satirist Andrew Shaffer.
#Secret santa movie#
Some of the gore effects might have been more effective if the camera didn't linger on them as much, but that's a small complaint in the grand scheme of things, especially when most of the movie is so much fun. Even funnier, the length of the killer's "why I did it" monologue is poked fun at during the climax of the film. There's a great gag where a hairdryer the killer is using to electrocute a victim in the bathtub with falls out of the wall socket when he tries to throw it into the water, so he has to beat his victim to death with it instead. At least the results are usually entertaining. Some of it works and some of it doesn't, but you can't fault McMurran for trying something different. Once the film gets going, the tone begins to shift slightly into something more resembling a dark comedy. I'm not sure if I enjoyed spending as much time with them as McMurran does, because it does take about 50 minutes to get to any major action (besides an opening kill scene). Besides the characters of Dewayne and Carissa (he's mostly shrill and painfully unfunny and she's too bitter and angry to ever warm up to), the rest of them are an agreeable group to spend 75 minutes with. Wozniak carries most of the film herself through her insurmountable amount of charm and she's easily the high point of the film. There's even a fairly progressive scene where she tells her boyfriend about her sex cam work and he's pretty supportive of her. She's struggling with a cheating boyfriend (Brent Baird who looks like Finn Wittrock's long lost brother) and with her sex cam business she's set up to help pay off her student loans. Special mention goes to Annette Wozniak as Nicole who gets the most interesting character to sink her teeth into. Like most movies around this budget, the cinematography is competent but flat at times without a whole lot of style and some of the sound mixing leaves a bit to be desired, but the actors are above average for a film of this type. Secret Santa borrows a few pages from the likes of Black Christmas and To All A Goodnight with its house filled with nubile young college girls who are about to have more than student loan and boyfriend drama to contend with as a murderer with a ski mask begins to terrorize and kill them one by one during a secret santa party. Most of them are pretty charmless, but Secret Santa has its heart in the right place and writer/director Mike McMurran at least attempts to bring a little extra character development and a sense of humor to go along with the gore. I'm not sure what's in the water as of late, but it seems like everyone and their mother have been churning out Christmas themed slasher movies in the past 5 years.