So you all want to have Santa Claus come to visit you and bring you presents eh? How about the Sinterklass from the Dutch film Sint (which is the Dutch word for Saint) who comes to your home and kills you?
Based on the original story of Sinterklass of Dutch origins, director Dick Maas has created a horror-comedy with a distorted tale of the old Saint – who had nothing to do with Christianity by the way! But he is the main source of the creation of Santa Claus. Anyways, the version of the movie I downloaded has English dubbing done. The movie starts off in 1492, on the 5th of December in a Dutch villager, where the evil Bishop Saint Nick and his followers are killed by the villagers fed up by the constant looting & demands. The boat on which Sinterklass travels is burnt along with him. In the years to come if December 5th happens to be a full moon night, he returns as a murderous ghost.
Now we switch to 1968 and Goert, a young boy is the only survivor in his town as everyone is killed by the wicked Saint who rides along rooftops on his white horse. Goert finds his parents, brother & sister massacred by the evil legend. In present day Amsterdam, Goert is a veteran police detective who is the only one who doesn’t buy the story of a benevolent Sinterklass, handing out presents on December 5th, 2010. He alerts his chief of the full moon on December 5th but his ranting is taken to be stress and he is told to take a vacation. As Goert predicted, Saint Nick and his equally evil followers of black Petes returns, and kills hundreds of people in the city.
It is only Goert and a teenager Frank who face up to the evil one. Frank barely escapes a couple of attempts on his life by Saint Nick and is arrested for suspicion of killing his friends as he is also dressed up as the famed Saint, just like quite a few others as per tradition. While the gang is immune to bullets, they are finally chased away by fire, as all those years ago when the Saint was burned in his boat. Goert takes Frank to the Saint’s boat and in the end it is Frank who ignites the flames on the boat chasing away the Saint & his gang. However in the end, as we see Frank recovering in his hospital bed and a girl he likes coming to spend some time with his in his room, the camera pans away to a large tower a few blocks away on which stands the charred figure of Saint Nick. The legend is not dead yet.
Despite some gruesome killings and a few shocks due to well timed sudden movements, I got a bit bored watching this movie. It promised a lot more but fails in the end. Still I thought it was appropriate viewing on Christmas Eve. 6 out of 10!