Glad to have gotten all of the ‘death’ documentaries out of the way, I’m initially enthusiastic to get stuck into my next yuletide documentary, the light-hearted looking Stalking Santa from 2006. However, about thirty seconds into this Will Shatner-narrated story of a supposed “Santologist” - a grown man who is determined to prove that Santa exists - I realise I’ve been duped. As part of my rigorous research into festive filmic oddities, I’d seen this one included on multiple lists of Christmas documentaries and swore to track it down. However, when Shatner starts discussing St Nick’s roots going back to pre-biblical times over images of daft cave paintings and Egyptian hieroglyphics showing the fat, bearded one I quickly realise this is just a dumb, ultra-silly comedy mockumentary. However, today is my actual birthday and this is still definitely a Christmas film, so I’m having it. Trouble is, though it’s a well put-together film, it’s not a particularly funny one.
Chris Clark’s Doctor Darrow is a character ripe with opportunity for comedy - he’s a full grown man, stubbornly going to ridiculous lengths to prove Santa’s existence. From staking out mall Santas, to stalking unfortunate, disabled little people/”elves”, to forcing his own children to be ruthlessly nice to ensure Santa definitely visits the house, he’s a great idea for a zany persona. I can easily see someone like Will Ferrell having a lot of fun with a character like this. Unfortunately, Clark is no Ferrell and the film is nowhere near as rib-tickling as it thinks it is.
From Darrow’s long-suffering but one hundred percent supportive wife Barbara (Lisa Clark), to his perma-embarrassed son Keith (Simon Taylor), to his slightly dense assistant Clarence (Daryn Tufts) the cast is totally game but the script just can’t match the high concept.
There are some neat ideas throughout - did you know that crop circles were made by reindeer? Or that the Men In Black want to sabotage Darrow’s work because Santa being real would damage the economy? It’s very silly but some real thought has been put into crafting this mad world where a man would deliberately not buy his kids any presents to prove that if there are any gifts under the tree then Santa simply must be real.
The film’s peppered with semi-amusing fake interviews with ‘experts’ on the history of Santa, UFOs and the like, as well as photos of “elves” as Roswell. This sort of works as a spirited piss-take of the popularity of alien conspiracy theory documentaries, while also lampooning the way so many of the real life conspiracy theorists have very selective tunnel vision. In these crazy post-Trump, Covid times it’s easy to see parallels with modern-day ‘denialists’ - those people who will only ever believe what they want to believe, conveniently ignoring or trying to discredit any info that doesn’t fit in with their own outlandish opinions. If you think about the rise of the ‘anti-vaxxers’, that’s Dr Darrow to a T, sticking to his guns with practically zero evidence, despite being mercilessly mocked at every turn. Naturally, this all stems from a cliched, unhappy childhood where Santa never did get him that rare toy he asked for.
The film, directed by Greg Kiefer does get points for being original in a field of very samey Christmas films but needs to be funnier to be memorable. It’s the sort of film that thinks that having a dorky roommate ‘gatecrash’ a scene is coedic in itself, without actually giving that character anything particularly funny or humorous to do. The funniest stuff actually comes from what appears to be genuine documentary footage of adorable pre-school children giving their take on how they think the whole Santa thing works. Their answers are very cute, sometimes hilarious and always unpredictable.
Shatner’s deadpan delivery works well too, putting forward some seriously ridiculous theories with a totally straight tone. However, the movie doesn’t truly work as a plausible mockumentary either, with the staging of various scenes with multiple cameras and camera angles completely betraying the concept that any of this is spontaneous or realistic. It feels much more like supposed ‘reality’ TV garbage like Made In Chelsea and the like. It also feels bloated, overlong and would have benefited from being trimmed by about twenty minutes.
Perhaps I’m being unkind. I mean, I try really hard to enjoy this one but I’ve been grumpy and tired all day due to Amelia waking me up six (!) times over a difficult night that eventually saw me surrender my place in the bed, ending up on the couch. Not the best way to start a birthday. Still, we make up for it later on with a genuinely happy family afternoon to the seaside funfair. Over a delicious Dominos pizza birthday tea and having cheered up considerably, I think back over Stalking Santa and decide that, actually no, it’s definitely still a bit crap.
Comments