A killer Santa is making the festival rounds before he has even reached theatres. Finnish sales agency EuroObscura confirmed this week that it is bringing director Keke Soikkeli‘s slasher Dark Christmas (released domestically as Musta Joulu) to the American Film Market in Los Angeles next week, timed to the release of the film’s first trailer.
Dark Christmas sets its carnage inside an exclusive Christmas gala for social media influencers, held at a secluded manor. Katariina, an up and coming influencer, finally talks her way into the glamorous circle she has always wanted to join, only for the evening’s hired Santa Claus to cancel at the last minute. His hastily arranged replacement is publicly humiliated by the party’s guests and turned into viral content, and he responds the way horror movie Santas tend to: by handing out a series of bloody gifts. As the body count rises, the influencers keep filming rather than fleeing, a touch aimed squarely at the worst instincts of online attention seeking.
The film has already picked up a pair of festival placements, having screened at Argentina’s Rojo Sangre International Fantastic Film Festival and Germany’s Obscura Film Festival. Dark Christmas is set for a theatrical release in Finland this December, though no North American distributor or release date has been announced; EuroObscura’s AFM presence is explicitly a sales push, so where, and whether, the film turns up outside its home country remains to be seen.
