The Naughty List
2016 · 9m · UK
Directed by Paul Campion
Genres: comedy, crime, dark comedy, horror
Tones: absurdist, dark, whimsical
Two American mobsters hiding out in a cabin on Christmas Eve find themselves face to face with Santa Claus, who has very particular methods for evaluating who belongs on the Naughty List.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Campion commits fully to the premise — Santa as an implacable moral reckoner — and that commitment is exactly what makes it work as both horror and comedy.
Mobster cabin meets Santa-as-supernatural-enforcer. The straight-faced commitment to Krampus-adjacent terror is the right move, and Campion's done genre work before. Solid Christmas dark comedy.
Santa as a genuinely terrifying supernatural enforcer of moral judgment against two panicking mobsters — the conceit is exactly Rare Exports / Krampus-coded and the Christmas-Eve-cabin compression is the right container. Stands on the tonal commitment.
Festivals
- Fantasia Film Festival 2017