Evil Santa stands on a dock taunting a woman he has tied up and is holding hostage. The woman, Jenny, stands there in fear but soon yells for somebody to help her. Her cries do not go unheard as her lover, a man named Casey, arrives with a gun in hand prepared to fight this evil facsimile of the man who is supposed to bring joy and love.
“Are you gonna shoot me like a naughty little boy or are you gonna fight me like a man?” Santa asks. It doesn’t take long for the two men to begin fighting each other.
After some bickering and poorly choreographed punches, Casey kicks Santa into the water. His anger quickly turns to fear as he sees something unusual approaching him: a shark. She rapidly approaches Santa as he tries his best to swim away. But as we know, Santa loves his cookies, so he doesn’t make it out in time, causing him to be pulled under. This is the origin of Santa Jaws’s holiday fashion. When next she is seen above water, she is wearing his hat and a string of colorful lights.
As terrifying as this sounds, there’s no need to worry. None of it was real. It turns out the scene that had just unfolded on the screen was the opening of a comic, a comic sharing the same name as the Christmas masterpiece you have just sat down to watch: “Santa Jaws.”
As the cold air hits your skin, the desire to fill your days with the most popular Christmas movies grows. “Home Alone,” “The Grinch,” “Elf,” and “A Christmas Story” are understandable favorites played throughout homes during the Christmas season. But for as iconic as those films are, there is one area in which they are all sorely lacking. Answer me this, do any of these Christmas classics feature festive sharks? Surely, the Christmas spirit would not bring us such a blessing, right? Well, you can believe it because this movie is that miracle of the season. “Santa Jaws,” a movie that’s so bad you can’t help but love it.
Directed by Misty Talley and released in 2018, “Santa Jaws” takes a spin on the well-known and loved movie series “Jaws” as there is a Great White that terrorizes people. The only difference is this terror swims through the lake wearing a Santa hat and Christmas lights around her fin. That’s right, her. Santa Jaws is a girl.
A Convoluted Exposition
As Jenny is calling out Casey’s name after their festive victory, it cuts to two boys in a comic store in the midst of writing their newest comic “Santa Jaws.” The boys, Cody and Steve, are seen debating the ending of their new project. This is when the owner of the comic book store, Clark, walks in asking the boys what they’re arguing about. It doesn’t take long for Cody to ask him to take a look at their current ending.
Despite the glory of the B-Movie bloodbath of the opening scene, most of “Santa Jaws” itself falls into a pattern established in this scene. There is constant jumping from conversation to conversation, with the empty space filled with awkward pauses. And when there is not this awkward silence, the lines that are written are only used to set up a painfully obvious joke.
“Who here is good with knots?” Clark asks.
“I’m certainly knot,” Steve replies.
We’re only four minutes into this movie. The writing will not get any better from here. I love it!
Continuing its exposition dump, the conversation once again takes a turn as Steve asks the other two if they are excited for the “first-ever Big Easy Comics Christmas Eve party.” From here, the movie awkwardly dumps in all the requisite details: Cody is excited, but he always helps his family at their restaurant. Oh, and Cody’s comic about school uniforms has gotten a lot of likes (Cody calls it his “magnum opus”). That will probably be important later, so we better insert that quickly into this completely natural bit of dialogue before Cody leaves the store to head to the next plot beat.
Cody then leaves the store, bikes home, and quickly goes to his room where he runs into his uncle and his new out-of-touch ‘Snapstagram’ model wife. Everyone says their hellos and Cody decides to leave his lair, but as everyone is spending time catching up, Cody gets a text from Steve.
“Principal just called my mom! You’re next!” the text read.
Seconds after receiving the text, his mother gets a call where she is informed of her son’s drawing. Cody attempts to make a swift exit to avoid his mother’s wrath but fails as she angrily calls his name and walks toward him to question him about the offensive drawing. To no surprise, Cody denies knowing anything about it, but that obviously wasn’t true (remember, it was his “magnum opus”). It was also in his exact art style.
“How can you be so selfish?” his mother says. “Your father teaches at that school.”
Due to Cody’s back talk, he is grounded for a week. After a brief conversation on the porch with his uncle, Cody returns to his room where he sees a small Christmas-wrapped box labeled “Merry Christmas. Follow your dreams – Papa.” Inside is a wooden box with the words “Wer disen Shift hält, hat groBe Macht. Mit Grobzügigkeit im Herzen, kann es nur gut. Vorsicht, wer es nutzt fur egoisische Gewinne.” When translated from German, the message reads, “Whoever makes this shift has great power. With generosity in the heart, it can only be good. Be careful who uses it for selfish gains.” Inside is a pen.
Cody doesn’t take long to try his newest addition to his pen collection as he pulls out a drawing of the jolly beast and begins tracing it. Drawing his heart out while mumbling “I’m better off alone. Isn’t that right, Santa Jaws?”
We then cut to an overview of the lake glowing green as jingle bells ring. Shortly after the odd behaviors end, a shark fin pops out of the water wearing a Santa hat and a string of lights. Santa Jaws has come to life, and she’s on the move.
“The Plot Thickens”
Cody and Papa are seen in the early hours of the day on the way to their annual Christmas Eve fishing trip. While walking to the truck, we are introduced to a new character: his new neighbor, Jenna. Cody makes it blatantly obvious that he has a crush on her. While walking to the truck, instead of watching where he’s going, he’s too busy heart-eyeing Jenna and ends up tripping on one of their lawn decorations.
“Not a creature was stirring, except for me looking like an idiot,” Cody says.
As they sit on the dock, Papa offers Cody some of his homemade eggnog, but Cody, being the clutz he is, drops the thermos into the water. As pop culture is sure to remind you, sharks are, of course, drawn to blood and come quickly when even the tiniest drop falls into the water. As for Santa Jaws, eggnog is her blood. As Papa is reaching towards the water to retrieve his thermos, she leaps out of the water, grabs Papa, and quickly pulls him into the water. This is only the beginning of the tragedy of the season. Santa Jaws will strike again, but when?
Cody, in a panic, goes to inform his family of what has just happened. But instead of being met with worry for Papa, he was lectured for being out of his room while grounded and lying while bringing his papa into it. Of course, nobody believed him, why would there be a shark in the lake? You would think someone would at least go check on Papa, but to no surprise, nobody does. As a result, Cody is grounded for another week and gets his phone taken.
“If you even think about going out again, I’m gonna take away all of your art supplies.” his mother says. What a way to hit him right where it hurts, right?
After his family leaves for the Christmas boat parade, Cody begins frantically pacing back and forth in his kitchen while talking to himself. His desire to do something about the scene that had just happened before him grew increasingly. He decided to try and do something to stop Santa Jaws, leaving a note for his mother and father informing them of his plan.
His first stop is the comic book store where he informs Clark and Steve of what happened to Papa. To no surprise, they don’t believe him. Attempting to put a stop to this, Cody asks Clark where the comic is. Unfortunately stopping Santa Jaws would not be as easy as Cody had hoped since Clark has given it to a “regular.” That regular ended up being Jenna, Cody’s neighbor. “Ooh… dun, dun, dun,” Steve says. “The plot thickens.” At least he has a reason to talk to her now.
The scene transitions to Cody’s daily restaurant where Georgia and Cody’s father are making paper snowflakes. Georgia makes more of her out-of-touch comments as they’re having a conversation with Cody’s mother about their restaurant tradition. Cody’s uncle pops out of seemingly nowhere as he and Georgia need to go to their rented yacht to prepare for the parade.
“My followers are going to love it,” Georgia said. “It’s been months since they’ve seen me in a bikini.”
We’re now back with Cody and Steve as they’re looking for Santa Jaws at the dock where Grandpa was made the first victim. Instead of finding it, they spot Papa’s thermos marked with teeth. Teeth that size could only match the mouth of something big. Something like a Great White.
This Is Just the Beginning
Overwhelmed yet? Believe it or not, we are only a half-hour into this masterpiece. The rest of the movie consists of Cody and his remaining family and friends hunting Santa Jaws as she slowly begins killing off members of Cody’s family.
By now, it should not be difficult to tell that this movie is extremely poorly made. But something about the tackiness of the jokes makes you love it. It may seem like it is too much to take in, but I promise it is worth the watch.
I mean come on. There’s literally a part when Georgia is in the lake on a float taking selfies when Santa Jaws pops up behind her. IN THE PICTURE. You’d think the giant fin wearing a Santa hat would be something she would notice. But, to no avail, she was too focused on something else.
“My pores look terrible!” Georgia said.
And don’t worry, there is a happy ending as they finally end up killing Santa Jaws. I would tell you more, but I think I’ve spoiled enough by now. You’ll just have to watch it to find out!
