"Sint": Festive horror from Amsterdam

As part of my job I spend quite a bit of time in Amsterdam, and one of my favourite times to visit is the very beginning of December. Like many other European countries, the Dutch celebrate Saint Nicholas or Sinterklaas on December 5th. Not to be confused with Father Christmas or Santa, Sint Nicolaas is the original red-clad giver of presents and he is a big deal in the Netherlands. 

Sinterklaas arrives around the end of November in Amsterdam by steamboat from his home in Spain. Accompanied by his controversial helpers, the Zwarte Piet (Black Peters), he tours the Netherlands until December 5th leaving presents in the waiting shoes of children. The whole event is comparable with Christmas, with huge marketing campaigns and television shows dedicated to the characters. 

Sinterklaas and his questionable friends

So it was with glee that I listened to a colleague tell me last year about a new film from Dutch director, Dick Maas that presented this lovable figure as a bloodthirsty, supernatural creature who unleashes a wave of horror on an unsuspecting Amsterdam. 

To say that this film met with shock in the Netherlands is an understatement. People didn’t take kindly to their children’s favourite Dutch folklore figure being portrayed as a hideously disfigured murdering ghost in film posters. Complaints lead to the poster being changed from the more explicit design on the right to what I think is a better and indeed, scarier poster on the left. 

New and old posters

I finally managed to procure a copy of the DVD this year. Our opening scene shows us the familiar mitre-topped figure of Sint Nicolaas terrorizing a village in the 15th century. Tired of the exploitation and violence, the villagers set fire to his ship burning the bishop and his gang to death. A quick fast forward to 1968 and we see a hideously deformed Sint risen from the dead as he slaughters an innocent family on the night of December 5th leaving one traumatised young survivor, a young boy called Goert. For when the moon is full on December 5th, Sintaklaas is unleashed and he isn’t bringing presents. And so a festive horror is born. 

The nods to horror past, particularly one of my favourites, John Carpenter’s “Halloween” are evident. We follow three teenage girls home from school as they talk about boys and the fact that one of them is not as sexually active as the others. Hmmm, familiar. Goert is now a cop, a figure of authority albeit slightly more manic and hysterical than Dr Loomis. 

Unlike classic US horror “Sint” breaks some of the horror rules. Our virginal heroine is not so virginal and, indeed is not our heroine. We in fact have a hero in the shape of her latest squeeze, Frank. Characters are introduced and ruthlessly bumped off, women and children too. Nobody is safe from Sinterklaas. 

Cute. And doomed.

The film is also quintessentially Dutch with a teacher jokingly berating the kids for giving each other dildos for presents and references to the fact that the girls are from South Amsterdam and therefore more posh than Frank. 

Frank was pleased that Lisa liked her new dildo

There are some great scenes with a gang of zombie-like Zwarte Piets slaughtering a gang of friends, also dressed up as Zwarte Piet. Police reacting to sightings of the figure of Sintaklaas in a city where everyone is dressed in a red mitre hat. And a crazed Sintaklaas racing along the canal house roofs as gravelly voiced and no-nonsense cop, Van Dijk says “That’s the trouble with Sinterklaas. Everybody likes presents but you always end up with a load of crap that you don’t really want.“

Not to be taken too seriously, this is fun and inventively gory horror story which is worth watching with subtitles rather than dubbed for the great delivery by some of the actors. 

Yay! Its Sinterklaas!

So, happy Sinterklaas Amsterdam. I noticed it wasn’t a full moon this year so I think we’re alright for another year. 

View the Trailer for "Sint"