It seems a bit odd to be reviewing a Christmas short in April, but life as a film critic is more than a bit odd. Writer/director Sammi Stephans' Stockholm Santa is a dark tale about a young boy named Brady (Trevor Burke) who meets a young girl (Morgan Shewey) with whom he becomes enchanted. When he can't track down where she's from, he takes the only surefire step to here whereabouts that he knows will work - kidnap Santa (John B. Boss).

Stockholm Santa takes an amusing concept and plants it inside the mind of young Brady, played by Trevor Burke as a sort of darker and slightly more demented Macaulay Culkin. How much you enjoy this 7-minute short film may very well depend upon how much you buy into the basic concept. The film has already played at the Illinois International Film Festival, the Chicago REEL Shorts Independent Film Fest and is currently in competition at ShortsNonstop.com.

Filmed in two days on a micro-budget, Stockholm Santa is the fourth short film from Stephans and the finished product reveals promise both as a writer and a director. While the film is a "dark" comedy, it's also a family friendly film with a darkness more borne out of the lunacy of the entire concept. The film as a whole, however, doesn't quite gel as we're not quite given the time we need to identify with young Brady and to accept his actions.

Production credits on the film are generally solid, with John Pill contributing appealing original music and D.P. Ernest Worthing managing to capture the dark humor without ever making the material seem overly threatening.

For more information on the film, be sure to visit the film's Facebook page.

© Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic