On Screen Manitoba

This article published May 3, 2012 by Randall King was taken from the Winnipeg Free Press

Movies don't always confine bizarre vistas to the screen. Sometimes, cinema's surreal spectacle crosses over into the realm of real life.
Case in point: On a Tuesday night in late April, when leaves are starting to bloom on trees, a Santa Claus Parade is taking place on Manitoba Avenue in the town of Selkirk, 22 kilometres north of Winnipeg. As darkness falls, the street is literally filling with a surfeit of Santas. There must be around 40 men in Santa suits milling in front of the neon-appointed Garry Theatre marquee, in addition to extras dressed as Gingerbread men, Christmas stars and Christmas trees. (Between takes, the guys dressed as trees laugh with discomfort upon being eyed with interest by an imposingly muscular black dog on a leash.)

At the front of the parade, extras carry a banner: "Cryer, Wisconsin, Home of the World's Best Santa Parade."
Welcome to the filming of Silent Night, a horror remake of a notorious 1984 slasher. Budgeted somewhere under $4 million, this new film from L.A.'s The Genre Company is based on Silent Night, Deadly Night, a film that once raised the ire of a more conservative Reagan-era American public due to unsavoury ad images of a killer Santa Claus brandishing an axe, clearly up to no good. Parents groups rallied in front of theatres in protest.
Today, it's dozens of Santas in front of a movie theatre, their movements orchestrated by director Steven C. Miller clad in a Goonies skull-and-crossbones T-shirt.
Of the 18-day shooting schedule, 15 of those days are on location in Selkirk, population 10,000. Genre Company producer Shara Kay says the town offered a wealth of atmosphere for the film, including this stretch of Manitoba Avenue, which closely resembles "the quintessential Main Street of an American small town."

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