Christmas Movies You’d Love to Hate
Now the holidays aren’t for everyone, and I get that, but some of us do enjoy a good Christmas spectacular now and again. This means digging into our DVD collections and pulling out those once a year favourites be it Christmas Vacation or Scrooge. Then there are those other movies, ones that you might have seen a million times, or even just once, that make you doubt the veracity of the occasion. This list is for them.
| Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964) When people talk about bad Christmas movies, this one is usually at the top of their list. But like Plan 9 from Outer Space, SCCTM has gained cult status as one of those movies that’s so bad, it’s good after being featured on a segment of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. It’s got a timely message about the mind-warping dangers of “Earth-television” and the necessity to let kids be kids, all wrapped up in special effects that looked low rent by 1958 standards, and the film was made in ’64. It’s often been heard that it’s being remade, but honestly, how can you improve on perfection? Or make that the Bizarro-version of perfection. Jingle All the Way (1994) The one in which Arnold Schwarzenegger proclaims, “I'm not a pervert! I was just looking for a Turbo Man doll!” In Jingle, the Governator plays a father who attempts to wash away a year’s worth of neglect and detachment by buying his son (played by future, younger Darth Vader Jake Lloyd) a Turbo Man doll. Only one thing stands in his way: Sinbad as a similarly forlorn dad. Which begins the question: How can Sinbad possibly be a match for the guy that beat the T-1000? And the answer is: because there’s no such thing as a plausible Schwarzenegger comedy. Assuming, you discount his tenure as California’s Governor of course. |  |
 | Santa with Muscles (1996) This just has cheese written all over it. Hulk Hogan gets amnesia, starts to believe that he’s Santa Claus, and protects a local orphanage from unscrupulous bad guys with extreme severity, all while wearing a sleeveless Santa coat. I can’t believe this isn’t a Christmas classic. The Santa Clause (1994) Tim Allen kills Santa and steals his identity. His son thinks its cool, but the kid’s mother and his new stepfather think that Tim’s delusion that he’s now the fat man with the initials SC is the sign of a deranged mind. Well, technically they’re both right, I guess. Somehow, inexplicably, it was followed by two sequels. Christmas with the Kranks (2004) Why Santa, why? Why does Tim Allen keep making Christmas-themed movies? Based on John Grisham’s decidedly non-legal-based novella Skipping Christmas, Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis star as a married couple that decide to capitalize on their daughter’s absence this holiday by trading an inflatable Frosty for a tropical cruise. Because they live on Insane Street, U.S.A., all their neighbours get in an uproar because the Kranks are well-known for being the centre of the Christmas celebrations and now there’s a festive vacuum. It seems to me, what these people should have been asking Santa for is a life. |
The Grinch (2000) I understand the idea. Popular children’s book, plus family favourite cartoon special, plus live-action, plus film comedy’s biggest star at the time equals… about 22 pages of script horrendously spread over a two hour running time. From hiring Ron Howard to direct to turning the Grinch’s modus operandi from son-of-a-bitchiness to being a disgruntled emo-kid, there wasn’t a lot about this Grinch that worked. Plus it gave license for the studio to proceed with the live action Cat in the Hat. Thanks for that by the way. Surviving Christmas (2004) Ben Affleck, back during the J.Lo spiral disaster of the early oughts, was given a script where in he would play a bored billionaire that buys a family for Christmas and annoys them with all his incessant prattling – and he took it. The one thing in this movie that’s actually funny is the look on James Gandolfini’s face that says, “I’m going to fire my agent on Monday.” But hey, the 8 out of 107 critics that endorsed this thing can’t be wrong right? |  |
 | Reindeer Games (2000) Before Affleck Survived Christmas, he played some Reindeer Games. And by “Reindeer Games” we mean a convoluted heist plot where in absolutely nothing makes even the remotest bit of sense. Truly, Affleck’s fall from grace probably started here, although others would probably identify Forces of Nature as the first domino to fall. Still though, considering the quality of the stars – Charlize Theron, Gary Sinese… Ron Jeremy – this thing is a colossal failure because of its hook: the inevitable twists. There are enough twists in this thing for a decades worth of Shyamalan movies. Plus, this whole thing rests on accepting the idea of Affleck being a harden criminal. Prisoner of love, maybe, but not regular, run-of-the-mill criminality. Home Alone (1990) In this hilarious ode to child abandonment, a loveable moppet (well, loved by all except his family it seems) is forgotten in the hustle and bustle of rushing to the airport for Christmas vacation. But in the end, he is ideally placed to thwart two burglars with a series of death traps inflicting blunt force trauma, third degree burns to the left hand and the head, multiple lacerations to the feet and assorted other injuries that would, at the very least, result in a visit to the emergency room. To make matters worse, the same kid finds himself on the wrong flight a year later, single-handedly proving the gap in airport security in pre-9/11 America. |
Ebbie (1995)
Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol, although originally written as a bygones for an unpaid debt, has shown incredible versatility since it was first (perhaps) brought to the big screen in 1908. Well, in this made-for-TV effort, Ebenezer gets a sex-change, becoming Ebbie Scrooge as played by daytime diva and 20-time Emmy loser, Susan Lucci and “Roberta” Cratchet is played by Canucklehead Wendy Crewson. Now before you think the whole cast has been gender bent, rest assured that Tiny Tim is still a Tim, and played by Home Improvement’s Taran Noah Smith when we was young, impressionable and still building his resume. Oh, and Jacob Marley is referred to as Jake and he talks to “God” on a cell phone. Humbug.
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