Tis the season, am I right guys?
As I have previously mentioned on this blog, I love
Christmas time! The holiday season just
constantly brings joy to me for a month straight and I’m all for helping spread
some holiday cheer. Now more so than
ever before as I don’t need to be a news reporter to tell you why.
One of my many projects I’ve wanted to do for quite some
time are Christmas movie countdowns. I
have watched so many Christmas movies over the years that I feel pretty
comfortable in doing both best and worst lists of this subgenre. And like I said one post ago, I know what
sort of lists get me the most views, so let’s start off with the worst
Christmas movies.
I’m not going to mince words. This list is going to be chalk full of some
spectacular failures in trying to spread Christmas cheer. And one note I’m going to get out of the way
now…most of this worst list is going to consist of 2000’s Christmas
movies. Yeah that decade in particular
shelved out some of the largest amount of holiday stinkers I had to sit through
while compiling this list. I’m surprised
I didn’t come out even more cynical due to how hollow a lot of those films
were.
So let’s not waste any time further, we are counting down!
THE TOP TEN WORST CHRISTMAS FILMS
Honestly, I didn’t want to place this one here
initially. What I wanted to place on
here was last year’s Black Christmas remake which was just a spectacular
failure of a remake. But at the end of
the day, it’s a horror movie remake and those rarely so often end up being as
good as the original
So instead, let’s talk about an infamous bad movie. This is a try and true worst list and despite
being so bad that I found it good, it was still pretty damn bad to sit through.
10. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnEJrwYXXsI
Honestly wanted to just post the Mystery Science Theater
3000 riffing of this and move on to the next entry. But I do want to chime in with some fair
analysis of this. Just because this was
made in the 1960s doesn’t excuse its poor quality. Just because MST3K tore this to pieces
doesn’t give it a charming cult status.
I mean yeah, bad films of this era are so lame and dated that it’s
impossible to truly hate. But when it
comes to trying to be an actual Christmas film….this just fails spectacularly.
For those of you who didn’t watch MST3K riff this or dare I
say, actually watch this on your own merits, aliens abduct Santa Claus so he
can give their Martian children presents, with one alien in particular wanting
to kill Santa due to him corrupting children all over the world.
The acting is hokey, the direction is terrible, the script
is awful. Just everything about this
movie is so incredibly corny that it deserves to be in the conversation of
worst movies ever made. But most
importantly, it just fails as a Christmas movie and that’s the main reason I
hate it.
So the year is 2007.
And I’m Vince Vaughn. What do I
do after getting off superstar making roles in The Wedding Crashers and The
Break Up? Star in back to back awful
Christmas movies the next two years of course.
9. Fred Claus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzXjtxZaGS8
8. Four Christmases
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6veo6Js7HUE
The career of Vince Vaughn has always been one of the more
fascinating ones to me. Do I think he’s
talented? Yes. I always thought that. Even back with his earlier material in the
90’s. He just needed to find a genre to
utilize his talents in and in the 2000’s he finally found it in comedy. But just as quickly, he burned out in the
genre just as fast as it took for him to find his genre niche. Not helping matters is that he picked out
some of the worst comedies to showcase his talent in post-Wedding Crashers and
it really showed no better than in both of his Christmas comedy stinkers.
Honestly, trying to pick which one is worse is hard because
both movies are more or less the same tone wise. Mean-spirited comedies about dysfunctional
families during the holiday season. The
only difference being that Fred Claus is about a brother tired of being
overshadowed by the more famous holiday figure that is Saint Nick himself. While Four Christmases is about four entirely
different dysfunctional families. But
Vince Vaughn himself basically plays the same guy that he always played around
this time figure: the fast-talking full of himself angry guy who is
misunderstood. It just got super old
hearing his style of comedy so quick that it makes it hard to really connect
with the characters the guy played.
I guess for the sake of this ranking, I’d say Four
Christmases is worse because it misuses far too many talented actors and
actresses, most notably Reese Witherspoon.
But that’s not saying Fred Claus is any worse because of it. I hate how like 80% of that movie is so tone
deaf that when it comes to the warm Christmas ending, it doesn’t even remotely
earn that. And speaking of unearned
endings, the only ending Four Christmases truly earned were Vince and Reese’s
characters going their separate ways because that third act break-up make-up
did not even remotely work after all the bullshit they did to each other.
…see? These movies
are far too alike. Hence the tie. Both are shit. Next.
The most recent entry on this list and…it’s a melodramatic
snoozer.
7. Love the Coopers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TSX_0rwPNc
Five years later and this is still watching a bunch of
ungrateful shits be ungrateful shits for an hour and a half. This made my Worst Films of 2015 list back in
the day and honestly after rewatching it for the first time in five years, I’m
starting to question if I placed this too low back in the day. What were my bottom six again from that year?
Fifty Shades of Grey, Pan, Aloha, Hot Tub Time Machine 2,
Jupiter Ascending, and Fan4stic
….nah never mind, it’s still number seven. Jesus the bad movies of 2015 were BAD!
I said back then and I’ll say it again now. There is a place in this world for movies
about dysfunctional families. But at
least add some humanity towards these characters instead of just making them
out to be terrible people for the sake of being terrible. Still not a single redeemable character
except for the dog. And even then, they
made the dog out to be the narrator of the movie. Spoiler?
Oh who cares! Nobody is going to
watch this awful movie on my lack of recommendation anyway.
I still remember when this next one got released. The studio blamed it on trying to release a
Christmas movie in October. Nice
cover-up for not blaming this one on just being awful.
6. Surviving Christmas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIcNy0KWosU
2004 was not a good time to be Ben Affleck. An actor who got so overexposed in the media,
whether it being him being an unlikeable piece of shit or being a part of one
of the worst celebrity couples of all time with Jennifer Lopez. It was hard to remember why anyone found this
guy charming to begin with. To the point
that seeing his smug face on any poster or film screen became incredibly toxic
to any project.
But man, this movie title sure hit the nail on the
head. I felt like I was trying to
survive this movie through its ninety minute run time. What a bunch of unlikeable characters. Every last one of them just made my stomach
churn. This movie was basically
unpleasant characters attacking each other physically or verbally like 70% of
its run time. And the unnecessary
subplots and characters that kept getting piled on just so the four main leads
can keep being pieces of shit to each other.
It’s a miracle this isn’t any lower.
Ever find yourself asking what if they made a full length
movie all about Christmas Vacation’s Clark Griswolds’ side plot about having
the most lighted Christmas house on Earth?
Well you’re in luck National Lampoon fans! Too bad it sucked ass.
5. Deck the Halls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1A2uWWF1ZU
Honestly, just copy and paste the last few entries because
it’s more or less the same problem here that is in so many of these bad
Christmas movies. Dysfunctional
relationships. Mean-spirited
protagonists. Awful slapstick. Unearned third act resolutions. Failing at being a Christmas movie.
What makes Deck the Halls worse than the first half of this
list though is its preposterous plot.
Who the fuck actually thought this would even be remotely interesting
for ninety minutes? It’s just fucking
decorations. Who the fuck thought anyone
would care about this faux dick measuring contest? And I’m not kidding. There is an unsubtle adult joke about that in
this movie. It has a PG rating. Blech.
Honestly I could go further, but one of my favorite film
critics Richard Roeper said it best in his television show that I still love to
this day:
"You cannot believe how excruciatingly awful this movie
is. It is bad in a way that will cause unfortunate viewers to huddle in the
lobby afterward, hugging in small groups, consoling one another with the
knowledge that it's over, it's over -- thank God, it's over. [...] Compared to
the honest hard labor performed by tens of millions of Americans every day, a
film critic's job is like a winning lottery ticket. But there IS work involved,
and it can be painful -- and the next time someone tells me I have the best job
in the world, I'm going to grab them by the ear,
fourth-grade-teacher-in-1966-style, and drag them to see Deck the Halls."
Thank you Wikipedia for saving that transcript. So true.
Next.
Look it’s easy to hate Tim Allen now. It’s one thing to being a proud conservative
in liberal Hollywood. But it’s another
thing entirely to tweet conspiracy theory nutjob shit on a fairly constant
basis. He’s become trash.
That said, I still have fond memories of Home Improvement
and Tim Allen’s movies from my childhood.
Sure his movies weren’t all good, but a lot of his characters were
entertaining enough or in Buzz Lightyear’s case, iconic. I mean the man was a lot of children’s memory
of what Santa Claus looked like. For at
least the first two movies that is.
4. The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpyBrTSUO5k
I’ll go ahead and say it.
I really liked the first two Santa Clause movies a lot. The first one has aged fairly well if you ask
me. Just like the first two Home Alones
before it, the first Santa Clause has become a yearly holiday staple in a lot
of houses based off the streaming numbers it gets. And while the sequel isn’t nearly as good as
the original, I’ll go up to bat for it saying it’s still good in its own
right. I mean I groaned as a teenager
discovering they were going to basically make the sequel into a romantic
comedy, but the chemistry was there and it spread just enough Christmas magic
for me to forgive some of its shortcomings.
That’s not the case with the third movie. Which was atrocious the first time I saw it
and is insufferable now. You can tell
just by watching the trailer that they only made this movie for money because
the sequel exceeded initial expectations.
And you can tell just by watching this movie that nobody wants to be in
this or at the very least the actors and actresses are looking for some sort of
direction. Everything about this movie
just feels forced into existence. The
plot itself takes place for like maybe twenty to thirty minutes. The conflict literally is forced by the
antagonist purposely screwing up to get to the plot. The acting feels like a lot of first takes,
which I know isn’t the case because there are a lot of bloopers at the end.
It’s just a forced out threequel that really had no purpose
and it left me wanting to escape (clause).
Let’s take a break from 2000s crappy Christmas nostalgia for
a brief minute and talk about a festive stinker from the 90s for a minute.
3. I’ll Be Home for Christmas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CI_gnWO3Ks
Honestly the best way to describe this movie is “it’s of its
time”. That’s the only way I can even
remotely to begin how dated-ly 90s this movie feels. Almost all 90s family comedies were basically
just like this movie. Riddled with clichés,
ancient jokes, dumb plotted, and empty and hollow. Oh and don’t forget Jonathan Taylor
Thomas. You can’t get more 90s than
having Jonathan Taylor Thomas in a lead role.
So why is this so high up on the list? Because I find the lead character of this
movie insufferable. I don’t sympathize
with the lead character of this movie even the slightest bit. Which y’know, his backstory is indeed sad. I can imagine if this performance was written
and conveyed better, then maybe it might have worked for me. But JTT is phoning it in so hard. His character is written to be so
self-centered. So conceited. So shallow.
That I can’t even bother to begin to care about the lessons this guy has
to go through about being unselfish.
Being forgiving. Being compassionate. And when he is the sole focus of so much of
this movie, it just makes it so much harder for me to even want to watch.
I know a lot of people who are nostalgic for this movie, but
I didn’t like it as a kid and I certainly still don’t like it now. Guess this is my hot take on this list, but
with the amount of holiday classic lists I don’t see this on as the years go
by, it’s probably not a hot take. Next.
But if you want to talk about failing at being a Christmas
movie, at least all these movies loved Christmas.
2. Christmas with the Kranks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTzyGuB9V6c
If I didn’t binge so many Christmas movies I’ve never seen
before for this list, this would have easily been my number one no questions
asked. When people asked growing up what
one of my least favorite movies of all time was, I would refer to this one for
a few years. That was before I became a
movie buff and saw so much worse. But
even with the amount of shit I’ve sat through in my lifetime, this is
definitely high up there for some of the most unlikeable awful asshole leads
I’ve ever come across.
For those of you who aren’t aware of what this shit is, this
movie is about two selfish pricks who decide to not celebrate Christmas because
they want to go on a cruise for the holidays.
And this leads to a bunch of asshole neighbors who punish them for being
assholes by being assholes themselves via concern trolling. And my god, do they concern troll the shit
out of them. So far, my lists have had a
lot of awful characters, but this might be the only movie where not a single
character is worth salvaging. Everybody
is an asshole. Even the characters who
have a plot twist that try to make them humanized? Assholes.
And it’s not like I don’t like mean-spirited movies like
this is trying to be. But when you can’t
make a single moment of this movie redeemable or try to be humanized for its
audience? You’ve done fucked up.
Honestly entering into this I thought for sure Christmas
with the Kranks would be my surefire number one. There is no possible way that it could be
topped I said. Like you’d have to go the
extra mile and make something so shockingly tasteless. So vile and inhumane. Something with so much bad taste that I would
have to struggle to finish it just for this list. There was no way something like that would
even exist I said.
…WHO IN THE NINE HELLS DECIDED TO ADD NAZIS TO THE
NUTCRACKER!?!?!
1. The Nutcracker in 3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgv6W7xkomk
…I…I’ve got no words.
Heinous. Absolutely heinous
movie. Where do I even begin with how
atrocious this movie is?
For starters, they desecrated all over a holiday
classic. When your titular character’s
hideous CGI is not even in the top ten of this movie’s problems, y’know you
done fucked up. Albert Einstein is in
this movie. Was he even in the
Nutcracker? No. Did you know that Tchaikovsky wanted lyrics
towards his classic Nutcracker score?
The Nutcracker in 3D did just that.
What an insult to such an iconic series of music.
The acting is fucking awful.
So many good actors and actresses, not even remotely trying. From Nathan Lane to Elle Fanning to John
Turturro. All giving F-levels of
effort. I mean I would be too if the
director of Tango & Cash wasn’t even bothering to make this movie as tasteless
as it was. I bet they came on to the set
every day crying over how hideous this movie is.
Well, let’s get to the tasteless part. The rats from the classic Nutcracker ballet
have been turned into Nazis in this movie.
And it’s not even being remotely coy about it. They were Nazi paraphernalia. They have a rat Hitler who is needlessly
cruel to everyone around him. They tear
the heads off of people…I nearly gaged at that sight. They do….whatever the hell this is:
…god that was in my nightmares for days. I’m not joking. And worst of all? They give off imagery of reenacting the
Holocaust by burning toys alive. DID
SOMEONE PROOFREAD THIS MY GOD?!!?! I’m
not even going to dive in to the levels of fucked up this was and how it even
got put to film for 90 million dollars.
Look, take my word for it.
I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve told myself this is one
of the worst movies I’ve ever sat through in my life and this my friends was
one of those moments. Absolutely
horrible movie from start to finish and miles away, the worst Christmas movie I
have ever seen.
-------
And that's the worst Christmas movies I've ever seen. Will try to get the best list up in the coming week or two, but first, I want to do my Christmas music post. Instead of doing a traditional Winter 2020 Top 20 ranking, I will be focusing on solely Christmas music this time. After all, the Christmas music tends to dominate the charts around this time of the year, so why not rank the twenty highest charting Christmas songs instead? Tune in for that. Until next time, thank you guys for reading. Stay tuned for more content on the way.
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