I donʻt hate Christmas. I really donʻt. But I wouldnʻt say I love it, either.
For several years, Iʻve been watching holiday horror movies. Does this make me a "quasi-Scrooge" as I referred to myself a few years ago?
Iʻm all for peace on Earth and goodwill toward humanity (at least more than the people who run the world these days). But I find myself ambivalent this time of year. And since horror is a genre that allows me to deal with the fact that life isnʻt all puppy dogs and rainbows, it makes sense to me that one way to face my ambivalence about the holidays is to watch movies about homicidal Santas and eldritch elves.
I donʻt have the usual excuse about personal losses during this time of year. None of my significant bereavements happened this time of year, although I suppose itʻs a time when one misses those no longer present for presents.
The holiday doesnʻt have any religious connotations for me personally; I can't find myself believing the Christmas story literally, although I understand it has strong mythic significance of light and hope in a time of darkness and despair. One would think the moral and political overtones of a story of homeless refugees in a land colonized by a heartless empire would resonate more with all Christians, but the only thing that makes less sense to me than literally believing the Christmas story is the very existence of conservative American Christianity.
While Christmas has a religious element, it has multiple secular layers. Iʻm ambivalent about a lot of those, too.
Iʻve always disliked the crass commercialism of turning a jolly holiday into an excuse to buy stuff people donʻt want with money we donʻt have to live up to standards nobody can meet. Thereʻs the pressure to make things magical and perfect and cozy. Itʻs all just setting us up for disappointment, and we have plenty of that here in the realm of suffering. I feel guilty when I canʻt meet the expectations to get everyone what they want or to see all my loved ones this time of year. Itʻs all just a bit too much, isnʻt it?
And there are the Christmas songs... over and over and over everywhere you go. Ugh. Theyʻre a big part of the general cheesiness of the whole thing. Let us not dwell further than this sentence on the insipid scourge of Hallmark Christmas movies.
Still, having an excuse to chill out and eat cookies and cheese at the darkest time of the year (at least here in the Northern Hemisphere) is pretty nice. And I do get some time off for winter break (even if the unending list of professorial duties sneaks ever more into this blessed time).
As a quasi-Scrooge, I need holiday horror to deal with my ambivalence about all this.
This year I figured I canʻt call myself a quasi-Scrooge without having read a work of holiday horror thatʻs so popular nobody thinks of it as horror: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. And of course thereʻs my all-time favorite Christmas movie, Scrooged, which this year I paired with The Muppet Christmas Carol.
I also remembered that Gremlins is totally a Christmas horror movie, one that I loved as a kid. I also found a few real gems and a few more like cinematic ring pops among the movies I watched: Werewolf Santa, Santa's Slay, Silent Night, Deadly Night, and more. Did these movies meet the unreasonable expectations of the holidays? Or did they slay them?
A Christmas Carol/Scrooged/A Muppet Christmas Carol
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| Reading A Christmas Carol on an unseasonably warm afternoon |
Look, we can debate until next year whether A Christmas Carol is horror, but cʻmon. There are ghosts! And time travel! If youʻre too pretentious to call that "horror," call it "speculative fiction" or some such.
A few years ago, I listened to a podcast about A Christmas Carol as science fiction, and since Scrooged is one of my favorite Christmas movies, I figured I should read this some holiday. The public library had it on the shelves last week, and here I am. Having read this, now I can comment on how close various adaptations are. Scrooged is actually pretty close to the beats of the story, but A Muppet Christmas Carol is even more faithful to the story. Now, if only billionaires in the 21st century would be visited by three ghosts!
Iʻve always loved Scrooged (1988) for its satire of late 80ʻs excess and its critique of the materialism that degrades my love for this holiday season. But underneath all that biting satire is a nice message that we should just love each other all the time, not just on Christmas. And Bill Murray is in top form. Iʻve watched this one a lot over the years, every year as of late.
I probably havenʻt seen The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) in decades, but now that Iʻve read the book, I can say this is an extremely faithful adaptation, even down to details most adaptations ignore (like Dickensʻs descriptions of the ghosts themselves--although everyone gets the ghost of Christmas future right, because why would you not want a grim reaper/ring wraith in your movie?). The movie preserves much of the language of the book, often in Gonzoʻs narration playing the role of Dickens himself. Michael Caineʻs acting is meme-worthy (see below), and the Muppets always improve any story. Iʻd like to think Dickens would have written it with Muppets if the ghost of Christmases to come had shown him an episode of The Muppet Show. (PS: Earlier this year I was lucky to visit the Jim Henson Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, and Iʻve never left a museum smiling so much).
Gremlins (1984)
I was seven or eight when this movie came out. I donʻt remember if I saw it in theaters, but I definitely saw it on video a lot as a kid and loved it. Itʻs the kind of terrifying shit that kids watched all the time in the 80ʻs--or I did, anyway. The gremlins are scary, sure, but that monologue from Phoebe Cates about her dad dying on Christmas Eve is the stuff of classic horror.
I think kids can handle a lot more than adults think when it comes to horror (fairy tales are brutal!). Or maybe it depends on the kid. Or maybe Iʻm a childless adult and should shut up.
Anyway, I love those zany gremlins! And the mogwai are so cute, especially Gizmo. I definitely had a Gizmo doll as a kid. Is the whole plot of a white American encountering a mysterious shop in Chinatown kinda racist? Probably, but maybe less than a lot of 80's movies. The theme of the hubris of man (or that one man, anyway) is a common horror trope.
I'm also left with questions: Where do the mogwai come from? Are they frolicking in the forests of China with the pandas? Are they aliens? How did Gizmo get to that shop in the first place? How do they know what time zone they're in? Can they drink water, but if not, how do they stay hydrated? Why does breaking the rules turn them from adorable teddy bears into scaly chaos demons? Will any of Billy's dad's inventions ever work?
I may need to watch Gremlins 2 again, which turns the gremlinsʻ zany bonkersness up to 11 and turns the dial back on itself. Pure brilliance. (See this Key and Peele sketch and my review for details.)
Werewolf Santa (2023)
One thing I can definitely say about Werewold Santa: it delivers on the title. Santa is, indeed, bitten by a werewolf. And the host of a monster hunter show gets involved. Zany times ensue. This is one of the many low budget movies you can find on Amazon these days. There's a certain charm to it, but at times it felt a bit overly long for the kind of thing it is. But if you watch this you will, as I did at a holiday party after I watched this, get to say you watched a movie called Werewolf Santa.
Santa's Slay (2005)
What if Santa was a demon bound to be nice for 1000 years and then released to return to his old naughty ways of murder and mayhem? And what if Santa was played by the wrestler Goldberg? Santa's Slay answers these questions and more! This is highly entertaining comedy horror: every scene is more hilarious and bonkers than the last, especially the numerous holiday-themed kills. Since it's a Canadian production, the game of curling plays a key role. I think this one will go on my list of holiday horror favorites!
Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)
Speaking of holiday horror favorites, Silent Night, Deadly Night became one of my favorites when I first started embarking upon my jolly horror fests during the holidays. I even watched a bunch of the sequels a few years ago. This is a classic 80's slasher with classic 80's horror cheesiness. A young boy witnesses the murder of his parents by a homicidal Santa, which understandably leaves him mentally unwell. He goes to live in an orphanage run by nuns. Years later as a young man he seems to be doing better, but well... you'll never guess who becomes a slasher. I don't mean to say I approve of the main character's actions, but the holidays can challenge the mental health of us all. Apparently a remake was just released, so I'll have to check that out soon. It couldn't be worse than some of the original sequels.
Honorable (or not-so-honorable) mentions
- I watched Curtains (1983) and Iced (1989) as part of this year's Joe Bob Briggs holiday special on Shudder. Neither is technically a holiday movie, but they both take place in snowy skiing locations.
- Santastein (2023) is a fun Frankenstein-inspired Christmas movie.
- A Christmas Horror Story (2015) was a rewatch.
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