A Bad Christmas Movie

[AndyC]

Christmas is one of the few times of year my editor actually asks me for a bad movie review. News gets really slow for a couple of weeks. So, it's become an annual tradition that I review a bad Christmas movie. Problem is, I'm running out.

I've done Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Mexican Santa Claus, The Star Wars Holiday Special and Santa with Muscles. Last year, I did Gamera vs. Guiron, because Gamera is jolly, round, flies through the air, and kids love him. Now, I'm stuck once again, and need suggestions.

Only a couple of rules - the movie needs to be an absolute cheesefest, not merely a bad Christmas movie, and I don't particularly want to get into Christmas slashers. So no Silent Night, Deadly Night.

Suggestions?

[joob-joob]

Have you seen "The Christmas Martian"? It's a really weird family movie I saw on TV a few years ago. Worth seeking out.

[daveblackeye15]

I don't think I can help you in this department. The closest I can come is

Son of Godzilla (spoiler ending warning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) : What? The ending has Godzilla and his son covered in snow at the end, ho ho ho ho anybody? And the giant Spider Spiga's webbing looks like something you can have fun with at a christmas party or....

Godzilla's Revenge: It's got stock footage battles plus the new fight scene with Gabera monster, plus a story line about a kid and two lame crooks, Minia talking (so cool! Best parts of the movie are with this guy talking!) AND a guy get's white paint all over his body at the end HA HA! I mean this movie has so much stuff in it it's like an entire christmas tree complete with presents!

I'll look around my video collection and my MST3K collection and see if there's anything at least REMOTELY Christmasly.

Maybe Jingle all the Way (haven't seen it but didn't look to neat or good.)

[peter johnson]

Jeremy Creek:  The Town That Forgot Christmas --
Animated.  Was supposed to become an annual thing eg:  Frosty the Snowman, or whatever.  Lots of big name stars involved.  Dick VanDyke narrarates.  
Apparently very bad -- nobody watched it.  Those who did watch it, hated it.  Recent -- late 80's/early 90's.  Don't know who has it or where it's available, but it did run on network TV.
peter johnson/denny crane

[daveblackeye15]

Hey, remember watching that several years ago! I was like "Jermey Creek, why is that so familiar?" It was okay to me. The story went that a spoiled brat wanted a crap load more of toys (even though he already had a crap load of toys) and sends Santa a list. However Santa's elf's are dumbasses and think that Jeremy Creek is a litte poor town and they drop off Jermey's stuff at the town. Jeremy is really mad until he hears how the children of the town are happy about receiving all the toys and thus becomes more kind hearted (WOW!) EVIL has been defeated again! This might be a good one for AndyC but I think it's only half an hour long, maybe 45 minutes at the most.

[peter johnson]

Whoa -- really?  I'm actually glad to hear that at least SOMEONE likes it, as it was a huge commercial failure -- I care because a couple of my friends did voices in it, and were really p**sed off when it didn't score with the ratings people/networks.  Maybe it IS good then -- I don't know, I was working the only time it was shown in Colorado, so never saw it.  Only really remember my friends' anguish at it going nowhere --
peter johnson/denny crane

[saintmort]

Jaws The Revenge...unnecessary Sequal with even more unnecessary Christmas theme throughout

[Sugar_Nads]

"Black Christmas".... nuff said ; )

[joob-joob]

"Christmas Evil"!

[Chris]

"Babes in Toyland" w/Keanu Reeves, Drew Barrymore and Pat Morita as the Toy Master!. Nuff Said!

[Ozzymandias]

I don't know the name of it, but when I was a kid in the early 70's they used to show this horrible movie where Jason Robbards was a drunken jerk who wouldn't buy the family a Christmas tree. He just would drink and tell his wife and daughter to shut up. (Talk about holliday fun!) I guess it was popular because there was more than one. I think the other one was Thanksgiving and he wouldn't get a turkey or maybe at Halloween he wouldn't buy a Jack O'Lantern..

[Andrew]

I have to say, I had started reading the thread and thinking about it when I saw this suggestion.  I think that AndyC's major problem is picking a silly Christmas movie that he can review without annoying all the "family readers" out there.  The Barrymore "Babes in Toyland" is perfect.  It is not a slasher, nor extreme in subject matter, but it is a really goofy holiday film.

All I had come up with was the European "Jack Frost" film with the "sampo" (or something like that) and "Gorath" as well.  I believe the prior film's name is "Morozko" (1964).

Honestly, I had thought about "Elves," but that is something of a slasher.  I'd also thought about one of the "Santo" films.

Although, I found this and it has my curiosity aroused:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138074/

[Yaddo 42]

Would the 80s high profile bomb "Santa Claus: The Movie" work? Dudley Moore stars as an elf jealous of the glory Santa gets, and is lured away by an evil coporate toy company (headed by John Lithgow) to front a rival profit-driven gift giving operation. Was a notorious flop the year it came out, 1986 IIRC, due to the overkill of ads. Just as crass and phony as the bad guys in their own film.

"The Littlest Angel" (1969) - A made for TV musical starring Johnny Whitaker, Fred Gwynne, Cab Calloway, Connie Stevens, and Tony Randall. Shot on videotape with lots of bad video effects shots typical of the era. A shepherd boy dies when he falls from a cliff and wants to become an angel. Been years since I've seen it, but the mix of 60s era TV effects, musical numbers, aging mid-level stars, and the death of a child as the starting point for a Christmas story give the whole thing an air of being tacky and morbid at the same time.

[daveblackeye15]

Oh yeah Morozko I forgot about that one, that movie made GREAT episode of MST3K. So bad!

[AndyC]

The Littlest Angel sounds like a good candidate if I can find it. Babes in Toyland is a good runner up.

Santa Claus: The Movie is probably a good backup (guarateed easy to find), except that the humour might be lost on most of the readers. I imagine there are a few sarcastic bastards like us buying the paper, but I'm mostly writing to a more general audience. The biggest challenge in this is not to come off as bashing a movie that some people actually like, or look like I'm just a geek picking apart an inferior movie. So far, I've mainly done films that are goofy enough that simply describing them is enough to make people laugh, and my comments are icing on the cake. Santa Claus could be a challenge, but I'll watch it and see what I can come up with. Maybe if I approach it from the right angle, turn the movie on its head, it could be good.



Post Edited (12-13-04 17:50)