For every heart warming Christmas classic like It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street, there is a parade of absolutely absymal holiday blunders.</
For every heart warming Christmas classic like It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street, there is a parade of absolutely absymal holiday blunders.
So with that in mind lets take a look at the coal in the stocking and the very worst of Christmas themed cinema.
10. Four Christmases (2008)
Despite being a typical holiday rom-com, this one is particularly horrendous.
Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon play a chemistry-less couple who have to visit all four of their divorced parents in one day. Predictably, hi-jinks ensue, and we are taken on a joyless journey through their uninteresting lives.
This was the second Christmas film Vince Vaughn starred in, following up on 2007’s also terrible Fred Claus.
Bad slapstick, cringe worthy jokes and committing one of the biggest movie sins, being straight up boring.
9. Santa’s Slay (2005)
Professional wrestler Bill Goldberg plays a murderous Santa Claus – that is about it.
While some films can be called so bad their good, this movie is simply so bad its bad. Santa’s Slay is vehicle for another pro-wrestler trying to launch his movie career, and the fact Goldberg went on to star in films such as Half Past Dead 2 shows it didn’t work.
I guess with the premise that Santa is really a demon who lost a bet to an angel and was forced to spread happiness and joy you couldn’t really expect much, but regardless, it is simply dreadful.
8. Home Alone: The Holiday Heist (2012)
Yes, there are five Home Alone movies.
While the first is regarded as a Christmas classic, and second is thought of fondly, once Home Alone 3 came around and Maculay Culkin was gone, the series began to bomb.
Coming a decade after Home Alone 4, Holiday Heist just leaves you asking, why?
Despite not being a flat out horrendous film in its own right, the fact it had the Home Alone name slapped onto it in a shameless effort to make a buck is inexcusable.
A totally unoriginal rehash that is barren of any sense of the charm that made the first great
.
7. Santa with Muscles (1996)
The second muscle-bound bald wrestler helmed Christmas movie to make the list.
Hulk Hogan plays a self serving businessman who suffers a bout of amnesia and wakes up thinking that he is Santa Claus, before doing battle with a scientist who wants to take over an orphanage.
Made in the midst of when The Hulkster was trying to kick-start his movie career, this family comedy is just so bland it hurts.
Hogan drags the whole movie down and this is quite possibly the worst movie he has ever made. Bearing in mind that this is the same man who made Mr Nanny, that is quite a feat.
6. The Grinch (2000)
The epitome of an ugly film.
This ill-advised and repugnant remake of the 1966 Dr Suess animated classic stars Jim Carrey as the titular character, mugging and gurning his way through an hour and a half of stomach churning mess.
The whole production is flat-out strange, taking away all the Christmas spirit and charm that the original had in spades.
Whether it be poor-taste jokes, repulsive design, or genuine mean-spiritedness, this whole picture just oozes unpleasantness.
5. Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 (1987)
Sequel to 1984’s festive slasher flick, Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 is a movie that has gained notoriety due to it being unintentionally hilarious.
Ricky, the brother of the killer from the original, is being held in a mental hospital. After retelling the events of the first film through heavy use of stock footage, Ricky escapes and goes on a festive rampage.
In this killing spree that Ricky coins the phrase that made the film famous, the overacted and laughably bad exclamation of the phrase ‘GARBAGE DAY!’
Eric Freeman’s performance is the only thing that makes this film worth watching, and that is just because it is so rib tickling awful.
4. Santa Claus Conquers The Martians (1964)
A little oddity from the sixties that once again forces you to ask the question, why?
Martians, who are just people painted green with TV aerials stuck on their heads, descend upon earth intent of kidnapping holly-jolly St Nick since their planet has forgotten the meaning of Christmas.
Made famous by a lampooning by Mystery Science Theatre 3000, it is borderline unwatchable. Everything, from the set design to the acting to the screenplay, is horrendous.
Yet it is still not the worst Santa Claus film out there…
3. Santa Claus (1959)
How can you top Santa fighting the Martians? Simple, have Santa live in a space station with an army children representing every national stereotype, robo-reindeer and his assistant Merlin the Wizard as he wages his war on the devil every Christmas.
This Mexican made film has Satan send his servant Pitch to earth to ruin Christmas, on pain of eating Ice Cream, and it is up to Santa and a pair of kids to try to stop him.
Weird is the only way I can think to describe this film is. Just flat out weird.
2. Jack Frost (1998)
I can handle a Santa Claus fighting the Martians and doing battle with Satan, but a film that stars Michael Keaton as a zombie snowman trying to reconnect with his son? That is just too far.
Jack Frost is a musician who suffers from typical movie-dad syndrome and keeps putting his work before his son. He is killed while driving in a storm and then resurrected through an unexplained magical macguffin as a walking-talking snowman.
An audience can deal with an absurd premise, but this films biggest crime is that it lacks any semblance of heart.
While it is trussed up in all the Christmas trapping with snow, tinsle and greens and reds, it is a hollow and manipulative film with no sense of genuine Christmas spirit.
Jack Frost is worth jack.
1. The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)
Yes, it is exists.
For some reason or another, after the success of the original Star Wars, George Lucas got the idea into his head to make a festive follow-up. What it turned out to be has to be seen to be believed.
Chewbecca and Han Solo are trying to make it back to the wookie home world to see Chewie’s family and celebrate the Christmas-like holiday known as ‘life-day’.
I wish there was more to say about the plot, but that is essentially it. The whole special is just a series of unrelated and pointless events, stock footage and sketches loosely tied together.
We get a cooking show, a video instruction manual, a music video from Jefferson Airplane and cartoon introducing everyone’s favourite bounty hunter Boba Fett.
This special is so atrocious that Lucas has made his personal mission to make sure everyone forgets it exists.
Lucas is the man who gave us Jar Jar Binks, angsty Anakin and sand-related flirting, yet the Holiday Special is what he is ashamed of.
That tells you all you need to know.
