Any of you who happened to drop in on my main journal in the run-up to last Christmas can’t have failed to have seen my series of “25 of the worst Christmas albums --- ever!” It was fun, I enjoyed it and this year I’m doing it again --- nah. No way I’m going through that again! And anyway, what would be the point of rehashing the same idea in the same journal? No; much better to rehash the same idea in another journal, and let’s face it I have five to choose from. So what else do you associate with Christmas. Oh yeah.
Now I’m not talking about the repeated-so-often-you-know-every-word movies that are still good, just guilty of having been on far too many times. We’ve all groaned at the fact that “Willie Wonka” is on again, then settled down and relived our childhood memories, singing every song, cheering for the good guys and booing the bad. And we’ve all sneered at the repeats of “Miracle on 134th Street” or “It’s a wonderful life”, but you know, there’s nothing else on and we’re too full of turkey to move and what the hell … and we realise these are also good, classic movies, again just a victim of TV oversaturation every Christmas. But those are not the movies I’m talking about. Some films drive you mad because they’re on every year, not because they’re bad movies in themselves.
But then, there are the other kind. The bad kind. The sort of movies that should never even have been made, and probably wouldn’t have been if they didn’t have the word “Christmas” in them, or a Christmas theme or story that basically just props up a really badly-written and/or acted movie. Movies that make you hate Christmas, or make you long for just one more showing of “Oliver!” or “The snowman”. Movies that have no inherent value or merit at all, and only make you wish whoever wrote, starred in and directed them (and financed them) had taken the time to look at the real Christmas movies, to see how it’s done.
Now I’m no movie critic (Hi, Exo!)
so I have no intention of reviewing, critiquing or in many cases even watching these movies. For once, I’m going to be led by popular opinion and told what to think by experts in the field. Hey, they know more about movies than I do: why not? Tying in with the overall tongue-in-cheek nature of this feature, which was and is never meant to be taken all that seriously --- so if you happen to love or rate one of these movies don’t start shouting at me: it’s Christmas. Or soon will be. Take it in the spirit in which it’s intended --- I’ll be giving a very brief outline of the movies, mostly taken from IMDB, letting you know who “starred” in them, and if any actors or actresses who should have known better got conned into performing in them, and throwing in a few of my own mostly badly-chosen comments.
So before you open that TV guide or check your EPG and roll your eyes saying “Oh no! Not THAT one again!” check these movies out and perhaps you’ll end up being thankful for that fourth screening of “The sound of music”. Possibly.
(Disclaimer: Neither Trollheart nor The Couch Potato (™) agree to be held liable should you find yourself not grateful for that fourth screening of “The sound of music”.)
Oh, as was the case the last time, these are in no particular order. Some may be worse than others, and probably are, but I haven’t ranked them or anything.
Elves (1989)
OK well I don’t know whether, if I was ranking them, which I’m not, this should be at the top or bottom, but either way it’s gotta be up there with some of the worst films, not even Christmas films, ever. Just listen to the blurb from IMDB, which is where I’m going to be getting most of my synopses, in a Batlord-style attack of laziness. Again I say, it’s Christmas! You expect me to work?
A young woman discovers that she is the focus of an evil nazi experiment involving selective breeding and summoned elves, an attempt to create a race of supermen. She and two of her friends are trapped in a department store with an elf, and only Dan Haggerty, as the renegade loose-cannon Santa Claus, can save them.
Oh yeah, this has it all. Santa, elves and Nazis. Written and directed by the same guy, what a surprise, and although featuring a whole cast who could easily come under the category of “nobody you know”, it does have some interesting names in it, such as the boy whose surname is Grimm, someone called Winter Monk (really!) and a girl called Heidi who has the dubious distinction of being cast as the “bitchy coed”. Oh man, you couldn’t make this stuff up!
With themes such as rape, racial superiority and, er, horror, this is just the movie to put you in that warm, glowing Christmas holiday mood.
Threaded Mode