8 Movies To Watch If You’re Tired of the Christmas Spirit, You Grinch
By Kevin Christian L. Santos
Christmas? Bah, humbug. Though there are plenty of reasons to celebrate the season, it’s easy to get tired and burned out from all the madness and mayhem taking place. What’s there to be jolly about the holiday traffic, exorbitant surge rates, and your titas telling you how much weight you’ve gained? On the day you decide to go to the mall and go Christmas shopping, everyone else had the same idea and took their whole barangay with them. You’ve got overly sappy music playing on the radio 24/7. Cheesy movies dominate the TV. You have to give an exchange gift to someone on your office who didn’t even bother greeting you on your birthday.
Ho ho-who gives a shit? But seriously, if you want to take a break from all the saccharine holiday cheer, let the magic of movies help you escape from the suffocating season. Here are a bunch of anti-Christmas movies perfect for you. They’re not movies that are about hating Christmas, but these are the films set during Christmas time that turns the season on its head and takes a hot knife and cuts through its dark underbelly.
Starting with…
Black Christmas
He knows when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake. He knows when you’ve been bad or good and he’s going to disembowel you, regardless.
In this 1974 thriller, a psychotic killer terrorizes a sorority house on Christmas Eve, murdering its inhabitants in a variety of ways.
Though predating Halloween and the Friday the 13th series, Black Christmas doesn’t get enough recognition as being one of the pioneers of the slasher film craze. Watch it and you may just end up sleeping with a knife under your pillow every night.
Scrooged
In this retelling of A Christmas Carol, Bill Murray plays TV executive Frank Cross, a misanthropic douchenozzle of a man that makes Ebenezer Scrooge look like a saint. He’s such a jerk that he’ll fire an employee on Christmas day. With the universe tired of his crap, three ghosts visit him to teach the spirit of Christmas in this dark comedy. Though this does have a happy ending, the journey to get to the warm and fuzzy feelings is full of bleak, twisted, and hilarious turns.
Silent Night, Deadly Night
You better watch out. You better not cry. You better not pout, I’m telling you why: BECAUSE THERE’S A PSYCHO ON THE LOOSE AND HE’LL KILL YOU.
Silent Night, Deadly Night tells the story of Billy, and how his parents were murdered by a man in a Santa Claus suit. As an adult, he gets forced to wear a Santa costume by his co-workers and triggers his trauma which then leads to his insanity. He becomes a crazed murderer, killing whatever that stands in his way.
This movie is terrible, and in the “it’s so bad, it’s good” kind of way. Cheesy effects, clichés, and bad acting are peppered all over this slasher flick. It got lots of attention in its 1984 release when the film was met with protests and negative reviews. The protests got so bad that the film was pulled out after a week of its release. It was re-released months later with the protests part of the movie’s ad campaign, because there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
In Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, Santa Claus is real and he’s more terrifying than you’ve ever imagined.
A research team mistakenly unearths Santa Claus during an archaeological dig. The problem is that this isn’t the jolly Santa we all know and love. This guy is an evil, stone cold killer who’s responsible for the violent deaths of livestock and disappearances of children in the area. The bad news? His elves are also on the loose and have madness and murder on their mind.
This Santa doesn’t care if you’re naughty or nice, and he can’t wait to satisfy his appetite.
