I am not a fan of most Christmas movies, one might call me a Grinch. Perhaps it’s because I find them too cheerful, maybe it’s because they’re so ubiquitous, possibly it’s because I’m Jewish. Regardless, there are some Christmas movies that are so bad they should be buried in a deep dark pit where even the ghost of Christmas past couldn’t find them. Here are three of the worst offenders. If you still choose to watch them, don’t come crying to me.
Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House (2002)
Directed by Rod Daniel
Starring: Mike Weinberg, French Stewart, Missi Pyle
The first Home Alone is one of my favorite Christmas movies and its sequel doesn’t fall far behind. Then there is Home Alone 3, which despite watching, I cannot recall a single detail of. Lastly, there’s Home Alone 4, which accomplishes the miraculous by making Home Alone boring. As a child, my favorite parts of the Home Alone movies were the traps. There were always so many of them and they were always so creative, funny, and… well, violent. The traps are what made the movies fun in the first place, so one could imagine my dismay when in Home Alone 4 there appeared to be no more than…five traps? None of them were fun or interesting. Combine this with the fact that the actor playing Kevin was some inferior Macaulay Culkin and the actor playing Marv was not Daniel Stern. To add to the confusion, the character ‘Marv’ acted and dressed exactly like the other robber, Harry, despite there being no character named Harry in this film. I swear Home Alone 4 makes my head feel like somebody just chucked a brick at it.
Jack and Jill (2011)
Directed by Dennis Dugan
Starring: Adam Sandler, Katie Holmes, Al Pacino
While I know it’s more of a holiday movie rather than a Christmas movie, that’s not going to stop me from talking about this piece of flaming hot garbage. The only thing worse than Adam Sandler acting in one of his comedies would be Adam Sandler acting in one of his comedies while he plays another separate character in drag. Drag is a celebrated tradition in cinema with many actors delivering memorable and/or empowering roles in the attire, however, watching Adam Sandler stuff literal melons into his bra as some form of crude humor would unfortunately convince many of the contrary. There is little I can say that hasn’t already been said about Sandler’s comedies. Most of the jokes revolve around poorly executed slapstick, bodily functions and ‘funny’ noises. Perhaps a better name for this film would be ‘the hour and a half long advertisement’ with all of the products that are constantly being promoted on screen. In one particular scene that may be the funniest in the film for all of the wrong reasons, the legendary Al Pacino does a commercial for Dunkin’ Donuts where he sings about the all-new “Dunkachino”. Thank God this article is almost over.
Santa Jaws (2018)
Directed by Misty Talley
Starring: Reid Miller, Courtney Lauren Cummings, Hawn Tran
I’m not even going to share my thoughts on Santa Jaws, I’m just going to explain the plot. Santa Jaws is PG-rated horror… fantasy? Anyways, it’s about a kid named Cody (played by Reid Miller) who gets grounded for drawing a comic and is forced to miss the Christmas eve comic book party. In his anger over this unfortunate development, Cody draws an evil shark with a Christmas hat and tree lights wrapped around it called Santa Jaws. What Cody didn’t know was that he drew Santa Jaws with a magical pen, causing Santa Jaws to come to life and start harassing people who hang around the lake it inhabits. Santa Jaws begins eating the town’s inhabitants, many of whom are doing Christmas-related things. Eventually, the main group of characters learn some ‘interesting’ characteristics about the shark. First and foremost, it is attracted to things that are Christmas-related. After failing to kill the shark with traditional weapons, the group figures out that the only way to harm the shark is by using Christmas-related weaponry like candy cane crossbows and explosive tree ornaments. Anyways, the shark ends up killing all of Cody’s friends and family until he wakes up and realizes that it was all just a dream.
In an attempt to emulate Santa Jaws I will end this article as abruptly and unsatisfyingly as possible.
