DAY 21: THE DAY THE MISTLETOE DIED

"Oh you can pout, shout and cry all you want…
no one can hear you up here at the North Pole."

Continuing along in my holiday movie penance, twenty one days down now, only three more to go before I sleep… or turn to stone. We'll see.

Kong Lives, Firewalker, Free Willy, Battle Beyond the Stars, Superman III and IV… these are just some of the movies that at one time or another I've proclaimed to be the worst pieces of shit I've ever seen. And I suppose that at the time each proclamation was made it was an accurate statement. Batman and Robin held the title for a good long while until Superman Returns showed up in '06 to take the crown. Three years later, along came Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull and it's been king of the crap heap ever since. (The Star Wars prequels were in there somewhere, but the less said about those the better.) And looking back, Superman films have been pretty shitty affairs ever since the second one, haven't they? There's another one coming out next year but no matter how bad it might (probably) be, I don't think it's going to be able to unseat Cancel Christmas.

All right, let's just cover the plot first, get that formality out of the way. Movie opens with some suit wearing bureaucrat ripping Santa a new one because the Christmas Spirit is becoming as extinct as the term 'Made in America'. The North Pole board of directors (WTF?) has given Santa Claus ten days to turn around the attitudes of three pre-teen boys, prove he's still relevant, make them believe in Christmas again and he can keep his job. Failure to do so will result in his ass getting tossed out of the business forever. But he can't let anyone know who he really is so he disguises himself, takes a job as a janitor at the prep school the three boys attend, gets them all to change their attitudes and believe right on Christmas Eve, saves his job. The end. Bears noting that Christmas was never in danger in this one, the board wasn't gonna shut down the holiday, they were just looking to give his jelly-belly the boot, but Christmas would have continued on in another form. So this whole thing was about Santa covering his ass.

Okay, now that that's out of the way… OH HOLY SHIT! Look, this past month I've gotten used to the distinctive elements present in most Hallmark Channel original movies, the hallmarks of a Hallmark if you will. Overly sweet and cloying sentiment, bad acting, cheap sets, cinematography that looks as if the whole thing was shot with an iPhone, dialogue that sounds as if it was lifted right out of a greeting card… which, now that I think about it kinda makes sense. All of those elements are to be expected so it came as no surprise to have each and every one of them present and accounted for here. Judd Nelson's performance as Santa Claus, that was the unexpected, like finding a turd in a salad bar. (F@%king Applebee's!)

Now if you're a person in my age range… I'm so sorry, but like me you probably loved Nelson in 80s films like The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire as well as felt sorry for him in the 90s sitcom Suddenly Susan. You might have also caught him in the 2000 made-for-TV movie Cabin by the Lake where he played a deranged piece of shit who grabbed women off the street, took them up to said cabin, drowned them in the also mentioned lake and chained them at the bottom, arranged in some underwater nightmare garden. Trust me when I say that his performance then was nowhere near as creepy as the way he portrayed Santa in this thing. I seriously can't even describe it, there really are no words. (They should have sent a poet.)

When he meets two of his assigned pre-teen marks and tells them that he knows them both intimately, goes into details about their likes and dislikes, their hobbies and their dreams, it comes off as if he's lustily reading about both of them from a Playmate of the Month fact sheet. The very next scene should have been the two boys running to find a grown-up. Later on in the film Santa (or Kris Frost as he's calling himself) tells his elf assistant to book him a couple gigs as a mall Santa because he's in need of some "lap-time". EWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!! I can't even go on with this because talking about it makes me want to take another shower. Already had seven of them after watching this and I just can't get clean! But here, check out this pic from the movie below, peep the look on Santa-Nelson's face and just know that he's traded in his sleigh for a windowless van.

"This? Oh just putting some additions on
the old torture dungeon, thanks for asking."

Cancel Christmas is the one that broke me, I'm done with Hallmark. Not giving up on the mission with only three days left, but I won't be finishing the journey with those greeting card peddling bastards. Not after this. Luckily this close to Christmas there's bad holiday films dropping everywhere so I'll have no shortage of ports in the storm. Just this morning my friend Kate hit me with a list of suggestions, classic bad fare like Earnest Saves Christmas, Almost an Angel with Paul Hogan and Jingle All the Way with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Any one of them alone could induce vomiting, madness, coma or death, but I'd watch all three in one sitting before I let Hallmark have it's way with me again.

Now I gotta go seal up my fireplace because I am not letting that f@%ker in my house or anywhere near my kid! Santa Claus is coming to town… hide the children!