Your Christmas Movies! Whatcha' Watchin' this Christmas season?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Jingle All the Way (1996)

Arnold Schwarzenegger is the over worked businessman who promises to buy his neglected son the years hottest toy - a Turboman action figure - Unfortunately the figure sold out weeks ago and sparks a frantic and sometimes very silly doll hunt that sees Arnie crossing paths and swords with an irritating postman (Sinbad) as well as James Belushi's crooked Santa.

Arnie is always watchable even in the often slapstick action of this movie but when he becomes Turboman at the city festive parade he really comes into his own. Special mention to Phil Hartman who plays the slimy neighbour with designs on Arnie's wife (Rita Wilson) but it's best not to mention the irritating Jake (Young Annakin Skywalker) Lloyd as the son.

Any designs the film had to be a satire on materialism get's lost in the silliness but the ending is rather sweet. I'd have liked to have seen this film with a much harder and more cynical edge to it but as it stands Jingle All the Way just about steers on the right side of watchable

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Dead of Night - The Exorcism (1972)

A couple Racjel and Edmund (Anna Cropper and Edward Petherbridge) who have moved into a new cottage in the countryside invite their friends (Sylvia Kay and Clive Swift) over for dinner on Christmas Eve. It's not long into the meal when things take a turn for worse as they discover they are trapped in the cottage with a vengeful spirit.

This is an excellent fifty minute horror story. Extremely chilling and wonderfully eerie with bizarre occurrences like the wine tasting of blood to Petherbridge and the turkey making them sick. The pay off which is an acting tour de force by Cropper as the possessed Rachel is especially harrowing.

The Exorcism is one of only three surviving episodes along with Return Flight and the equally blood curdling A Woman Sobbing.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas (2011)

When Harold's (John Cho) new father in law (Danny Trejo) brings him the traditional family Christmas tree for their annual get together, best friend Kumar (Kal Penn) ends up destroying it in a ball of flame. Too scared to tell Trejo the duo set out on Christmas Eve to replace the tree - A near impossible task.

Occasionally very funny, occasionally very silly, A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas survives just about on the likability of Cho and Penn and the scrapes they get into. It's amiable enough and there's the right amount of sweet sentimentality to disguise the fact the sweetness is dipped in cocaine, weed and bodily fluids.

And then there's the obligatory cameo from Neil Patrick Harris playing an obnoxious version of himself, despite being shot dead outside a Texan whorehouse seven years previous.

Funniest scene - Harold with his cock frozen to a pole when tied up by Russian mobsters.

Not essential Christmas viewing but a bit of fun every few years.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Holiday Affair (1949)

A charming if little known romantic comedy / Christmas movie from RKO in which Janet Leigh plays a single widowed mother whose husband was killed during the war, torn between Robert Mitchum and Wendell Corey (Is that actually a contest?) but it's complicated by her son's preference being not the fella she's actually engaged to.

There's not a malicious thing in this film yet it's far from saccharine sweet and there's a lovely sense of a New York Christmas throughout, with Mitchum, fresh from a possible career damaging drug bust, showing he can do more than simply play tough guys in tough films with a beautifully subtle performance.

The scene where Mitchum is hauled up in the police station with Leigh and Corey bailing him out is comedy gold.

[iank]

The Family Stone. An uptight businesswoman heads to spend the holidays with her fiance's family, but nothing goes quite as planned. There's a great cast in this family Christmas movie including Diane Keaton, Craig T Nelson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Dermot Mulroney, Luke Wilson, Rachel McAdams and Claire Danes. Fun, if nothing spectacular.

[MrBarlow]

The Lodge. 2019.

Jaeden Martell and Lia McHugh play siblings who after the death of their Mother Alicia Silverstone, head to a remote cabin with their dad's new girlfriend Riley Keough in a bonding experience over Christmas, when their dad is called away it becomes unsettling.

I'm not going to lie, this was a very slow burner for me yet I still watched it on how it will play out. There is a hint of a cult and nod to the Heaven's Gate cult added in. It does play out if it's supernatural element or is it more psychological games and who is doing it, whether it be the up and coming stepmother or the kids playing the games. it certainly does have the fear, isolation and cabin fever mixed in. I really wanted to like it as the acting and direction was good but some bits did drag on a lot.

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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Bishop's Wife (1947)

Another viewing for this excellent comedy / drama. Cary Grant is so appealing as an angel sent to earth to help David Niven's bishop and his wife as played by Loretta Young.

The way Grant silently manipulates those around him, all in a good way i must add. A look here, a wave of the finger there, i don't know, it makes me think that a it gave a certain George Lucas the idea for 'The Force'.

Quite similar to It's a Wonderful Life in a way, but i find this an all round more charming watch. However it lacks the final half hour of the James Stewart film which is one of the greatest half hours in cinema and always has me in floods of tears

If you get the chance to see this for the first time i heartily recommend it.

[MrBarlow]

Rare Exports. 2010.

Filmed in Finland this is a darker tale of Santa and his elves, Its not gory as this is one of those less is more type of films but it is quite creepy and a lot of male nudity that doesn't distract you from the film itself and does have the young boy trying to tell the adults what is happening and is completely ignored until things come to light.

What make the subsequent events interesting and entertaining is the skill the director has in pacing the film and the actors in creating believable characters. Onni Tommila the actor playing Pietari who somehow manages to be the near young hero who learns to grow up faster than he wants. This is a strange one that does start off interesting then slides a bit then goes back on track with one or two funny/comical comments then goes back to be a serious dark chiller film.

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[Frankie Teardrop]

IT'S A WONDERFUL KNIFE – Cute move, tweaking the outline of the Frank Capra classic to fit the slasher mould; you get the feeling that some movies start off as more of a title than a concept, but it’s snappy enough as one-liners go. Instead of Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey we have Jane Widdup as Winnie Carruthers, a teenager whose life falls apart after she foils the mayor’s shot at serial killing. She does the whole ‘wishing she’d never been born’ thing and ends up having to save the town from a parallel reality murder spree. This fairy tale slasher doesn’t get everything right but scores enough points – it boasts an ace angel of death slasher, free and easy gore, and a dollop of mawkishness – to be worth a yuletide watch.

[MrBarlow]

Curse Of The cat People. 1944.

Jaques Tourneur 1942 Cat People is a classic film and sequels maybe hard to match up to it's predecessor but somehow this one is enjoyable. Horror movie buffs maybe disappointed as this is more family friendly mystery rather than horror. Simone Simon returns as Irena, this time as ghost and only seen by her husband's daughter played by Ann Carter who is a young friendless child but manages to make friends with old lady Julia Dean. There is mystery as to who is the voice behind the curtain and window and why the house seems to be well known to everyone in the little town. It does give out the question of is Irena really there or just a child's imagination which Robert Wise seemed to introduce to the audience's thoughts. This is one i'd certainly recommend to watch.

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