There’s no way that National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation should be as good as it is. By 1989, Chevy Chase had become, well, Chevy Chase and a holiday film three movies in feels like a cash-in. And yet this is a movie that my wife’s family watches every single year and now, I’ve become part of that tradition.
The first movie by director Jeremiah S. Chechik (who went on to direct Diabolique), the real joy of this movie is the script by John Hughes, based on his story Christmas ’59.
Chase and D’Angelo are back, but as always, the kids are played by different actors. This time, Audrey is Juliette Lewis and Rusty is Johnny Galecki. This probably has the smartest casting of any of the films in the series, with Clark’s parents being played by John Randolph and Diane Ladd, Ellen’s by E.G. Marshall and Doris Roberts, William Hickey and Mae Questel as the elderly and deranged Lewis and Bethany Griswold, evil neighbors the Chesters played by Julia-Louis Dreyfuss and Nicholas Guest, and most importantly, Randy Quaid and Miriam Flynn returning as Eddie and Catherine.
Eddie’s appearance surprises me every time, how he just shows up out of nowhere and then takes over the movie. Yes, in the days before he was a conspiracy driven near-insane man, Randy Quaid had incredible comic timing.
It also has the episodic story idea that works so well from the first movie as you can come into this movie at any time and enjoy it. I mean, the shopping for lingerie scene? The sled riding? Randy waving in the pool dream? There are so many moments that make me laugh just imagining them.
Director Chris Columbus started as the director, but he and Chevy Chase did not get along, so John Hughes replaced him and gave him Home Alone. That worked out, right?
It also will never fail to blow my mind that Angelo Badalamenti did the score to this.
We haven’t watched this movie since two Christmas Days ago. My father-in-law, who would shush us all and make us all watch it together no matter what, is gone and maybe it’s too hard to watch. The closing line, where Clark just says, “I did it” used to make me cry before because it’s so wonderful and perfect and sums up the end of the holidays as an adult so well. But now, in a year where I’ve lost both of the fathers in my life, it seems like it all could all be too much.
Amy Heckerling followed Fast Times at Ridgemont High with Johnny Dangerously, a movie no one seemed to get at the time and one I still can’t get my wife to watch. Working with writer Robert Klane (Weekend at Bernie’s) she had a tough task. Follow National Lampoon’s Vacation.
This time, the Griswolds — Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo return but Audrey and Rusty are played by Dana Hill and Jason Lively — have won the game show Pig in a Poke and won a trip throughout Europe. The game show scene is great because John Astin is host Kent Winkdale and the father of the Froeger is Paul Bartel pretty much being Paul Bartel.
Throughout the movie, Clark keeps nearly killing Eric Idle on a bike, as well as knocking down Stonehenge, turning a Oktoberfest into a brawl and finding a video that Clark shot of his wife in the shower has become the biggest movie in the old country.
I remember laughing at this movie but feeling like something was missing. That was John Hughes and how his story may have gone big for the laughs but was based in vacations that every family has had. That’s why that movie and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation are multiple watch movies for so many and this and Vegas Vacation are just there.
Originally airing on February 11, 1985 on PBS’ American Playhouse, the fourth feature film of the Parker family starts in a movie theater as an older Ralphie (Jean Shepherd, who wrote these stories) relates that seeing a movie by a Polish director reminds him of Josephine Cosnowski (Katherine Kamhi), the neighbor who became his first serious love.
Barbara Bolton and Jay Ine return as mom and Randy, but young Ralphie is Pete Kowanko and The Old Man is played by George Coe, a castmember of season one of SNL. Sadly, James Broderick, who played the role in The Phantom of the Open Hearth and The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters died of thyroid cancer in 1982.
The Old Man always said, “There has to be a God if there’s beer. All that goodness just ain’t accidental.”
This made me think about my father, lost a week or so before Thanksgiving, and as Ralphie takes his little dog up the steps and he remembers, his old self weary through time, that there was no better holiday than before being an adult and when Thanksgiving really meant something, that it was something to look forward to and now, all of life is just appointments and time moves so fast as we march to our destiny. It made my eyes burn I cried so hard, my very own little dog next to me with no idea just how much I missed being a kid and knowing my father was one door away.
Some see this holiday film — directed by Chris Columbus and written and produced by John Hughes — as a seasonal favorite. I see it as a story of bad parenting, exacerbated by the fact that they allowed the same situation to happen a year later, and a child driven to cruelty by the way he has been raised.
The entire horrifying McCallister family is leaving Chicago for Christmas in Paris. Peter (John Heard) and Kate’s (Catherine O’Hara) youngest son Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) is constantly being berated by the entire extended family and ends up having to spend the night in the attic, at which point he tells his mother that he wishes the entire family would disappear. That night, the power goes out, the family nearly misses their flight and Kevin is left home.
Have you ever been in a midwest attic in winter? It’s no place for a child to sleep.
Now Kevin must deal with the Wet Bandits — Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern) — as well as connect Old Man Marley (Roberts Blossom, who was Ezra Cobb in Deranged, a role that’s referenced by how all the kids think he was a serial killer) with his family and his mom must get back home to see her son on Christmas, aided by Gus Polinski (John Candy) and the Kenosha Kickers, the polka kings of the midwest.
Candy did his scenes as a favor and shot all of them in 23 hours, improvising everything, including his tale of leaving one of his kids at a funeral home. Candy was already a big star yet he was only paid $414 for his part, one that kind of makes the movie for me, while this movie made $474 million dollars.
I think it’s funny that Pesci hated being in this movie. He kept telling the crew that his dialogue was not of a quality commensurate with his acting ability and he disliked the early calls — Culkin could not work after ten p.m. — which kept him from playing golf. He also hated that he couldn’t swear on set.
Throughout the movie, Kevin annihilates Harry and Marv, which left Culkin with a scar in a scene and gave Pesci burns to his scalp. Columbus said of these scenes, “Every time the stunt guys did one of those stunts it wasn’t funny. We’d watch it, and I would just pray that the guys were alive.”
I really think that the attacks on the Wet Bandits are so brutal that there’s no way they would survive.
Is that your holiday fun?
Maybe I was too old for this, as my wife love watching it. I just never could get into the fact that Kevin comes from a rich family that can barely take care of him, he frequently magically fixes the lives of old near homeless people and then crushes the dreams of the lower class who have had to resort to crime to survive. I mean, the second movie literally has Kevin interact with Trump and bully the staff of a hotel because he has his father’s credit card. I have no sympathy or worry for him.
Look, if there weren’t going to be any more American Pie movies in theaters, there would always be people who would rent the direct-to-video sequels. You know, like me. I’m a completist. How many Amityville movies does it take to stop my OCD? How many Hellraiser films? Well, here you go: a whole series of American Pie movies that just have Jim’s dad (Eugene Levy) and Stifler’s family to have the smallest of all threads.
Well, also Chuck Sherman, who is now a guidance counselor and sends Stifler’s little brother Matt (Tad Hilgenbrink, who is also in Lost Boys: The Tribe) to band camp where he’s guided by, yes, Jim’s dad. There are also plenty of hot young women — and also a little older ones, because Ginger Lynn plays the camp nurse — to be part of his new adult video Bandeez Gone Wild. He’s following in his brother’s footsteps, as Stiffler is a porn director, despite the alternate world of American Reunion where we learn that he’s suffering in the world after high school.
He also falls for Elyse Houston (Arielle Kebbel), who has the entire band play a Tal Bachman song. You know, the guy who sang “She’s So High.” Oh man, the 2000s, right? The music in this is strange because it has a lot of covers, as I imagine the lower budget could accommodate Andrew W.K. but led to a cover of James’ “Laid” and Linda Perry playing Pink’s “Get the Party Started.”
Director Steve Rash also made Under the Rainbow, Son In Law, Can’t Buy Me Love and direct-to-video sequels to Bring It On and Road Trip. This was written by Brad Riddell, who made Slap Shop 3 and I had no idea there was a Slap Shot 2.
Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, who directed and wrote this, also made the Harold and Kumar movies and along with Josh Heald, the series Cobra Kai. They also produced Blockers, which is pretty much an American Pie movie.
Why the class would all go to a thirteenth reunion, well, who knows, but the film finds them all at different paths in their lives. Jim (Jason Biggs) and Michele (Alyson Hannigan) are married with kids, Oz (Chris Klein) is a sportscaster with an unfaithful girlfriend, Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is a work-from-home dad, Paul (Eddie Kaye Thomas) is traveling the world and Stifler (Seann Willian Scott) is stuck working as a temp for a boss that demeans him.
Jim’s dad (Eugene Levy) is now a widower, so if you guessed that he’s going to end up with Stiffler’s mom (Jennifer Coolidge, you get this movie. And you’ll also enjoy that Stiffler ends up with Paul’s mom (Rebecca De Mornay). She even says a variation of her Risky Business come-on, “Are you ready for me, Stifler?”
It’s funny that Seann William Scott didn’t even have a sequel clause from the first film. For this onem he got an executive producer credit — same as Jason Biggs — and they each were paid $5 million plus a percentage of the profits. Alyson Hannigan and Eugene Levy were paid $3 million with the rest of the cast earning between $500,000 to $700,000 range, except Tara Reid. She got $250,000, which kind of makes me a little brought down.
I’m shocked we haven’t had another sequel or a series or some reimagining at this stage in the game. There were enough issues in this one that I worry that if they ever make one more, it’s going to be like The Bradys which is non-stop soap opera sadness.
There was a time before I worried about classism in John Hughes movies and how Chevy Chase became the kind of person Chevy Chase was doing a character schtick about and that was probably 1983 and every time I watch this movie, it reminds me of that simpler time to watch movies.
I saw Vacation at the drive-in which other than cable TV on a hungover Sunday or a drunken Saturday in the middle of the night would be the best way to see this film. At no time in my life have I ever been more excited than when John Candy showed up at the end, completely owning every scant second he gets. I was in the tailgate of my parent’s Astra and just jumping up and down in sheer movie joy.
Written during the Chicago Blizzard of 1979, Hughes drew on his childhood memories for the story Vacation ’58 for National Lampoon. After their film Animal House shocked Hollywood, everything in the magazine became filmable or so it seemed. Well, maybe not all the Hitler stuff, right?
Publisher Matty Simmons said, “When I brought it to Hollywood, the first guy I brought it to was Jeff Katzenberg who was at Paramount. He said it would never make a movie, it was too episodic, too consequential. I said, “Yeah, it’s a road trip. It’s supposed to be episodic. You go from town to town, place to place.” But he didn’t like it, so then my agent brought it to Warner Brothers, and I met with them. Most of them said the same thing, but there was one executive over there—a guy named Mark Canton—who really pulled for it and it got made.”
That’s why this movie works. It’s the perfect hijinks ensue movie. All it takes is a simple concept — family goes on vacation — and hijinks ensue. That’s all you need to know. The journey is more important than the destination, whenever you come into this movie and whenever you stop watching it.
Director Harold Ramis and Chevy Chase moved the story’s hero from son to father as Clark Griswold would become perhaps the character Chase would be known best as. He’s a food additives expert that has just enough time — he’s planned it — to drive the Wagon Queen Family Truckster — designed by Chuck Barris — to “America’s Favorite Family Fun Park” Wally World. Of course, there may be time along the way to catch some other tourist attractions. This, not flying, will allow him to bond with his family — wife Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo), son Rusty (Anthony Michael Hall) and daughter Audrey (Dana Barron).
One of those stops is Coolidge, Kansas, where cousins Catherine (Miriam Flynn) and Eddie (Randy Quaid) live in squalor, along with Aunt Edna (Imogene Coca) who everyone is conned into taking to Phoenix. There’s also a wild west town, Kamp Komfort and a picnic with soggy sandwiches, all punctuated by Clark being flirted with at top speed by a girl in a Ferrari (Christie Brinkley).
It’s also a film packed with small roles that are beyond memorable, like Jane Krakowski as Eddie’s daughter Vicki, Eugene Levy as a car salesman, James Keach as the cop that finds a leash hanging from the back of the car, Eddie Bracken as Walt Disney analog Roy Walley and even Ramis as the voice of Walley Moose.
I can’t even count how many times I’ve watched this movie. It works because we’ve all lived it. We had a horrific vacation driving to Florida and back in a big van with extended family that nearly ended with my bad losing his mind at South of the Border when, after fixing that way too big brick of a car in the hundred degree parking lot, everyone started complaining that we had been there too long and my brother started begging for a bullwhip. It wasn’t pretty but it was hilarious.
The original ending of the film had the family going to the Hollywood home of Roy Walley after learning that the park is closed. Clark uses the BB gun to force everyone to sing songs from Walley cartoons before the police arrive. Brinkley’s character shows up and is Walley’s daughter and gets the family out of trouble, but on the way home, they take the wrong flight and Clark hijacks the plane.
Test audiences hated this and the John Candy ending was filmed. Chevy Chase claims to have this ending on videotape.
I can’t even think of this movie any other way. Just writing this makes me want to watch it again.
Somehow — and I don’t know legally how this has happened — there are several films that outright use the Purge as their plot. I understand how the parodies happen but there’s one movie that. just can’t figure out how no one was sued.
Then again, according to The Hollywood Reporter, “Universal, Platinum Dunes Productions and James DeMonaco have finally put an end to a four-year-old lawsuit that alleged the horror smash The Purge was ripped off from another writer. On Friday, the parties informed a California court that the case was being dropped after a settlement.
Douglas Jordan-Benel brought the lawsuit alleging the film — about an annual 12-hour period where all crime is legal — derived from his screenplay called Settler’s Day. As the plaintiff navigated one hurdle after another in litigating his copyright and breach of contract claims, The Purge spawned sequels and a TV series. Jordan-Benel stated in court papers that the plot of both works was “virtually identical” and in his complaint, the plaintiff focused on the submission of his script to the UTA talent agency, which also represents DeMonaco.”
After a four-year case, the article goes on to reveal certain documents suggested that DeMonaco’s script may have predated Jordan-Benel’s. Then, a huge fight broke out over whether there was any evidence tampering, which led to Jordan-Benel gaining great access to early versions of The Purge screenplay and emails. There was a settlement and the notice of the dismissal was unusually specific and favorable to DeMonaco, with the court stating, “In light of information produced in discovery demonstrating Defendant James DeMonaco’s independent creation of The Purge, Plaintiff has agreed to dismiss his lawsuit with prejudice, in exchange for a waiver by Defendants of any claim for an award of fees and costs.”
Here are the movies that came after and how they relate to the original films:
Meet the Blacks (2016): Directed by Deon Taylor, who wrote this with Nicole DeMasi, Meet the Blacks finds that family — led by Carl (Mike Epps) — getting out of Chicago after stealing some money from drug kingpin Key Flo (Charlie Murphy in his last role). Once settling in Beverly Hills, Mike and his wife Lorena (Zulay Henao) and kids Allie Black (Bresha Webb) and Carl Jr. (Alex Henderson) discover that they ended up in town at the absolute worst time. Yes, they’re here on the day of The Purge.
The best joke is that George Lopez is President El Bama, but hey, Paul Mooney is also a Klan member, plus Mike Tyson, Tyrin Turner and Perez Hilton are in this too. It’s not exactly great, but the fact that this movie just outright uses The Purge is pretty audacious. If the racial issues of the first few movies were too under the surface for you — they are not — this movie goes all out.
Not to be outdone, Taylor and most of the cast returned for The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2, which is literally Fright Night with Katt Williams as a pimp version of Jerry Dandrige. Maybe this was the movie that Herschell Walker was really watching?
Evil At the Door (2022): For almost a hundred years, The Locusts have treated their followers to one night — three hours — where they can do anything they want to a selected home and any of the people they find inside. The Locusts have selected the home of Daniel (Matt O’Neill, Candy Corn) and Jessica (Sunny Doench, Coffin). Complicating matters is that there may be a Locust who isn’t on the same side as everyone else, plus Jessica’s sister Liz (Andrea Sweeney Blanco) is hiding under the bed trying to escape.
Like a combination of The Strangers and The Purge, the film begins with John Doe (Bruce Davison, who has nearly 300 credits, but may be best known for being in X-Men as Senator Kelly; you may also recognize him from The Lords of Salem or The Crucible) invites the cult’s member to initiate the Night of the Locusts.
A family that barely gets along being surrounded by four cult members who can get away with anything that happens. Great set-up, right? Yes, it is. The execution — CGI stabbings instead of practical effects and costumes that look like the Wish version of Ghost from Call of Duty — take away the good will that the opening created.
Fans of TV’s Dynasty and The Colbys will, at least, be happy to see John James (Jeff Colby!) show up. His next movie is My Son Hunter, playing President Biden. It’s directed by Robert Davi and stars Gino Carano so…
Director, writer, producer, editor and one of the actors — he’s Truman — Kipp Tribble did more than just two or three things on this movie. I wish that he could have followed up on pieces he set in motion. That said, he’s figured out how to pull this movie together with a small crew and a low budget.
The Binge (2020): Directed by Jeremy Garelick and written by Jordan VanDina, The Binge is about a world where no one can drink or do drugs except for 12 hours, once a year, just like…yeah, you got it. This follows the adventures of Griffin (Skyler Gisondo), Hags (Dexter Darden) and Andrew (Eduardo Franco), three guys who have just turned eighteen and are now eligible to take part of America’s one part day of pleasure.
Griffin is in love with Lena (Grace Van Dien), whose father (Vince Vaughn) is the overprotective principal of their school. Of course he ends up being an old partier and everyone is happy, yet a 2020 drug movie has none of the wacky ramshackle charm of Cheech and Chong, its plot as manufactured as the scientifically grown weed. You know where the highs are coming from, but some of those old bags of comedic hash sometimes could give you the kind of laughs that stay with you for the rest of your life. This is not that strain.
The Binge 2: It’s A Wonderful Binge (2022): Hulu has bought another The Binge film and set it at Christmas and man, we hit the algorithm right on this week. Directed and written by Jordan VanDina, this year’s Binge comes during the holidays, which seems like when it should always be if you can only drink and do drugs for 12 hours a year.
Hags (Dexter Darden) is trying to stay sober so that he can propose to his girlfriend Sarah (Zainne Saleh) while his friend Andrew (Eduardo Franco) wants to use all those powders, pills, drinks and smokes to get through the time he has to spend with his family. All while Mayor Spengler (Kaitlin Olsen) is trying to get her town — and her daughter Kimmi (Marta Piekarz) to end The Binge just as her brother Kris (Nick Swardson) escapes from prison.
It’s nice to see Tim Meadows, Danny Trejo and Paul Scheer get some work, but this movie seems like a child who has just learned to swear or worse, a college kid who comes back home for Christmas obsessed with smoking grass. It tries — the animated part is kind of humorous — but I just know we’re going to get a third one. And you know me. I’m going to sit through it.
2025: Red White and Blue (2022): I get the urge to purge a The Purge ripoff from your system, but how can you make a parody that’s 2 hours and 15 minutes long?
In the year 2025, the 45th President of the United States of America — look, this is automatically the most horrifying film of the year just with the rest of this sentence — gets back in the White House, restarts the Purge, rebuilds the wall and gets ready to Make America Safe Again.
Bill Wilson (Grid Magraf), agent of FIRE (Forest and Immigration Raking Enforcement), is two weeks from returning, getting too old for this excrement and has just finished the bust of his life taking down a Mexican drug cartel. However, some dirty agents want the evidence and plan on using The Purge to get it from his house.
This is an equal opportunity movie, making fun of Biden as a pedophile, Trump as a man reduced to filming The Apprentice and urinating online for hits and liberals maybe even more devoted to murder than the right wing gun owners they argue against. There’s something for everyone to be offended by here, mostly that this takes so long and can get away with outright being a Purge movie despite it being made by anyone other than Blumhouse.
Am I missing any more Purge-inspired ripoffs? Let me know!
I mean, one can argue that The Purge was ripped off from “The Return of the Archons,” an episode of the classic Star Trek.
This is not a test.
This is your emergency broadcast system announcing the commencement of the Annual Purge sanctioned by the U.S. Government.Weapons of class 4 and lower have been authorized for use during the Purge. All other weapons are restricted.Government officials of ranking 10 have been granted immunity from the Purge and shall not be harmed.Commencing at the siren, any and all crime, including murder, will be legal for 12 continuous hours.Police, fire, and emergency medical services will be unavailable until tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. when The Purge concludes.Blessed be our New Founding Fathers and America, a nation reborn.
According to LEIGH BROWN, CREATOR AND ENABLER The Lives and Love of an Arty Village Chick by Eugene B. Bergmann, “Leigh Brown, from the early 1960s through the late 1990s, was the steadfast, all-purpose, vital element in the life and art of the raconteur and wit, Jean Shepherd.” As early as 1972, she would tell people “If we can ever get A Christmas Story made as a movie using the Red Ryder BB gun tale, he will have it made. It would be the ultimate perennial Christmas movie like It’s a Wonderful Life.”
She was so right.
Shepherd took the stories that he told on the radio and wrote in books and worked with his wife Leigh and filmmaker Bob Clark to make the stories “Duel in the Snow, or Red Ryder Nails the Cleveland Street Kid,” “The Counterfeit Secret Circle Member Gets the Message, or The Asp Strikes Again,” “My Old Man and the Lascivious Special Award That Heralded the Birth of Pop Art” and “Grover Dill and the Tasmanian Devil,” as well as “The Grandstand Passion Play of Delbert and the Bumpus Hounds,” as well as the unpublished “Flick’s Tongue” into a movie.
Clark had first heard these stories on the radio in 1968 and worked for years to get this movie made.
What amazes me is that Clark made both the darkest holiday film of all time, the perfect Black Christmas, and this film, a movie that for many is the American Christmas film.
It wasn’t always that way.
The city of Cleveland wasn’t sure they wanted someone that made a seasonal slasher, much less Porky’s, to make a film in their town. Even the department store used for the film, Higbee’s, had a clause where vice president Bruce Campbell would be allowed to edit the script for cursing if they used his store. Ironically, the house used for a lot of this movie is on Cleveland Street, which is also the street name — in Hammond, Indiana — where Shepherd grew up.
It wasn’t an easy shoot. Clark had Shepherd banned from the set at one point for giving his young actor his own direction.
The movie did fine — $20.8 million on a $3.3 million budget — but then it went away. That’s what movies used to do.
But then, something small happened and grew.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s pre-1986 film library was bought by Ted Turner. He needed a holiday movie to show that they owned and didn’t have to pay the rights to. They started showing it in 1987 and at one point, showed it the entire day of Christmas. It became the holiday movie, replacing It’s a Wonderful Life, which ended its free run of being a public domain film in 1993 when Republic Pictures bought the rights to the original story it was based on, as well as the music in the film.
You may know the story of Ralphie, of the gun he wants, of the tongue on the flagpole, but maybe knowing all of the above will add to your holiday watch.
The author, about to get his mouth washed out with soap in the actual shooting location.
Directed and written by Tom Shankland from a story by Paul Andrew Williams, The Children is a low budget British holiday horror movie that stunned me: it takes no prisoners, it goes places few movies are brave enough to defy cringe and convention.
Casey (Hannah Tointon) wanted a holiday away from her mother (Eva Birthistle), stepfather (Stephen Campbell Moore) and their children Miranda (Eva Sayer) and Paulie (William Howes) as they go to visit her aunt (Rachel Shelley), uncle (Jeremy Sheffield) and cousins (Rafiella Brookes and Jake Hathaway). Now, she’s stuck somewhere in the country with low reception. As the snow begins to isolate everyone, a virus takes over the children, making them black bile-spitting pure evil incarnate.
If you are upset at all by violence done by — or to — children, stay far away. This is a toddler version of Night of the Living Dead and I don’t just mean the violent attacks on humans. It has a real feeling of menace and dread that many movies try and fake. This gets it perfect.
I really enjoyed the way this film juxtaposes the strangeness of extended time with extended family along with violent horrific imagery. I never expected Who Can Kill a Child? the holiday edition, but here we are and it’s incredible, a film that when I saw the title and heard it was a seasonally relevant horror movie I wrote off for a long time. I was wrong.
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