The war on Christmas is on, people.

Marshall Teague may be known as Jimmy Reno from Roadhouse but here he’s Mayor Bob Revere, a man who has lost his son Thomas (Austin Marks) to a war overseas, then lost his daughter-in-law Kari (Nikki Novak) and grandson Christian (Hunter Gomez) when they moved away. Now, he’s found a new battle, as he learns that kids aren’t allowed to sing Christmas carols and they took the Christmas tree down in front of the government building. They had to take the cross down on the mission where they feed the homeless, too. But Bob seems like a good guy, the kind of person who does surgery on bikers which is not the type of thing a pharmacist does, but hey, whatever.

Bob also is one of those guys that rides a Harley with a big American flag hanging off the back and wants you to say something about it. Come on, he dares you.

Also: his wife is Jennifer O’Neill. Yes, the same Jennifer O’Neill from Fulci’s The Psychic and Scanners.

This brings him into conflict with lawyer Warren Hammerschmidt (Fred Williamson, the Hammer in a religious right wing film which is on brand for him now) and even put in jail for his beliefs. That’s when I noticed he had a Satan Sucks patch and another that had 666 crossed out. He also meets Jesus in jail and man, Jesus looks metal.

Directed by Kevin McAfee and Darrel Campbell, who wrote the script and book that this was based on with Richard Headrick from a story by Gina Headrick, this movie also has Kari falling for her dead husband’s best friend, the Mayor’s daughter being on CNN as an anchor, Bill O’Reilly showing up on a TV and a theater director putting on a holiday play that keeps refusing to put religious things in it, so they lock him in a closet while he lisp screams in protest.  It also starts and ends with Ronald Reagan quotes.

Did you know people in Vietnam can be executed for celebrating Christmas?

In 2012, Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee took part in a telemarketing campaign that involved making over four million robocalls to promote the film. A lawyer just like Warren Hammerschmidt figured out that this was a violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, as it was in the guise of a political survey, and a class-action lawsuit was later filed which ended up costing the producers of this movie $32 million dollars.

So let me soap box during this holiday movie. For years, there’s been a battle over the Nativity not being in front of my hometown municipal building. If you want that there, you also need to respect that there should be a Jewish display, a Kwanza display, a Satanic display and even something for Scientology. This is not a country formed by religious zealots, but instead a country by those seeking religious freedom from the Church of England. Your way may be the way in your place of worship but if I respect it, you should also respect my belief. That’s the whole point behind Happy Holidays versus Merry Christmas, the true start of the War on Christmas. What will prayer in schools solve? I bet everyone prays when their schools get shot up, huh? I know that it’s so basic — and I rarely discuss my political or religious feelings on this site because it should be all about movies — but can’t we just respect our differences? Didn’t Jesus choose not the rich religious leaders but the lowest of the low to spend time with?

Also: when did bikers go from 1% and against the law to suddenly being blind believers in the right wing? Didn’t bikers used to hate cops too? Maybe I was watching the wrong movies.

Man, did Richard Donner have a great directing career or what? The Omen, Superman, the Lethal Weapon movies, The Goonies, Ladyhawke…man, I’m a big fan. He brings a lot to Scrooged, which has a great script by Mitch Glazer, who wrote the book for The Blues Brothers as Miami Mitch, as well as Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video, which he co-wrote with the other screenwriter for this movie — and one of my personal heroes — Michael O’Donoghue. Beyond being the first person to say, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!” O’Donoghue was a major force at the National Lampoon and a cantankerous venom-spewing force of nature

O’Donoghue refused to write for Jim Henson’s Muppets on SNL, saying “I won’t write for felt,” eventually left the show and came back for the Dick Ebersol season, spray painting DANGER! on the walls, frightening everyone except for Eddie Murphy — Catherine O’Hara left and went back to SCTV — and wrote the never-aired “The Last Days in Silverman’s Bunker,” a sketch that would last twenty minutes, feature John Belushi as NBC President Silverman and have an NBC Nazi logo. He was fired, then rehired when Lorne Michaels came back and wrote a monologue for Chevy Chase that started with “Right after I stopped doing cocaine, I turned into a giant garden slug, and, for the life of me, I don’t know why.” He then told the New York Times that the show was “an embarrassment. It’s like watching old men die” and got fired yet again.

He hated this movie.

He claimed that he wrote a better one.

It’s still a pretty good movie.

Michael O’Donoghue remains an inspiration because nothing was ever good enough and everyone was worthy of his anger.

Bill Murray is Frank Cross, the first role he took since taking four years off after Ghostbusters. Murray and Donner had different visions, so Murray saw this movie as sheer misery. He’s an IBC television executive who has learned everything from his bosses Preston Rhinelander (Robert Mitchum) and the late Lew Hayward (John Forsythe) and as such, he’s created a new version of A Christmas Carol that has a commercial hyping it so upsetting that a woman dies from a heart attack. But hey — Buddy Hackett as Scrooge!

This is a movie that recreates that very same story but somehow does it with some of my favorite personalities, like David Johansen as the cab-driving Ghost of Christmas Past, Carol Kane as the brutal Ghost of Christmas Present and a horrifying Ghost of Christmas Future made up of a Grim Reaper containing TV screens.

Plus Karen Allen, Michael J. Pollard, John Glover (one of my favorites in everything he’s acted in), Murray boys Brian, John and Joel, John Houseman, Bobcat Goldthwait, Mary Lou Retton, Pat McCormick, Paul Schaffer, David Sanborn, Jamie Farr, the Solid Gold Dancers, Lee Majors (The Night the Reindeer Died is amazing and he’s carrying the actual gun from Predator), Robert Goulet, Miles Davis and Larry Carlton.

The end of the film, where Frank has his moment of clarity, was hard for Murray to figure out, so he ad-libbed all of it. Glazer and O’Donoghue thought he was having a nervous breakdown and as the crew cheered the end of the scene, O’Donoghue said, “What was that? The Jim Jones hour?” Donner punched him in the arm so hard he was bruised for a week.

O’Donoghue later said that Donner did not understand comedy and just wanted things bigger. He claims only 40% of what he wanted is in the movie. Murray would later tell Roger Ebert “That could have been a really, really great movie. The script was so good. He kept telling me to do things louder, louder, louder. I think he was deaf.”

You know who didn’t like this movie? David Johansen’s New York Dolls bandmate Arthur “Killer” Kane. According to Rolling Stone, “Around 20 years ago original New York dolls bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane was watching TV when the 1988 Bill Murray Christmas movie Scrooged came on. The sight of Dolls frontman David Johansen in a prominent role sent Kane into such a jealous rage that he beat his wife with cat furniture and then jumped out of a third-story window, attempting to kill himself. Luckily, he landed on an awning and survived with minor injuries. While recuperating in the hospital he saw an ad for a free copy of the Book of Mormon. When a couple of beautiful young women personally brought it over, he was ready to convert. Within a few years the Mormon Church had completely transformed his life — he even worked at the church’s Family History Library Center in Los Angeles. In 2004 his dream of a New York Dolls reunion finally came true, but just three weeks after their comeback show he died of leukemia.”

The real Scrooges were Paramount Pictures executives who demanded that this movie shoot over Christmas. Donner beat them by firing the entire cast and crew at the end of the day on Christmas Eve and rehiring them on the day after the holiday.

I miss the anarchic spirit of Murray and O’Donoghue on Saturday Night Live. Somehow, I’d never seen this until this year and it made me miss the show I used to love.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was first on the site on December 21, 2017.

December 5, 1492. Former bishop Niklas and his gang have gotten away with too much. The villagers have had it up to here with their antics, like looting and killing, so they kill them off. Yet for every year after that coincides with a full moon, they return as ghosts with murderous intent.

The film then inverts all the holiday traditions of the Netherlands: Sinterklass is not a jolly fat man, he’s a killer with a sharp staff that he won’t hesitate to use. His elves, the Zwarte Pieten, don’t have faces blackened from the soot of chimneys, but instead they have been burned alive.

The last time the real Sinterklass came back was in 1968 and hundreds of people were killed, including the family of Goert, who is now a policeman. That traumatic event has been covered up by the authorities and the Catholic Church, who want Saint Nick to remain pure.

With another full moon coming, Goert tries to ban all Sinterklaas events and increasing police manpower, but he’s laughed off and sent on leave. But of course, Sinterklass arrives and brings horror with him.

Directed by Dick Maas (The Lift, Amsterdamned), the film looks gorgeous, with a crushed black color palette and really intriguing angles. If a gore movie can be lush, then by all means, this is it. The scene where Sinterklass reveals himself to the children in the hospital, as well as a chase across the rooftops with Sinterklass on a horse, are just plain gorgeous. As we watch the evil saint fall through floor after floor of a building, then onto a police car, then stalk the hero, it really gets across just how frightening the villain is.

Even watching the film in its native language, I was easily able to define the storytelling and stayed interested throughout. It was interesting to learn of another Christmas myth and then see the more malevolent side of it.

This movie has become a holiday tradition in our home, a short documentary by George King about the Townsends, a family that opens its Elvis loving God-fearing home to their Atlanta neighbors, and we get to meet everyone from Grandma Margaret, who loves the King so much that she has a Fantasy Room with lit-up black velvet paintings and Gloria, who flirts in line and shows off the ring her ex-husband gave her but she’s not getting back together with him. Then there’s Raymond, keeping order outside and telling people to not make any backtalk while fully strapped with a gun and plenty of seasonal goodwill.

The family has been asked to leave Atlanta for Charlotte, NC and you wonder why. Is it because thousands of people line up outside their house every Christmas? Could it be that they told visitors that the power company will give you back the money you spent lighting up your house? Who can say.

What I love is that everyone smokes, non-stop, even when they’re making cookies or a Nativity with a candy Jesus that someone is going to eat. Yet what I love the most is that this movie never makes fun of them or calls them rednecks or denigrates the South. They’re good people who open their home to others and give a part of themselves that other families can take home with them. Even on their last night, they’re giving the lights away and trying to part with some of the decorations. You can say that this is kitsch and look down on these folks, but that makes you the fool.

This movie makes my holiday season right.

You can watch this on the best movie YouTube channel there is, White Slaves of Chinatown 3D.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was first on the site on December 18, 2018.

Check out Bill’s intro when this played FACETS in Chicago!

Straight up, let me be honest. This movie is crazy. I say that a lot in conversations about movies that defy description. I may exclaim, this movie is insane. It’s bonkers. I may use all manner of words. Let me tell you, when it comes to Christmas movies, nothing will prepare you for this.

Let me short hand it for you — imagine if Home Alone had more terror and blood. Think of the grindhouse version of that film. And then realize that this was made a year before and director René Manzor once threatened the makers of that film with a lawsuit alleging that they had remade his movie.

The difference is that when the Wet Bandits get beat up in Home Alone, the carnage is like a cartoon. Not here. Not at all.

Thomas de Frémont is a smart young kid who is obsessed with inventing things and American action movies like Rambo. He lives in a secluded mansion with his widowed mother Julie, his nearly blind grandfather Papy and his dog J.R. On Christmas Eve, Thomas uses a Minitel ( a French 80’s internet that had access to commercial and private addresses, along with chat rooms) to try and talk to Santa, only to be targeted by a deranged homeless man who breaks into the mansion.

Seriously, this evil Santa is super evil. He gets a job where Julie works, slaps around kids and gets his entry into their home by hiding in a delivery van and killing the driver. He then kills Thomas’ dog in front of his eyes. The young boy thinks that this really is Santa and he is angry that he’s stayed up so late to try and catch him dropping off toys.

The evil Saint Nick cuts off all the phone lines and challenges Thomas to a game of life and death, even catching him once and letting him go. I’m not going to give away more of the movie, but it’s seriously one of the darkest holiday movies I’ve ever witnessed, one that will make kids not want anything in their stockings.

It’s also shot in an incredibly frenetic style that I’d compare favorably to Michele Soavi. Manzor would go on to be a famous writer, as well as get hired by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas to direct some of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

Also known as Deadly Games and Dial Code Santa Claus, this movie was impossible to find. That said — the awesome folks at American Genre Film Archive have a restored version playing across the country this holiday with a blu ray finally releasing soon. It won’t be out in time for Christmas, but if you’re already reading about it here, you know how to search the grey markets of the internet by now. It’s worth the time.

Vinegar Syndrome has released this movie after years of people like me waiting for it. Get it now!

EDITOR’S NOTE: Thanks to Jennifer Contino for suggesting this.

The Trouble with Angels was based on Jane Trahey’s book Life with Mother Superior, which is the story of her own high school years in a Catholic boarding school. Hayley Mills’ character of Mary Clancy was based on her friend Mary who became Sister John Eudes in real life. It was directed by Ida Lupino, who was mostly working in TV when she wasn’t acting herself.

She said, “… it’s such a nice change – no blood spilled at all, darling.”

Mills was escaping being typecast in Disney roles with this film, playing a rebellious girl while many of the actresses in this would go on to play nuns in other films:

Math teacher Sister Liguori is played by Marge Redmond who would be on The Flying Nun TV show as Sister Jacqueline.

Gym teacher Sister Clarissa is Mary Wickes, who also appears in the sequel Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows and also Sister Mary Lazarus in the Sister Act movies.

Art teacher Sister Elizabeth is Portia Nelson, who had just finished playing Sister Berthe in The Sound of Music.

Mother Superior (Rosalind Russell) is dealing with two rebellious students, Mary Clancy (Mills) and her friend Rachel Devery (June Harding). Yet by the end of the movie, Mary hears the call of being a nun and realizes that living a life of sacrifice is better than one of smoking in the basement.

This movie even finds a role for perhaps the most famous exotic dancer of all time., Gypsy Rose Lee. Russell played her mother in the movie of her life, Gypsy.

Stella Stevens would end up taking over Mills’ role in the sequel.

Producer William Frye had offered Greta Garbo a million dollars to play Mother Superior, but she remained in hiding.

The first children’s film ever made in Canada by a commercial studio independently of either the National Film Board of Canada or the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Le Martien de Noël is the first — retoactively — of the Tales for All kid movie series that also includes The Peanut Butter Solution. 

Before Quebec would give birth to child movies like Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang, director Bernard Gosselin and writer Roch Carrier made this movie which is…well, it’s pretty wild. Cathy and Frankie meet the Christmas Martian, who has literally fishnet over his face, when his flying saucer crash lands in the snow. What’s that alien’s name? Poo Flower.

The kids help Poo Flower fix his ship and escape a bunch of Earthlings chasing him when they aren’t eating candy or watching an alien turn into a llama. There isn’t much holiday stuff in it until the end, but then again, it has a weird alien flying with a magic wand and bubbles flying out everywhere. It’s not like any Christmas movie that would ever get made in our country, a strange piece of magic that’s lo fi but all heart. I’d never seen this before but wow, it made an impression.

You can watch this on Tubi.