‘Tis the season to be jolly, fa la la la la la la la la. Of course the holiday season isn’t a time of rejoicing and knocking back endless cups of egg nog for everyone. Christmas can be a time of misery, violence and heartache – being surrounded by family in other words.
We jest. Slightly. What follows are the ultimate anti-Christmas Christmas movie scenes. And remember: no matter how things seem on December 25, someone, somewhere, will be having a worse time than you.
So, chin up, get the Santa suit on and sup another mug of dead sweet, egg-laced brandy…
Gremlins (1984)
How did you find out there was no tubby bearded man dressed in red who traversed the globe in a sleigh delivering presents to all and sundry? Ours was fairly routine. A miserable cousin told us. So, nothing compared to how Kate Beringer (the always divine Phoebe Cates) found out then. Just imagine the smell.
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LA Confidential (1997)
Alcohol and Christmas is a combustible mix – put some hot-headed LAPD into the mix and you’ve got one very violent melee. A Bloody Christmas indeed!
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Trading Places (1983)
You know when we mentioned that there’s always someone worse off than you at this most special time of year? To wit: the crestfallen Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd).
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Scrooged (1988)
After buying a house and getting married, Christmas is one of the most stressful situations known to man, woman, baby Jesus, the donkeys in the stable and the innkeeper. Moreover, it happens every year. So the last thing you – or in this case Frank Cross (Bill Murray) - need is an excitable New York taxi driver (David Johansen) intent on taking you to places you really don’t want to revisit.
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The Ref (1994)
Christmas – a time for families to put aside their differences, or the opportune moment to take a can of whoop ass out on each other? And what if you’re being held hostage by a bogus marriage counsellor (Denis Leary) to boot?
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National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
Even if everyone in your family was the worst cook ever, they still wouldn’t be as bad as the chef behind this turkey of a, erm, turkey. But then that’s the Griswolds for you. Yule crack up.
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Bad Santa (2003)
The joyous and beatific version of Father Christmas that we understand, and dare we say, worship, today owes much to the mid-19th Century and that era’s need to mythologise the past. Billy Bob Thornton’s version of Santa owes everything to the drunk tank that Shane McGowan sings about in Fairytale Of New York.
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Die Hard (1988)
It’s Christmas Eve, you’re at a party, what could possibly go wrong? How’s about a vaguely posho English chap taking everyone hostage, while some broadly alpha male, borderline alcoholic New Jersey cop runs around screaming yippee ki yay?
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Tommy (1975)
Christmas parties are marvellous occasions – lots of merry folk being lovely to each other. And then there’s a Christmas party with bevvied up Oliver Reed (playing Uncle Frank) getting on everybody’s tits.
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Babe (1995)
As this collection of non-sympathetic Christmas clips ably demonstrates this time of year means carnage. For those beasts we’re preparing to chow down on come December 25, this is doubly so. Christmas means carnage!
(Images: All Star)
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