Bah! Humbug! Christmas Movies to Devolve any Holiday Family Gathering

It’s not that I don’t like Christmas or Christmas movies, really. But, after a few go-arounds, can’t we just take a break? A year or two off, maybe? For once, could we just save ourselves the trouble of untangling the endless strands of lights and picking the shards of broken ornaments from the bottom of an old cardboard box? And, instead of re-watching the same old tired holiday fare or whatever Netflix or Hallmark has concocted through the listless cooperation and inoffensive thespianism of a Lindsay Lohan or Brooke Shields or Danica McKeller, might we share something that could potentially wake us from our complacent, capitalism-obsessed slumber?

Also, maybe you don’t like your family. If not, hey, that’s ok. Maybe they’re not nice people. And maybe you feel more coerced into celebrating with them than actually wanting to celebrate with them. If you find yourself in this precarious holiday situation again this year, the following cinematic suggestions might provide some relief by upsetting the precious, repetitive rituals of you and yours.

While you may ruffle a few feathers, it’s important to remember there will always be that one weird nephew or niece—that one future John Waters of Coralie Fargeat-to-be—who will be forever filled with the spirit of that special Christmas you woke their inner subversive by suggesting: “Hey, let’s watch that new Romanian version of Dracula!” Remember, this is about them.

2025 alone offered up quite a few difficult viewing options that would quickly ruin any holiday. At the top of that list would be the aforementioned Dracula by Radu Jude– an excessively prurient, nearly three-hour, Dada-meets-AI-sludge-fest that has been notorious this year for sending audiences out of theaters quickly. In a pre-recorded introduction at the Chicago International Film Festival recently, Jude advised the audience to leave if they didn’t like the first five minutes or so because, in his words: “It’s just going to be more of that.”

But 2025 also brought the high-end seditious viewing options of Harmony Korine’s drug-soaked breaking-and-entering video game simulation Baby Invasion; the layered trauma-themed-and-inducing gorefest of Danny and Michael Philipou’s Bring Her Back; the darkly rendered post-partum insanity of Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love; the unrelentingly brutal premise of Francis Lawrence’s Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk; and one of the most unrelentingly brutal and unforgettable documentaries ever made, Albert Serra’s Afternoons of Solitude. So, in the spirit of that amazing Devo documentary we were also gifted this year, lets devolve Christmas!

Because, otherwise, you’ll just watch It’s a Wonderful Life or A Christmas Story or Elf again…and bah-humbug to that.  After all, 2025 is truly a year that deserves better than pretending our holiday traditions can distract us from the world outside. This year let us forge some new cinematic traditions by gifting a few unexpected cinematic choices to your horrible, artless, unadventurous family. Happy Holidays!

Trash Humpers

I like a movie that follows through on its title, and Trash Humpers is a primary example of that, wasting no time getting right to the titular activity. Some might classify this as less a “film” than a VHS recording that might be best unwatched lest it devolve into a snuff film. It doesn’t, but it certainly generates the feeling of something one shouldn’t be watching, or, possibly, phoning the police about. What’s the story? Well, three actors in masks that make them appear elderly hump a lot of trash and smash a bunch of shit.

As a holiday film, it might serve as the perfect post-gift-unwrapping reflection on consumption, waste, and aging. If everyone happens to get into it, by the end they might be chanting the Trash Humpers mantra: “Make it, make it! Don’t fake it!”

Chopping Mall

My next selection also evokes the holiday tradition of mindless, compulsive consumerism by taking us to the mall…overnight! Unlike Trash Humpers, Chopping Mall has little follow-through on the promise of its title, featuring exactly zero “chopping.” But I guess the wordplay was too irresistible to the producers, who pulled the original release title Killbots, cut fifteen minutes, and re-released the film with the more exploitation-oriented title Chopping Mall.

What Chopping Mall does have in abundance is killbots. The story involves a group of teens who plan a night of elicit after-hours mall antics being hunted by a new fleet of high-tech mall security robots. And, yes, it’s as good as that description sounds. Chopping Mall also features cult movie icons Kelly Maroney and Barbara Krampton, with cameos by the great Dick Miller, Paul Bartel, and Mary Woronov. The mall itself–Sherman Oaks Galleria in Los Angeles–would prove so photogenic that it would later be featured in the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Commando. Karrie Emerson (future TV soap star on The Edge of Night) delivers, perhaps, the most perfect line of dialogue in cinema history, when she reflects wistfully amidst the killbot chaos: “I guess I’m just not used to being chased around a mall in the middle of the night by killer robots.” The truth of it all hits hard. A trenchant holiday reminder of the true price we pay for living at the mall.

Begotten

This wordless, gory, experimental, black-and-white exploration of the death of Christ might be the perfect holiday movie substitution. It might also cause vomiting, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a great movie…it just means you might want to wait a while after eating to watch it.

I showed Begotten once to a fellow film lover with somewhat eclectic tastes. After a few minutes of the opening scene, which depicts a bloodied Christ figure hacking away at his own intestines and organs with a straight razor, he declared in the most appreciative way possible: “This movie would kill my grandmother.”

Director E. Elias Merhige managed something in his first feature that few filmmakers can claim—a film that somehow looks as if it emerged from a time before film. Begotten feels truly and temporally biblical. Merhige would go on to make the excellent Shadow of the Vampire in 2000 with John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, and the great Udo Kier (RIP), but since the forgettable Suspect Zero in 2004, Merhige has unfortunately made little suggesting he might return to the dark, mesmerizing visual style of his singular debut, Begotten. Screen with care around Grandma.

Verotika

Maybe your family wasn’t aware that former Misfit and head-banger of mothers Glenn Danzig is also a filmmaker? Well, filmmaker might be overstating it. He knows at least enough strippers to cast a film, which is not nothing. As for his storytelling, it might leave something to be desired. Eschewing complete stories for something that feels more like a place to work out some long-held fetishes, Verotika might border on the offensive were it executed with any degree of competence. Strippers wearing the purloined face skin of other women? Check. Ancient vampire queens bathing in virgin blood? Check. French girl with eyeballs where her nipples should be? Double check. In the words of the ultimate misfit himself:

“There’s not a lot of nonsensical people talking nonsense for ten minutes on end and nothing happens … there’s no superheroes … it’s all just crazy like reality-based fantasy monsters, demons, serial killers, you name it … I’m not interested in doing the next Academy Award piece of shit.”

I’m not sure Danzig circumvented the “nonsensical” part with Verotika, and I’m also not sure what he means by “reality-based fantasy monsters,” etc. But, for certain, Verotika is no Academy Award piece of shit. But it might be your next yearly Christmas tradition. And for that, Glenn, we are grateful.

Die Hard

Ok, hear me out…

Die Hard might be a Christmas movie??

I realize this will upset some traditionalists, but let me make my case:

Source: Google AI

• It’s set on Christmas Eve!
• During a Christmas party!
• And features Christmas music and decorations!
• And centers on themes of family, reconciliation, and hope! (even though it’s an action film)
• The holiday setting isn’t just a backdrop; it’s crucial to the plot, as the party allows terrorists to gather hostages and provides John McClane (Bruce Willis) a reason to be there trying to reconcile with his estranged wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia)!

I don’t want you to go too far with these Christmas movies. Honestly, this radical pick might be the one that pushes your family over the line, so proceed with caution. Yahoo and happy Christmas to all film obsessives, and their mothers, too!