Rotten Tomatoes<\/span><\/a> score from 83 reviews, Deck the Halls <\/i>lies in a potter\u2019s field of similar zombies, resurrecting annually for 25 days in December before returning to their unmarked and unmourned graves until that Hershey\u2019s commercial with the ringing Kisses appears anew, or at least Black Friday. It is a regulation Holiday Romp\u2122, and it is an abomination. <\/span><\/p>\n Now I\u2019m not decrying all Christmas entertainment; Charlie Brown is forever above reproach. But on an almost annual basis, moviegoers are given a dire gift. The trailer usually features a famous face you haven\u2019t seen in much lately and the Jackson 5 cover of \u201cSanta Claus is Coming to Town.\u201d The plot is uniform \u2013 Christmas sure makes people kooky, especially the family. The message, too, is uniform \u2013 fortunately, Christmas is a time for redemption and forgiveness. It all sounds cozy on paper, but in practice, it\u2019s almost fiendish. Watching these Holiday Romps\u2122 is a disquieting, depressing experience, despite the scene where the dad picks out a comically underwhelming tree or the mom botches dinner in the slapstickiest way possible. It\u2019s not that these 90-minute marvels aren\u2019t funny \u2013 though the shoe may fit \u2013 it\u2019s deeper than that, darker. <\/span><\/p>\n What makes so many Christmas comedies something a shade past insidious is that they aren\u2019t just rote or clich\u00e9 \u2013 they defy the true meaning of Christmas, if not the entire human spirit.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n Consider Deck the Halls<\/i>, the movie that ushered Matthew Broderick into darkness. Buddy Hall (Danny DeVito, bored) faces a minor existential crisis when he realizes his house can\u2019t be seen from space, so he sets about changing that with the power of too many Christmas lights. Steven Finch (Broderick), self-appointed town \u201cChristmas guy,\u201d isn\u2019t about to let him get away with stepping on his own fractured sense of identity. Spelled out that way, there\u2019s immediately a distinct hero and villain: Hall wants to overcome insignificance and Finch wants to stomp him out entirely. But note the title \u2013 Deck the Halls<\/i>. The Hall family, staying one car-salesman paycheck ahead of crippling debt, are painted as the bad guys. Broderick\u2019s Mr. Christmas, who almost crucifies his teenage daughter for wearing a shirt that shows shoulder and later makes his 10-year-old son hang from the top of a telephone pole, is our put-upon protagonist. But before our eyes adjust to this backwards lens, Hall \u201cgives\u201d Finch a new car and neglects to tell him that he still has to pay for it thanks to a contract he forged in his name. Then Finch shoots military-grade fireworks at Hall\u2019s house with the stated intention of giving him a heart attack. These are despicable men. Their families rightly desert them by Christmas Eve. <\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019d be willing to excuse Deck the Halls <\/i>on the Problem Child <\/i>Principle \u2013 a black comedy script is bought, misunderstood and grotesquely molded into a crowd-pleasing heart-warmer \u2013 but there are two big problems that make it not so. First, the ending. The lonely dads pool resources and light-up snowmen to win over their estranged families. It works, of course, and their redemption boils down to a handshake. That pursuit of the perfect Christmas almost claimed another couple of kooks and we\u2019re told that the spirit of Christmas pulled them back from the brink. But it shouldn\u2019t <\/i>have. They were fully committed to financially ruining, publicly shaming, and outright murdering each other to prove they had more of that darn Christmas spirit. <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n <\/i>The second evidence that Deck the Halls<\/i> wasn\u2019t a fumbled black comedy is how many other demoralizing Christmas movies make the same mistakes.<\/span><\/p>\n Christmas With the Kranks <\/i>is so miscalculated that the only context in which it makes sense is an alternate 2004, a second-rate dystopia identical to our own except there, Christmas is a state-enforced holiday. Luther and Nora Krank decide to spend Christmas in the Caribbean after their only daughter moves away. This, obviously, is an unthinkable injustice to friends, neighbors, and the tri-state area. As news spreads of their depravity, the Kranks are treated like suspected Communists during the Red Scare. They\u2019re strong-armed into still decorating their house to community satisfaction, and when they refuse, said community demands the decorations surrendered. But what finally destroys any suspension of disbelief isn\u2019t the scene where Dan Aykroyd tries to run down Jamie Lee Curtis in a moving vehicle, or where Boy Scouts extort Tim Allen. Christmas With the Kranks <\/i>earns its reputation as the gravest of Holiday Romps\u2122 by siding with the neighbors. When daughter Krank decides to return, Luther and Nora are left at the mercy of these festive fascists. They help them out, sure, but only because they don\u2019t want their daughter to be heartbroken at her parents\u2019 miserly disgrace. <\/span><\/p>\n The lesson provides a dangerous clause to the paper-thin morality of Deck the Halls<\/i>: <\/i>Christmas sure does make people kooky, especially the family. Fortunately, it\u2019s a time of redemption and forgiveness. So submit, you rat bastard, or face the consequences.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n These Holiday Romps\u2122 all misinterpret the same holy text \u2013 National Lampoon\u2019s Christmas Vacation.<\/i> Surely there have been dysfunctional Christmas movies before and worthy attempts after, but few have managed its heartfelt-but-still-funny alchemy. Clark Griswold wants to put on the perfect Christmas, but everything from venomous in-laws to SWAT teams stands in his way. Many Romps\u2122 have been made on this raw material alone. What they usually miss is the ending. Once he accepts that the gilded holidays of his childhood had their fair share of tarnish, Clark realizes he still managed to pull off the Christmas he wanted for his family. \u201cI did it,\u201d he says to himself with a sigh and a smile. For Holiday Romps\u2122, there is no winning Christmas or even surviving it on your own terms. It is a carnivorous force of nature that demands certain traditions \u2013 family must be present no matter how inhumanly awful, especially <\/i>if inhumanly awful \u2013 and no matter how closely it is humored, it will still pummel you into submission. Christmas is a character that nobody likes but is anxiously polite to because it\u2019ll either ruin you or turn your entire life around.<\/span><\/p>\n Four Christmases <\/i>takes each of the Romp\u2122-standard archetypes around the dinner table and expands their irritation to entire families. There\u2019s the uber-masculine side disappointed in their son, an uncomfortably sexual side that\u2019s still making the kids cringe after all these years, and so on. The heroes commit the same sin as the Kranks \u2013 instead of visiting these shrill cartoons of human beings, they decide to take a tropical vacation. So not only are they subjected to the usual Christmas Wrath, but also must be redeemed by it. Their shared flaw? Not wanting kids. Luckily the spirit of the season shows them the way\/batters them into submission, and Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon put aside their lack of chemistry to have a baby.<\/span><\/p>\n This year we\u2019ve already gotten not one, but two <\/i>Holiday Romps\u2122: A Bad Moms Christmas <\/i>and Daddy\u2019s Home 2<\/i>. Bad Moms <\/i>is the clear winner between the two, but the parallels almost demand they be lumped together. They\u2019re both about the leads\u2019 comically exaggerated parents are flying in for the holidays. In fact, the movies are so similar, they both end with these mismatched parents, now rehabilitated and friendly, deciding to spend New Years in Vegas together. And when I say \u201crehabilitated,\u201d I mean it. By the time the credits roll, a single Christmas has entirely turned around a deadbeat parent and<\/i> Mel Gibson. Now that\u2019s some kind of miracle.<\/span><\/p>\n Since Scrooge, Christmas has been synonymous with redemption and goodwill toward men. But it took no fewer than four ghosts and time travel to turn him around. These Holiday Romps\u2122 just squeeze in a few moments of remorse between pratfalls and hostile relatives. The end result is either hollow or insulting, depending on your mood, and it only reinforces a toxic approach to the holidays.<\/span><\/p>\n Christmas is not a standardized test. You can\u2019t pass. You can\u2019t fail. It\u2019s not an annual hurricane that takes preparation to survive and even then, there will be damage. There is no elven police force to charge you for copping out with Stove Top stuffing or letting that one strand of lights that goes out whenever someone opens the garage door stay out. There\u2019s also no law making you tolerate terrible people, related by blood or otherwise, at the cost of your own well-being. Especially not in the hopes that this <\/i>Christmas, they\u2019ll suddenly change their ways.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m not calling anyone a lost cause, but Holiday Romps\u2122 don\u2019t even recognize the term \u2013 all bad eggs are only one good Christmas away. These movies reinforce every poisonous expectation and strain while laughing them off as necessary evils of the experience. That\u2019s why their mediocrity curdles into a gentle malevolence: they\u2019re part of the problem they present.<\/span><\/p>\n So this Christmas, spend it with the people you want to spend it with. Celebrate the way you want to celebrate. Eat at KFC on Christmas Eve because it\u2019s the only place open. And for your own good and the good of all of us, don\u2019t waste any of it on a Holiday Romp.\u2122 Stick to Rudolph, Frosty, and Father Christmas himself, Clark Griswold.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nJeremy Herbert<\/a> lives in Cleveland, which explains a lot.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019ve hit rock bottom.\u201d Matthew Broderick could often be found sitting on the ground, holding his head and repeating this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":475,"featured_media":8504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/475"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}