10. Elf
This story of a human raised as an elf is not one of Will Ferrell’s best movies. The humor is extremely dry and childish. If you’re not a young kid amazed with bright colors and flashing lights you have to at least have a deep love for Will Ferrell to be able to endure this film.
9. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Live Action)
This movie isn’t all that bad. If Jim Carrey had not played the part of the Grinch, it would have been a complete bomb. The only problem that cripples the film is it overcomplicates Dr. Seuss’ original story. Finding out the Grinch’s back story as to why he hates Christmas so much and the idea of Holiday Cheermiester were just unnecessary.
8. Black Xmas
This horror remake about a killer who slaughters sorority girls on Christmas was absolutely terrible. The killer’s back story was pretty cool, but the fact that he was obsessed with eyeballs was a little odd and grotesque. Every kill incorporated the eyes being removed from the head and sometimes even consumed by the madman. It seemed to never want to end either; not until every dumb sorority girl was killed and de-eyeballed.
7. The Santa Clause 3
Unlike the first two of the series, The Santa Clause 3 lacks in so many areas. Plain and simple, it’s just boring. The basic storyline is Santa trying to make his in-laws think he lives and works in Canada as a toymaker. The only interesting part is when Jack Frost, played by Martin Short, tricks Santa into giving up his role as Father Christmas. They are sent back to the first film when Scott Calvin kills Santa. The only problem is, this part is a mere 30 minutes at the end. The rest of the movie was wasted with the boring in-laws at the North Pole.
6. The Nightmare Before Christmas
This movie is spectacularly made. The time and effort that went into this project is utterly impressive. Too bad the plot doesn’t share the same spectacular creativity. Jack Skellington is bored with scaring and wants something new. He stumbles upon Christmastown and unintentionally almost ruins Christmas by kidnapping Santa. The randomness, including the love story between Jack and Sally, weakens the film, as does the mediocre soundtrack. For some reason, this movie has become extremely popular in the past few years. Congrats, Tim Burton, but not one of your best movies.
5. Christmas with the Kranks
This movie was just plain not funny. Not only that, but the fact that everyone was angry at the Kranks for deciding to skip Christmas because their daughter had moved to South America to join the Peace Corps was just creepy. Who cares? Mind your own business.
4. The Little Drummer Boy
Nothing against the story of The Little Drummer Boy; it is a nice tale of the true meaning of Christmas, but making a movie out a Christmas song is pushing it. Granted, there are good movies made from Rudolph and Frosty, but they are child friendly. The Little Drummer Boy is just plain boring. They tried creating a back story and giving the boy a personality, but for its time, it is not the best stop-motion animated picture.
3. The 12 Dogs of Christmas
The acting in this movie is terrible, almost as terrible as the plot. Some younger kids may be able to look beyond the obvious lack of effort in The 12 Dogs of Christmas, but without the numerous K9 appearances, the long dragging plot is enough to bore anybody.
2. A Christmas Carol: The Musical
It’s not just the fact that this adaptation of Charles Dickins’ classic story is a musical that makes it so terrible. This movie stars TV’s Kelsey Grammer (Frasier) as Scrooge and Jason Alexander (George Costanza from Seinfeld) as Jacob Marley. Nothing against musicals; musicals are simply movies with a few musical numbers thrown in, A Christmas Carol: The Musical was one enormous song with a little movie thrown in. This film was practically one entire song, no differentiation and barely any transition from one to the next, and most of the dialogue was awkward rhythmic verse.
1. Home Alone 3 & 4
Now obviously the biggest gripe over Home Alone 3 is there was no correlation to the previous two films whatsoever. A new kid went against new burglars at Christmas time. Many of the stunts were more ridiculous than before (if that is even possible), but that’s about as far as that movie goes to make this list. Home Alone 4, however, is another story. This abomination tried to connect with the first films, unlike the third, but failed miserably. None of the actors from any of the other films returned (no surprise there), but here’s the plot: Kevin’s parents are getting a divorce! What?! Not only this, but Marv is back and played by French Stewart from 3rd Rock From the Sun. Kevin is younger in this one than he was in Home Alone 2 and so is his older brother Buzz who goes from a teenager in HA2 to a young kid in HA4. Also, all Kevin’s siblings have narrowed down to only two: Buzz and Megan. None of the returning characters act like they were portrayed in the original films. The filming is terrible along with the mediocre soundtrack. The budget for this film must have been non-existent, same goes for the creativity that went into the script.
Daniel Hineline - My name is Dan Hineline and I am currently enrolled at Bloomsburg University studying Creative Writing. I have been the Editor and Chief ...
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