Off-Season Christmas

There's a reason why so many Christmas movies don't get released during Christmas

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas because tonight I revisited Joe Dante’s yuletide masterpiece GREMLINS and found myself filled to the brim with holiday spirit.

Ho, ho, Howie Mandel - Dante’s film is 100 percent a Christmas movie through and through. It opens with Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home);” features a woman being attacked by a little green critter hiding in her Christmas tree, gets ample mileage out of the adorableness of Gizmo, the friendly mogwai, dressed in a Santa hat; and has a beautifully meta scene in which the titular Gremlins sing Jerry Goldsmith’s soundtrack theme in lieu of Christmas carols while serenading outside one of their victim’s houses. What more do you need, Will Ferrell dropkicking a Gremlin off the Polar Express?

Despite the film’s Big December energy, GREMLINS was released in theaters on June 8, 1984. Granted - this was a period when movies stayed in theaters a LOT longer than they do now. Not only was GREMLINS still being projected in theaters by December 1984, but Warner Brothers built a whole-ass marketing campaign around the film’s seasonal tidings.

Maybe the film’s initial summer release is why so many skeptics are wary of considering GREMLINS a Christmas movie. See also DIE HARD (released July 12, 1988), BATMAN RETURNS (June 19, 1992), and KISS KISS BANG BANG (October 12, 2005). Heck, even IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE was released after Christmas - on January 7, 1947. These are all kind of cheats, though, if I’m being honest. Despite all my bluster at the beginning of the newsletter, these movies are only tangentially Christmas-related. That said, 90 percent of the movies that most audiences would consider straight-down-the-middle Christmas classics (ELF, A CHRISTMAS STORY, LOVE ACTUALLY, ERNEST SAVES CHRISTMAS) were released in November, not December.

The fact of the matter is this - Christmas is the absolute worst time to try and release your movie about Christmas in theaters. Not only are the multiplexes crowded with awards-bait prestige dramas and four-quadrant blockbusters, but Christmas movies have an expiration date on them - Christmas Day. If your movie is explicitly about Christmas, people tend to not want to watch it after December 25. Which is, if we’re being honest, kind of bullshit. Do people take down their Christmas Tree at midnight on Christmas night? Do we rush to take down our lawn lights or stop drinking eggnog the moment the clock turns 12:01 AM on December 26? Why, then, do we feel the need to stop watching Christmas movies after Christmas?

I feel like we, as a society, rush to get to Christmas as soon as - if not before - Halloween is over. By October, stores are already putting out their tinsel and artificial trees. We don’t give Halloween - let alone Thanksgiving - any room to breathe. But then the spirit of Christmas - well, the parts of it that we’re not too lazy to immediately dismantle - evaporates as soon as December 25 is over. And for what? So we can celebrate Rubber Ducky Day on January 13?

I suggest we adjust the speed nozzle on our holiday hoze. There’s no need to rush our way to Christmas only to kick it out the door as soon as it’s over. Let’s keep that Christmas spirit going through the new year. I’m calling for gingerbread men and Mariah Carey tunes through at least January 6 - if not longer. And Christmas movies? Let’s watch those suckers year around. I should be able to watch REINDEER GAMES on a rainy afternoon in April without looking like a lunatic. Don’t deny me my right to watch THE REF on a Tuesday in March. God help the fool who gets between me and a DVD of TANGERINE in August.

With all that in mind, here are a few under-the-radar holiday favorites you should be allowed to watch any time of the year:

THE THIN MAN (1934)
William Powell and Myrna Loy star as a husband and wife detective team who spend their holiday season trying to find the whereabouts of a missing inventor. That is, they try to solve this mystery between a whole lot of cocktails. These two are absolute lushes.

THE SILENT PARTNER (1978)
Elliott Gould stars as a bank teller who tries to use a planned robbery at his bank as a distraction to cover up his attempt to steal from work. Christopher Plummer is terrifying as the would-be thief who does not appreciate his territory being encroached upon.

DIAL CODE SANTA CLAUS (1989)
René Manzor’s French “Child in Peril” film sees a young rich kid left alone on Christmas Eve and forced to defend himself and his grandfather from a psychopath dressed as Santa Claus. Unfortunately for the psychopath, the kid has an obsession with Rambo and a whole hell of a lot of violent toys.

THE DAY OF THE BEAST (1995)
Álex de la Iglesia’s over-the-top comedy stars Álex Angulo as a Spanish priest who discovers the Antichrist is about to be born. To learn the location of its birth (so he can stop it), the priest must commune with Satanic forces, and, to do that, he must commit as many sins as humanly possible.

GO (1999)
Doug Liman’s techno-drenched druggie caper features multiple intersecting storylines - all centered around a cashier played by Sarah Polley and her attempt to score and then sell some ecstasy. Witty, kinetic, and hella funny, GO features a killer soundtrack and an even more killer ensemble cast.

RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE (2010)
Jalmari Helander directs this Finnish gem about a young boy and his father who discover the frozen body of Santa Claus in the Arctic. Unfortunately, this Santa isn’t the kind of dude you see on a Coca-Cola can - it’s a massive horned demon with a legion of naked elves ready to kill in its name.

PASTORELA (2011)
Emilio Portes’ Mexican comedy stars Joaquín Cosío as a law enforcement officer who loves playing the devil in his town’s Nativity Play. When a new pastor recasts the role, though, Agent Jesus Juarez decides to take things into his own hands and reclaim his spotlight - with disastrous (and supernatural) results.

SILENT NIGHT (2021)
Camille Griffin directs this pitch-black comedy starring Keira Knightley and Matthew Goode as parents who, during their final Christmas together, must decide how to ensure their kids die a painless death after a toxic cloud promises to kill everybody on Earth and the government administers poison pills.