The 15 Most Ridiculous Hallmark Movies Of All Time

For any self-respecting cinephile out there, the phrase “made for TV movie” should send an instant shiver down your spine. No matter which channel these movies debut on, you can mostly count on three things: lousy acting, an incomprehensible plot, and a shoestring budget. But oddly enough, these movies rake in huge ratings for networks, and there is no sign that this disturbing trend will slow down any time soon.

By featuring sugary, family-oriented programming, The Hallmark Channel has managed to corner the market on straight-laced, quasi-religious made-for-TV-movies over the years. (Lifetime handles the ridiculously trashy crime and sex stories.) This is the same company that turned holidays into big business, and it's doing the same thing with family values. This weekend marks the debut of two new movies on the channel that are sure to pull in viewers, even though the material itself might be suspect.

Florence Henderson and Cheers alum John Ratzenberger co-star in Matchmaker Santa, about a bakery owner (Lacey Chabert) who just might find that true love lies not with her CEO boyfriend but with his assistant. It’s Christmas, Carol!, a Hallmark take on A Christmas Carol, spends the night with a ruthless, money hungry book publisher (Emmanuelle Vaugier), who is visited by the ghost of her company's much nicer, more beloved founder (Star Wars' Carrie Fisher, truly hitting rock bottom here), who shows her what a heartless bitch she's become. To watch either of these saccharine stories will require a visit to the dentist afterwards to get a cavity filled.

So, to prepare you for the cheery madness to come, Complex takes a look back at The 15 Most Ridiculous Hallmark Movies of All Time.

RELATED: The 50 Most Ridiculous Lifetime Movies
RELATED: 25 Least Funny Sitcoms of All Time

Written by Jason Serafino (serafinoj1)

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Original Air Date: July 30, 2011
Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith
Stars: Lea Thompson, Steven Brand

This Hallmark movie has it all: a forced romance, grating child acting, and a plot so completely devoid of logic that it should make you thankful that the world of Hallmark bares little resemblance to reality. In The Cabin, two single-parent families with the last name MacDougal are assigned the same cabin during Scotland’s “Mac Fest,” a convention that gathers clans from around the globe with the last name starting with “Mac.” We’re not joking.

The mother and father of these separate families are annoyed at first, but, as it usually happens in these films, they fall irresponsibly in love in just a few short hours as their children are left behind to deal with the psychological ramifications. This syrupy feel-good romance attempts to mask the absolutely ludicrous plot behind it, but we’ve grown cold and callous over the years, and no amount of lovey-dovey stupidity can distract us from logic.

Fun fact: The dude who directed this also directed Leprechaun 4: In Space. Makes you think.

Original Air Date: January 10, 2009
Director: Steve Gomer
Stars: Jason Priestley, Teri Polo, Cheech Marin

After car troubles leave them stranded in a small Mexican town, a struggling young couple decides to stay together after the kindness of the villagers inspires them. Based on that plot synopsis alone, Expecting a Miracle sounds like it has all the makings of a pretty standard Hallmark movie, right?

Well, when it is revealed that the priest of this village is played by none other than Cheech Marin, anything even remotely believable about this movie goes up in smoke (sorry, but we had to). How could we listen to the pot king of the '70s try to teach us about togetherness and family values?

Original Air Date: October 22, 2011
Director: David S. Cass Sr.
Stars: Martin Mull, Cameron Daddo, Bridget White, Daniela Bobadilla, Rhea Perlman

What could be better than a heartwarming ghost story that shows how meaningful family love is? Just about everything, honestly. If there is one thing this world doesn’t need it's Hallmark trying to barge its way into Halloween. It already has Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Leif Erikson Day; we don’t need them clogging the airwaves with sappy faux horror movies. But unfortunately that’s just what the network did with Oliver’s Ghost.

Don’t get it twisted: We didn’t expect decapitations and disembowelments to be front and center on the Hallmark Channel, but Oliver’s Ghost could have at least given us a scarier looking ghost than Martin Mull in a bow tie. Even worse, the little boy who befriends him winds up reuniting him with his estranged daughter in one of the sappiest endings you’ll ever see. This is yet another in a long line of Hallmark movies that attempts to ignore the beautiful cynicism of society, and, honestly, we take offense to that.

Original Air Date: September 5, 2005
Director: John Harrison
Stars: Luke Perry, Tia Carrere, Peter Fonda, Lance Henriksen

In yet another example of Hallmark overstepping its boundaries, Supernova is a disaster flick in the same vein as 2012 and Armageddon, but shrunk down for the small screen and sporting a budget that would barely cover the catering costs of its big-screen counterparts. With the Earth getting pelted by fireballs from outer space, it’s up to Dr. Luke Perry to fight for survival as he crosses paths with other has-beens like Tia Carrere, Peter Fonda, and Lance Henriksen along the way.

The fact that this exists doesn’t make sense to us. First off, the whole disaster trend was over in the late ‘90s, and secondly, if you were forced to watch a movie in this genre, wouldn’t you want to see one with special effects that don’t look like they were created on a ’95 Gateway PC?

Original Air Date: December 7, 2003
Director: Matthew Irmas
Stars: Tori Spelling, Dinah Manoff, William Shatner, Gary Coleman

We can’t even begin to count how many adaptations of A Christmas Carol that have come out over the decades, and A Carol Christmas does nothing different than the dozens that came before it, aside from making it a Herculean task to sit through. The movie focuses on Tori Spelling as an icy talk show host who three ghosts visit to teach her the true meaning of Christmas.

What really makes this movie go from cookie-cutter to absurd is the decision to cast both William Shatner and Gary Coleman as the ghosts who visit Spelling. Why anyone would take the advice of a former Enterprise captain in a bad hairpiece or a washed-up ‘80s child star is simply beyond our comprehension.

Original Air Date: June 20, 2004
Director: Steve Boyum
Stars: Nastassja Kinski, Michael York, Susie Amy

It’s the sequel no one ever wanted as La Femme Musketeer imagines what would happen if D'Artagnan had a daughter that took up his swashbuckling mantle. Whatever fun you could have had with the original Three Musketeers story is completely thrown out the window as Hallmark attempted to monkey with this classic piece of literature by including a trite and lifeless gender twist that added absolutely nothing other than a few raised eyebrows.

Obviously with The Three Musketeers being in the public domain, Hallmark didn’t have to put much energy or money into this film, so it decided to go with production values that were barely on par with an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess.

Original Air Date: March 17,2012
Director: Kevin Connor
Stars: Adrian Pasdar, Amy Huberman

There isn’t a holiday that Hallmark can't exploit, and in Chasing Leprechauns, the company goes for the holiest of all high-holy days: St. Patrick’s Day. In it, a company sends a troubleshooter to Ireland to find out why it can’t build a plant outside of a small village. It turns out that the land is protected by a law that claims it is inhabited by endangered leprechauns and no building can be done there.

Of course this adventure leads the man to fall in love with Ireland’s resident “pixie expert,” who teaches him all about the mystical ways of the land. We’re not sure if this is really offensive to the Irish, or just part of Hallmark’s good-natured charm, but it still doesn’t stop Chasing Leprechauns from being absolutely bizarre in a naïve sort of way.

Original Air Date: November 25, 2010
Director: John Bradshaw
Stars: Lauren Holly, Rick Roberts

The Town Christmas Forgot is a heavy-handed family flick that attempts to drill it into an audience’s head that Christmas isn’t about material possessions—it’s about togetherness. Of course this message is brought to you by the Hallmark Corporation, which has been profiting off of holiday cheer for decades. The movie focuses on a middle-class white family getting stranded for Christmas in an impoverished mining town named Nowhere Town. We’re not kidding, that’s actually the name of the community. It boggles the mind.

The plot then follows typical Hallmark trappings by having the family bring positivity to the town’s residents and they all have a merry Christmas, despite being broke and present-less. They even somehow get Santa Claus to make an appearance for this catastrophe. Don’t believe this drivel, Christmas is about boxed merchandise and we all know it.

Original Air Date: July 5, 2008
Director: Armand Mastroianni
Stars: Luke Perry, Francesco Quinn, C. Thomas Howell

Remember when you were watching Luke Perry on Beverly Hills, 90210 back in the day and you thought to yourself, “Boy, he would make a bitchin’ sheriff in a Hallmark Channel western”? Neither do we, but A Gunfighter’s Pledge gave it to us anyway. In the movie, Perry plays an ex-lawman who accidentally kills a man and pledges to bring his body to his sister. Once at the sister’s farm, Perry is tasked with killing the outlaws who are looking to take it over.

The Western is a genre made famous by Sergio Leone in the ‘60s, but when these types of stories go through the Hallmark filter, all of the badassery and charm gets diluted and homogenized for the family. Remember, a western without massive amounts of bloodshed is like a day without sunshine.

Original Air Date: May 24, 2008
Director: Armand Mastroianni
Stars: Dean Cain, Anthony Michael Hall, Ernie Hudson, William Forsythe

Although Hallmark is a hit when it comes to disposable family films, the network is at its most unintentionally hilarious when it tackles the action genre. And no movie proves that more than Final Approach. Starring Dean Cain as a disgraced FBI agent, the plot of the movie deals with Anthony Michael Hall and his terrorist group hijacking an airplane that Cain is on.

Liberally borrowing elements from Die Hard 2, Passenger 57, and just about every Steven Seagal movie ever released direct to video, Final Approach attempts to be like airborne version of 24 but fails to even be as suspenseful as Airplane. Worst of all? While the Die Hard's and Under Siege's of the world usually breeze by in less than two hours, this one runs just a shade under three. Three! And again, Anthony Michael Hall is a terrorist mastermind here. Just let that sink in.

Original Air Date: September 17, 2005
Director: Russell Mulcahy
Stars: Kyle MacLachlan, Gabrielle Anwar, Patrick Stewart

What happens when you take a beloved Jules Verne novel and attempt to force a TV budget onto it? You get Hallmark’s version of The Mysterious Island, which failed to realize the majesty and fantasy of the original work. Its small scope and TV movie clichés and trappings made this an odd choice for the channel. These Hallmark movies are usually dripping with so much sap that you need a pancake to soak it all up, but when the channel attempts to bring full-on fantasy to its saccharine world, the wheels usually fall off shortly after the opening credits.

There are plenty of worse movies on this channel than The Mysterious Island, yet this is probably one of the more misguided films the company has ever attempted. Although you can’t argue with the casting of Patrick Stewart, even if he is wearing that goofy scarf on his head the whole time.

Original Air Date: May 27, 2006
Director: Russell Mulcahy
Stars: Casper Van Dien, Leonor Varela, Jonathan Hyde

The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb is another example of Hallmark taking an idea that worked in Hollywood (The Mummy) and trying to recreate it on a shoestring budget on the small screen. Using special effects more reminiscent of what you would find on Sega Saturn than an actual feature-length film, this movie failed to live up to the cheesy charm of SyFy Channel flicks like Raptor Island or Pterodactyl. Instead it was just a slog that somehow lasted well over two hours. Director Russell Mulcahy seems to be the go-to guy for action/fantasy Hallmark movies, but even Scorsese would have a hard time making this work.

Original Air Date: October 6, 2006
Director: Robert Lieberman
Stars: Campbell Scott, Gil Bellows, Daryl Hannah

In the same vein as Independence Day and V, Final Days on Planet Earth is about an alien invasion that threatens to overtake the planet. This includes a conspiracy that revolves around the alien insect queen disguising herself as Darryl Hannah, who works for the mayor of San Francisco, and slowly abducting the humans in the city. Why the insect queen didn’t strive for a job more important than an aide to the mayor of San Francisco is beyond us, but apparently that’s all this devious race of extraterrestrials needs to conquer our planet.

Keep in mind that this movie runs for almost three hours, so this whole low-budget alien conspiracy unfolds at a pace that would make a snail race look fast. Even if you like trashy B-movie fare, your movie-viewing palette might be a bit too complex for this.

Original Air Date: November 30, 2002
Director: Kevin Connor
Stars: Nick Stabile, Judd Nelson, Lauren Holly

In the grand tradition of Hallmark turning the holiday season into a virtual minefield of sappiness, Santa Jr. tells us the story of Santa Claus’ son, Chris Kringle Jr. In the movie, Kringle gets arrested for trespassing and is accused of trying to steal Christmas gifts while he was simply delivering presents. He then tries to clear his name with the help of a court-appointed attorney, and learns to embrace his family’s lineage.

We’re sure you had to pop a couple of Aspirin after reading that plot synopsis, but you’ll probably need a handful more after you find out that this movie briefly brought Judd Nelson back from the beyond to play the cop who busted Santa’s worthless offspring. Anyone with even a shred of taste should stay away from this film, but for the morbidly curious there is a drinking game you can play along with this. Every time you feel like throwing the remote at your TV in disgust, take a shot. Just prepare to have your stomach pumped by the halfway point.

Original Air Date: November 27, 2004
Director: Kevin Connor
Stars: Patrick Muldoon, Kelli Williams

None of the movies on this list follow any sort of human logic, but A Boyfriend for Christmas makes everything else look like Othello in comparison. The movie begins with a girl named Holly wishing for a boyfriend for Christmas from Santa Claus at only 13 years old. But for two decades, she remains alone, apparently just waiting for the man of her dreams to be bound and gagged under her tree every December 25th.

Well, two decades after her initial wish, a mysterious man does show up at her door on Christmas and claims to be sent from Santa himself. And just like that, logic takes a holiday. This movie leads audiences to believe that not only does Santa Claus exist, but that he’s more pre-occupied with hooking this spinster up with a man than he is with giving out gifts like food and water to third world nations. You flummox us, Hallmark.