The 10 Best Anti-Holiday Movies

Back in the olden days of the 1940s and '50s, you could count on Thanksgiving to herald the arrival of two things: drunken uncles and a cloyingly sweet slate of family-friendly holiday movies. You know, the choral-infused morality tales that sought to remind us of the true meaning of the holiday season? (Think Holiday Inn, Miracle on 34th Street, White Christmas, or It’s a Wonderful Life—though one could argue that a suicidal dude on a bender and having visions of angels isn’t the stuff that Christmas carols are usually written about).

But as cynicism began to leak its way into the American mindset in the 1960s, even that previously untouchable holiday fare seemed to take the occasional turn to the dark side, finding a way to connect with audiences by touching upon the disillusionment of a nation.

So perhaps it’s not surprising that on the heels of a controversial and much ballyhooed presidential election, this year's holiday movie-goers will contend with Rise of the Guardians, the PG-rated animated tale of an evil spirit whose attempts to take over the world can only be thwarted by the collective power of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and their magical band of kid-friendly warriors, including the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman, and Jack Frost.

Even as Andy Williams continues to try and convince us that "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," there's still a lot of bah humbug out there in the world—as these 10 Best 10 Anti-Holiday Movies attest.

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Written by Jennifer Wood (@j_m_wood)

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Director: Jalmari Helander
Stars: Tommi Korpela, Per Christian Ellefsen, Jorma Tommila, Jonathan Hutchings, Onni Tommila

Released in U.S. theaters just two years ago, Rare Exports may be too new and, well, rare to widely be considered "required holiday viewing" just yet. But it will be!

It's Christmastime in northern Finland and an American corporation has unearthed Santa Claus in the Korvatunturi mountain range. Far from the happy Ho, Ho, Ho type, the discovery of this Santa Claus coincides with the disappearance of many of the local children and the massacre of the town's reindeer population (its biggest export). But when Santa is outsmarted by a local family, his horde of elves won't let the big guy go down without a fight. One thing they didn't anticipate? That the townspeople are ready to fight back.

A Finnish statement on holiday consumerism—particularly in America—Rare Exports uses Christmas as a tool to show a world in which every person, place, or thing is for sale, including public opinion. It also offers a humorous and deeply original take on the mythology of Santa Claus, reminding audiences that you can't believe everything the media tells you.

Director: Doug Liman
Stars: Katie Holmes, Sarah Polley, Scott Wolf, Jay Mohr, Timothy Olyphant

"They can't evict you on Christmas! Then you'd be ho-ho-homeless!" So begins the impetus for this fast-paced black comedy-thriller, which takes place over 24 hours between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Before she was Mrs. Tom Cruise or The Ex Mrs. Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes was Claire, a 20-something grocery store clerk behind held as collateral in exchange for 20 hits of ecstasy. The "dealer" who made the trade is Ronna (Sarah Polley), Claire's friend and co-worker who is desperate to make this month's rent. When the opportunity arises to sub for co-worker/dealer Simon (Desmond Askew), and provide minor celebs/police informants Adam (Scott Wolf) and Zack (Jay Mohr) with the drugs in question, Ronna finds a way to make a deal with tough-guy supplier Todd (Timothy Olyphant). Which is where Holmes comes in. Confused yet?

Everything—including the holiday—is really just a subplot in director Doug Liman's highly anticipated follow-up to the megahit Swingers, written by frequent Tim Burton collaborator John August, who seamlessly interweaves three separate stories surrounding one drug deal gone bad. Amidst all the backstabbing, philandering, double-dealing, gunfire, drug use, and one near-fatal car accident, all is forgiven—at least for the day—when December 25th rolls around. Merry Xmas!

Director: Harold Ramis
Stars: John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Connie Nielsen, Randy Quaid, Oliver Platt

Billy Bob Thornton returns in yet another dark comedy, this one co-scripted by Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo and three-time Oscar winner Robert Benton, based on Scott Phillips' novel of the same name.

It's Christmas Eve and mob lawyer Charlie Arglist (John Cusack) and pornographer/entrepreneur Vic Cavanaugh (Billy Bob Thornton) have a reason to celebrate. They've collectively siphoned off $2 million from mob boss Bill Guerrard (Randy Quaid) and are ready to split up the money and make new lives from themselves. But they've gotten word that Guerrard has caught on to their thievery and all of the roads in and out of town have been closed because of an ice storm. Cue the crime caper madness!

Even with its A-list pedigree of cast and crew, The Ice Harvest somehow remains a criminally underseen film. Merging the best of what film noir, black comedy, and crime thrillers have to offer, its layered plot (which includes the intersecting story lines of a female strip club owner, a naughty politician, a drunken yuppie, a mob enforcer, and a couple of ex-wives) keeps the action moving but never predictable. The Ice Harvest puts new twists on characters we've seen a million times before, and redefines the scope of what a holiday movie can be in the process.

Director: Charles E. Sellier Jr.
Stars: Robert Brian Wilson, Lilyan Chauvin, Gilmer McCormick, Toni Nero, Linnea Quigley

Playing on themes of naughty and nice, Silent Night, Deadly Night tells the story of Billy Chapman, a confused young man who witnessed the slaying of his parents on Christmas Eve of 1971. More than a decade later, Billy's sadistic associations with the season play out in a murderous rampage where bad girls are impaled on a mounted set of antlers and good girls receive blood-soaked box cutters as gifts.

Originally released in November of 1984, the film made a victim of Kris Kringle when it dared to feature not one but two Santa suit-clad serial killers in its less than 90-minute running time. The reaction was swift—and appalled. "What's next," Leonard Maltin asked, "the Easter Bunny as a child molester?"

The public outcry was even harsher: Angry crowds protested outside the cinemas in which the film was playing and the distributor pulled all of its advertising less than a week after its debut. The film itself was yanked from theaters as a result of all the controversy shortly thereafter. Lesson learned: Don't mess with Santa.

Director: Richard Donner
Stars: Bill Murray, Karen Allen, Bobcat Goldthwait, Alfre Woodard, John Forsythe, Carol Kane, Robert Mitchum

We don't know what the studio marketing folks were thinking when they convinced themselves that in order to properly promote Scrooged (tagline: "Bill Murray is back among the ghosts. Only this time, it's three against one."), they needed to reference the success of Ghostbusters—which had been in theaters four years earlier. Because if you turn the movie off just as Annie Lennox and Al Green start singing "Put a Little Love in Your Heart," there's enough Bill Murray gold in here to let the movie stand completely on its own, even if some of the references are a little dated (like those gratuitous shots of cans of Tab).

Murray plays Frank Cross, a modern-day Ebenezer Scrooge and high-powered television executive who has sacrificed his personal relationships—familial and carnal—for the sake of his job, which is currently in jeopardy. He's got one chance to redeem himself by producing a live Christmas Eve broadcast of A Christmas Carol which needs to be perfect.... Now if only the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future would leave him alone.

There have, of course, been dozens of adaptations of Charles Dickens' novella—films, ridiculous Hallmark made-for-TV movies, Broadway, opera, ballet, orchestral, and even a mimed performance. But most have hearkened back to the original source material, and as such been period in nature. Scrooged modernizes and drives home the evils of greed by doubling up the message as it becomes a television show within the movie, and personalizes it further when Murray breaks the fourth wall to encourage the audience to join in and sing over the end credits (though if you read our first mandate, you will have shut it off by then).

Director: Henry Selick
Stars: Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara, William Hickey, Paul Reubens

Somewhere between a Halloween horror movie and a feel-good Christmastime flick is The Nightmare Before Christmas, the revolutionary stop-motion musical written and produced by (Who else?) Tim Burton.

Jack Skellington, The Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, is in a rut. He's tired of celebrating Halloween in the same ghoulish ways year after year, but after stumbling upon a portal to Christmas Town, he has an idea: He's going to capture the holiday spirit—literally—by kidnapping Santa Claus (a.k.a. Sandy Claws), the town's benevolent leader. But things aren't so cheery with Jack in charge of Christmas Town; the formerly happy holiday has become a rather morbid affair, with shrunken heads replacing sugar and spice for recipients on Santa's Nice list.

Based on a poem Burton wrote in the early '80s, The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of that rare breed of cinemakind that has something to offer (almost) all viewers. Visually arresting, the film is the first stop-motion picture to be filmed entirely in 3-D (an achievement Disney capitalized on when it re-released the film in 3-D in the fall of 2006 and on Blu-ray 3-D in 2011). But it's got just as much substance as it does style-and employs the talents of composer Danny Elfman (who voices Jack) to great effect, giving audiences more than just a snippet of score. While audiences rank the film as one of the season's best cinematic treats, Elfman called it "one of the easiest jobs I've ever had. I had a lot in common with Jack Skellington."

Director: John McTiernan
Stars: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson, Alexander Godunov, De'voreaux White

With a family reunion on his mind, NYPD detective John McClane (Bruce Willis at his finest) drops in on estranged wife Holly's (Bonnie Bedelia) company Christmas Eve party at Los Angeles' Nakatomi Plaza, only to watch the revelers be taken hostage by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) and his well-armed team of terrorists. Time for McClane to save the day!

Based on Roderick Thorp's 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever, Die Hard is holiday fare with a side of bloodshed. Like any good action movie, it featured more than enough palpable tension, pulse-pounding moments, and memorable one-liners to spawn four sequels, including A Good Day to Die Hard, which hits theaters this February.

But unlike many of its thrill-packed brethren (including its sequels), Die Hard has some heart. Sure, McClane leaves a body count in his path, but he does it all in the name of love. And in the true tradition of the holiday allows nothing to come between him and his family spending December 25th around the Christmas tree—together. Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker.

Director: Terry Zwigoff
Stars: Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Cox, Brett Kelly, Lauren Graham, Lauren Tom, Bernie Mac, John Ritter, Octavia Spencer

No Christmas tradition is sacred in the presence of Willie T. Stokes (Billy Bob Thornton), a seasonal Santa and full-time con man who lies, cheats, steals, drinks, and fornicates his way from one shopping mall gig to the next in this controversial contemporary classic (which is rumored to have a sequel in the works for 2013).

Each December, Willie and his partner Marcus (Tony Cox) spend their days posing as Santa and his trusty elf at a carefully chosen department store, which they'll rob when the lights go down on Christmas Eve. But a perfectly timed meeting with the unfortunately named Thurman Merman (Brett Kelly), an abandoned kid who cannot see past Willie's iconic red suit, forces him to confront his sliver of a soft side.

If its trailer had been cut to the sounds of Peter Gabriel's "Solisbury Hill," one might think that The Kid's blind admiration would make Willie a changed man. But "Father Knows Best" it ain't. The unlikely kinship suggests that there are lessons to be learned from everyone we meet, with Willie owning up to his dirty deeds in the end and The Kid becoming just a little bit of a badass (the movie closes with him riding away on his bike sporting a "Shit Happens When You Party Naked" T-shirt.)

Director: Joe Dante
Stars: Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Hoyt Axton, Corey Feldman, Frances Lee McCain

If left to his own devices, executive producer Steven Spielberg likely would have changed the name of Gremlins to Gizmo and made it the damn cutest, feel-good movie of the year. Lucky for subversive cineastes, he turned the reins over to Joe Dante, who had tinkered with the horror-meets-comedy formula on Piranha and Twilight Zone: The Movie.

Intent on giving his son Billy (Zach Galligan) something truly unique for Christmas, Randall Peltzer (Hoyt Axton) purchases a Mogwai, an adorable bundle of fur that comes with an explicit set of rules that are as easy to remember as Fight Club's: no bright light, do not get him wet, and never feed him after midnight. Oh, if only it were that easy.

In what seems like only minutes later, rule number two is broken, causing the little guy Gizmo to spawn five more Mogwai (these ones not quite as sweet as their host) who trick Billy into breaking rule numero tres, which turns them into the titular band of little monsters looking to mete out destruction on the town of Kingston Falls.

In stark contrast to the picturesque town in which the raucous little creatures wreak havoc, Gremlins has been criticized for its over-the-top violence. A scene in which one gremlin explodes another in a microwave actually played a part in the initiation of the PG-13 rating (as did Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which Spielberg directed the same year). Yet its unique mix of black comedy, gory horror, and traditional holiday tropes helped it spawn a sequel and a host of imitators—Critters, Ghoulies, and Hobgoblins among them—some of which proved more popular than others (we're not naming names).

Director: Bob Clark
Stars: Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, Andrea Martin, Marian Waldman, John Saxon

Just to be clear: We do not mean the 2006 remake starring Michelle Trachtenberg, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Lacey Chabert. No, no, no. The Black Christmas we're talking about is the 1974 original, which finds a handful of college co-eds being stalked in their very own sorority house as they prepare to depart for Christmas break.

Often cited as one cinema's first slasher films, Black Christmas is a yuletide take on "The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs" urban legend, which inspired both Halloween and When a Stranger Calls in the latter part of the decade. Exploitative in the way that only a '70s movie can be, the tension begins with a series of threatening phone calls being placed from a deranged man who is hiding out in the attic that quickly escalate to cold-blooded murder, with sorority sisters being knocked off left and right.

Truth be told, there's no real reason for the film to be set at Christmas. But we're thankful it was, as it allowed director Bob Clark—who would make holiday movie history again in 1983 with A Christmas Story (yep, the same guy directed both movies)—to put a grisly spin on chaste traditions, like the Christmas carolers who drown out the sound of Barb (Margot Kidder) being stabbed to death with a tree ornament.