While you could spend the festive period enjoying substantial classics like The Muppets Christmas Carol, Die Hard or It’s A Wonderful Life, if you’re anything like Buzz’s Hannah Collins, you’ll instead be turning to absolute turkeys for entertainment…
Much like The Room and Birdemic, there’s a certain pleasure to be derived from watching bad films, and the Christmas variety is plentiful. Deck The Halls and Jingle All The Way are established duds, but which are truly the best of the worst in modern TV and streaming? For this roundup, we’re using a rating system based on entertainment rather than quality to recommend some dishonourable favourites.
CHRISTMAS WEDDING PLANNER
I’m kicking things off with what I’d consider the cream of the crop for terrible but watchable Christmas films. Christmas Wedding Planner is as lacklustrely named as it is plotted and performed: female lead Kelsey Wilson (Jocelyn Hudon) is an aspiring wedding planner using her cousin’s nuptials over the festive period as a guinea pig for her new business. However, when her cousin’s PI ex, Connor McClean (Stephen Huszar) shows up out of the blue to investigate her fiancé, Kelsey is roped into becoming his partner. Meanwhile, sparks fly between them.
I say ‘sparks’; in reality, they have as much electricity as a damp cloth used to wipe eggnog off a kitchen counter, not helped by frustratingly slow editing, dialogue that goes nowhere and an in-your-face musical score. Other fun flubs include Aunt Olivia (Serena’s mum from the original Gossip Girl) never being seen without an ill-fitting fascinator, Sharl the neurotic chef having a breakdown over some ribbon, and Joey Fatone of NSYNC fame running an empty restaurant that serves entire lobsters for lunch. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I was tickled to discover when researching this that Christmas Wedding Planner is based on a Harlequin romance novel. More Stacy Connelly adaptations please, Netflix!
Rating: 5 middle-aged, ex-pop star chefs out of 5.
Christmas Wedding Planner is streaming on Netflix.
HOLIDAYS IN HANDCUFFS
Former teen witch Melissa Joan Hart began making made-for-TV Christmas movies in the late 00s and these days does so almost exclusively. Holidays In Handcuffs was one of if not the earliest and remains a perennial favourite of mine for how absolutely unhinged its premise is.
After being unceremoniously dumped and losing her job just before the holidays, Joan Hart’s Trudie loses her marbles. She decides to kidnap – yes, kidnap – Mario Lopez’s David, a customer at the restaurant she waitressed at, and force him to pose as her boyfriend as she returns home for Christmas. The family cabin is in the middle of nowhere and bad weather means David isn’t able to physically get away, so he decides to simply play house until help can reach him.
Naturally, the film tries to convince you that he slowly falls in love with his captor in spite of her ruining his Christmas plans with his actual girlfriend and Trudie’s extremely unlikeable family falling apart over dinner. The ‘enemies to lovers’ dynamic is a well-worn and well-liked trope in these things, but the Stockholm Syndrome here is worse than even Beauty & The Beast. Worth watching alone for Joan Hart’s disaster perm early on.
Rating: 5 Melissa Joan-Hart clown wigs out of 5.
A Very Nutty Christmas is not currently streaming (legally) in the UK, but VPN users can access it via Amazon Prime Video (US).
A CHRISTMAS PRINCE TRILOGY
I know some may find it controversial to list what has become compulsive Christmas viewing here, but A Christmas Prince absolutely deserves its spot. The first in the trilogy, released in 2017, put Netflix on the map for brainless holiday binge-watching – previously the undisputed domain of American networks like Hallmark and Lifetime. It’s since spawned two sequels, the second focussed on a royal wedding and the third a royal birth. (Maybe a funeral in the fourth one?)
Set in the fictional small county of Aldovia, Richard – the Prince of the title – is in fact soon to become King following his father’s death. Enter Amber Moore, an American magazine writer turned blogger (a perfectly logical career progression) who sneaks into the palace to get the scoop on him and ends up posing as a tutor for his little sister. Opposition comes in the form of slimy cousin Simon, who discovers a problem in the line of succession and is incidentally the only character with something approximating an interesting personality in the whole series.
Richard, played by Ben Lamb, is clearly styled to be a Prince William lookalike, while I suspect Amber (Rose McIver) is partly inspired by Grace Kelly, the American actress who became the Queen of Monaco. Regardless, the franchise is the fluffiest of fluff that goes down very easily with a few mulled wines.
Rating: 4 royal blogs that somehow pay the bills out of 5.
A Christmas Prince is streaming on Netflix.
A VERY NUTTY CHRISTMAS
Our second Melissa Joan Hart entry on this list, and by no means our last. A Very Nutty Christmas is one of her newer festive offerings, and so inoffensive, it sort of comes right back around to being offensive again through its sheer lack of anything approaching conflict or adversity. Based on The Nutcracker, Joan Hart plays a small-town baker named Kate Holiday who is successful but unable to switch off from work. (Women, eh: when will we be able to ‘have it all’?) She purchases a Nutcracker doll on a whim from a shop owner who definitely isn’t Santa and, wouldn’t you know it, the thing turns into a real human hunk.
What happens next is almost too dull to bother describing, as the soldier allows Kate to loosen up a bit in a series of saccharine but almost clinically chaste activities… until the film remembers, with about a quarter of an hour to go, that stakes should probably happen and its version of the Mouse King shows up to cause minimal obstruction to their barely even tepid love.
Rating: 2 Christmas cookies symbolising the failure of women’s emancipation out of 5.
A Very Nutty Christmas is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
FATHER CHRISTMAS IS BACK
If you can stomach both John Cleese and Kelsey Grammer, 2021’s Father Christmas Is Back is one of the oddest Christmas films I’ve ever forced myself to experience. A rare British-American Frankenstein’s monster, it’s set in a country mansion where the Christmas family are gathering to celebrate their namesake. The big surprise, though, is that Grammer – the absent patriarch – is also coming, having been gone from their lives in the States for almost two decades. This irks the uncle, Cleese, who has been romantically entangled with his brother’s ex-wife on the sly ever since.
The plot then meanders through Grammer and his inappropriately young trophy wife attempting to ingratiate themselves back into the family, who are made up of strange stereotypes and caricatures. One is a meek academic obsessed with The Beatles; another is Elizabeth Hurley at her most Elizabeth Hurley “darling”, including ludicrous wardrobe choices for a family get-together and being appalling to her niece and nephew. She’s easily the most enjoyable part of the film.
Other than one of the most out-of-the-blue comedy foreplay dances (if that’s a thing) I’ve ever seen, most baffling about Father Christmas Is Back is the choice to make Grammer the hero, turning what could have been a layered kitchen sink drama into a cheesy exercise in self-absorbance. Cleese also makes dated jokes about vegans, because that’s what passes for ‘anti-woke’ comedy.
Rating: 4 Greggs vegan sausage rolls that make John Cleese go snowflake mode out of 5.
Father Christmas Is Back is streaming on Netflix.
A VERY MURRAY CHRISTMAS
On paper, a Christmas variety show starring Bill Murray and a few famous faces sounds like a recipe for success. In actuality, this might be the biggest flop on this list because the talent involved sets your expectations so high. Directed by Sofia Coppola, no less, Murray is snowed in over the hour-long special in a hotel, sending him into a dreamlike Christmas trance, shuffling and crooning his way through various set pieces and musical numbers accompanied by the likes of Chris Rock, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Rashida Jones, Jason Schwartzman, George Clooney, Miley Cyrus and French indiepop band Phoenix.
Sounds like it should be good, right? So why isn’t it? Well, despite some decent reviews, and even an Emmy nomination, A Very Murray Christmas just comes across as a bunch of celebs kicking it around a fancy New York hotel for no real reason. It’s too ‘cool’ to be heartwarming, but not memorable or well-performed enough to become an alt-Christmas classic. Clooney’s cocktail-making cameo during the closing number, though a fun surprise, feels clunkily improvised, which makes more sense when you know that he replaced rapper/producer Rick Ross, of all people, who had to cancel at the last minute.
Rating: 3 Clooney espresso martinis out of 5.
A Very Murray Christmas is streaming on Netflix.
SINGLE ALL THE WAY
Considering how few romantic films there are starring same-sex couples in lead roles – let alone holiday-themed ones – It pains me slightly to include Single All The Way Here. Not to mention the fact it also co-stars the raspy angel that is Jennifer Coolidge! On the other hand, nothing says equal representation like LGBTQ+ audiences getting their own crappy Christmas movies, does it?
I really wanted to like Single All The Way when it came out last year, for all of the reasons previously cited. The plot involves Michael Urie’s Peter persuading his BFF Nick (Philemon Chambers) to be his faux-BF for the holidays at his parents’ house because he doesn’t want to be hampered by them as to why he hasn’t settled down yet. But when this plan falls apart, Peter’s mum (Cathy Najimy) – who is invested in his love life to creepy degrees of intensity – sets him up on a blind date, while he and Nick reassess their relationship.
The reason the film doesn’t work is because it adopts all of the cliches of its heterosexual counterparts and neither improves nor spices them up. Sure, Nick and Peter drop the act whereas most of the time, these kinds of stories keep the ‘fake couple’ faḉade up longer than needed. However, neither are convincing as the right romantic match for the other and the film is littered with cringey and, according to queer viewers, inauthentic moments that feel like they pander to straight audiences wanting to ‘coo’ and ‘ahh’ over a cutesy gay male couple in a weirdly fetishistic way.
Rating: 3 awkward uncle-niece Britney Spears dance routines out of 5.
Single All The Way is streaming on Netflix.
12 PUPS OF CHRISTMAS
Christmas films are by now so ubiquitous they can be divided up into subgenres, one of which being dog-heavy. Released in 2019 and written, directed and produced by one mastermind (Michael Feifer, who you won’t have heard of until now), 12 Pups Of Christmas is potentially the best-worst one to date of the litter.
Charlotte Sullivan plays Erin, who, like almost every character in the film, doesn’t have a surname, which gives you some indication as to the level of quality. Erin is a dog therapist, which somehow makes her qualified to advise the owner of a company working on a canine GPS tracker, Martin (Donny Boaz), on his ‘breakthrough’ technology (that already exists). Due to a wildly irresponsible advertising crew, Erin also ends up having to spend her Christmas finding homes for a dozen abandoned stage puppies, a subplot that doesn’t have much to do with anything else despite being in the title.
To say Sullivan’s acting isn’t good in 12 Pups Of Christmas doesn’t really do it justice; rather, Sullivan seems to rip a hefty chunk of pages from the Nicolas Cage Bible of acting, going from zero to 10 in a matter of moments, struggling to produce normal human facial expressions and at times, even getting lines noticeably wrong. But what do you expect from a film that unironically uses Curlz MT as the font for its opening credits?
Rating: 5 dog therapy sofas out of 5.
12 Pups Of Christmas is streaming on My5.
CHRISTMAS WITH A VIEW
Restaurants, inns and hotels are, like doggy stories, a dime a dozen in Christmas films. Lots of people use them during the holiday season and they make for ideal meet cute spots, unexpected love rekindling and prone to either being snowed in or only have one room with one bed available… Uh-oh! Christmas With A View is one such destination tale, as well as another story ripped from a Harlequin romance novel and from the same director as Christmas Wedding Planner. Though it’s pretty awful, it’s sadly not as gloriously bad as the latter.
The film takes plates at the Thunder Mountain Ski Resort where hot shot TV personality Shane Roarke (Scott Cavalheiro) has just been made Head Chef. This riles up struggling restaurateur Clara Garrison (Kaitlyn Leeb), who thinks he’s all talk and no grit – but, possibly because he’s square-jawed and ~dAmAgEd~, she starts developing feelings for him.
Christmas With A View ironically looks as though it were shot using a handheld camera from the 00s, with no sound or lighting technicians to speak of. For a film about food, too, the dishes shown wouldn’t pass for prison slop: One Google reviewer even notes that a Boxing Day dinner consists of “raw onions and strawberries”. Meanwhile, dialogue-heavy scenes could be mistaken for being totally unscripted they sound so tortuously mundane.
Rating: 2 depressing and uncooked Boxing Day meals out of 5.
Christmas With A View is streaming on Netflix.
DEAR CHRISTMAS
Here it is, the final Melissa Joan Hart Christmas film we need to talk about, and possibly the one with the least to say. After the cinematic highpoint that was Holidays In Handcuffs, Joan Hart’s body of festive work seems to have been on a one-woman crusade to produce a Christmas film with the least amount of plot. Dear Christmas, under these parameters, is her crowning achievement.
This time, Joan Hart is a successful podcast agony aunt for people in love but – wouldn’t you know it? – she can’t seem to bag herself a man. That changes when she runs into a figure from her past, Jason Priestley’s firefighter Chris Massey. I’ll give you a moment to re-read that name because it’s in-cred-ibly subtle. In fact, she runs into Chris almost everywhere she goes upon arriving back home for the holidays thanks to his many part-time jobs. That or we’re in Men territory, which makes me want to see an Alex Garland Hallmark movie now…
As mentioned previously, what’s noteworthy about Dear Christmas is just how little of anything there is to it. Joan Hart’s Natalie and Chris get on perfectly well until about the 10 minutes-to-go mark where, much like A Very Nutty Christmas, the film suddenly realises some conflict should happen for the sake of it and throws the most minor of spanners in the works to jeopardise their romance, which never feels like it won’t work out. A work of vacuous high art or the epitome of ‘content’ passing for cinema these days? We’ll have to wait for Scorsese to stop blasting the MCU to watch it and pass judgement.
Rating: 1 nothing out of nothing… with a Christmas star on it, I guess, out of 5.
Dear Christmas is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
CHRISTMAS MADE TO ORDER
In Christmas Made To Order, Alexa PenaVega plays Gretchen, a professional ‘holiday coordinator’, which is a job that I was very confused to learn exists. Presumably, Christmas is Gretchen’s only chance to earn the big bucks as precious few other times of the year would require her skillset, so you can understand her dismay at meeting architect Steven (Mean Girls’ Jonathan Bennett) who is an absolute Grinch about the season.
The tables turn when Steven’s whole family expect him to host Christmas for them, so he hires Gretchen to not only prepare his home but also hang around to coordinate festive activities for them all. In the real world, Steven’s family would – like any of us, I’m sure – find the idea of a stranger being paid to lurk around enforcing gingerbread house decoration and carolling a bit weird and intrusive. This being the world of a Hallmark film, though, they embrace the situation, leaving almost zero space for anything approaching drama.
Rating: 2 holiday coordinator unemployment cheques cashed every month apart from December out of 5.
Christmas Made To Order is streaming on Netflix.
FALLING FOR CHRISTMAS
Following on the heels of Christmas Princess Vanessa Hudgens in the Princess Switch trilogy, another former Disney star Lindsay Lohan made her return to acting this year by dipping her toe into the icy cold Christmas film waters. In Falling For Christmas, Lohan plays Sierra Belmont, a Paris Hilton-esque hotel heiress in an empty relationship with an influencer. After he pops the question at the top of a snowy mountain, the two of them quite literally fall down different paths. Now an amnesiac, Sierra – sorry, Sarah, as she is drastically renamed – is taken in by humble lodge-owner Jake Russell (Chord Overstreet), who helps her get a bit more down-to-earth and the two catch feelings for each other, yada, yada, you know the drill by now.
An absolute clusterfrick of tropes (dead mothers, single dads, failing businesses, alpine resorts, clumsy female leads, opposites-attract pairings), Falling For Christmas is devoid of logic, meaning or normal humans acting normally; Lohan sleeps her way through the runtime even when gargling a mouthful of toilet water from one of too many ‘hilarious’ mishaps demonstrating she’s rich and out of touch. Meanwhile, her missing fiancé is rescued by an eccentric old ice fisher in a drawn-out subplot that goes absolutely nowhere except right back to a dazed Lohan.
Worth a watch only if you need something on while doomscrolling for last-minute presents on Amazon, and/or enjoy seeing Lindsay Lohan having panic attacks over raccoons.
Rating: 3 ice fishing holes that should have been homoerotic symbolism out of 5.
Falling For Christmas is streaming on Netflix.
words HANNAH COLLINS
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