The third annual Christmas stuff on Aussie streaming bonanza!

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I’ve always loved Christmas films and TV, even as I got older. There’s something about those simple, lovely themes that I do think can add some beauty to what has become an overwhelming consumerist vibe to the season. All of these have something of that vibe of togetherness, love, and reflection, though not always in the most obvious of ways.

Stan

Our little Aussie streaming service that could (little in the sense that it’s owned by a massive local media conglomerate) loves Christmas. They also tag their stuff really well on here and have selections of Christmas TV episodes really well curated.  

• It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) – I wrote a full review of this one a whiles back that you can read here. It’s a radical Christmas classic.
• Community: ‘Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas’(season 2, episode 11): This rules. The spirit of the season examined through the exploration of one (Muslim) person’s mental health and search for the meaning of Christmas. A hilarious take on the Christmas musical in super cool stop motion animation.
• Parks and Recreation: ‘Ron and Diane’ (season 5, episode 9): The Parks and Rec Christmas episodes probably don’t stand alone as well as some others. But this still has giggly awed at woodworking royalty Ron Swanson which is beautiful. And the focus on Jerry Gergich, always an underrated supporting character, and his famous Christmas party is a cute way to bring in those traditional themes.
• The O.C.: ‘The Best Chrismukkah Ever’ (season 1, episode 13):  This was in the brief golden period when this show’s dynamic was so sharp. Seth Cohen’s energy comes to the fore here with the made-up holiday and Summer/Anna. Even now, so far removed from this show the music still rules. And Ben McKenzie gives a good emotional performance here as Ryan, which delivers a lot of the thematic goods.
• Bad Moms 2 (2017) – This is a solid film that never quite lives up to the promise of having a hitchhiking Susan Sarandon play the mother of Kathryn Hahn (what film could). But this is a decent comedy that is actually pretty thematically rich – zeroing in on the mental load on women during the season. Let’s face it, Christmas can be fuckin stressful and most of that falls on mums. Those themes, some really nice performances and some interesting romantic stuff make it worth a look.
• Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol (2010) – Generally I would frown on the themes of Dickens’ masterpiece being updated. But this does that in a way that totally reframes them, but is respectful – ponders the nature of memory and kids moving on from Christmas among other ideas. Done in a way that enhances the original’s melancholy messaging. Michael Gambon is having a great time just hamming it up. A creative adaptation that leans into the sci-fi vibes. It’s legitimately emotional and beautiful.
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: ‘Deck the Halls’ (season 1, episode 15) – In which Will is aghast at Ashleigh’s lack of Christmas spirit. Often the comedy in this show doesn’t hold up now. But this is very funny. Will Smith is great. And this Is that outsider character of his brashly indoctrinating someone he cares about into Christmas really hums. He’s a young and fearless performer here. Evander Holyfield also pops up for an all-time classic cameo.
• Batman: The Animated Series: ‘Christmas with the Joker’ (season 1, episode 38) – Starts with the Joker busting out of Arkham singing his own version of Jingle Bells. So that’s pretty sweet. It’s such a stunning looking show. Robin filled with Christmas cheer (and desperate to watch It’s a Wonderful Life) is a very good counterpoint to the Bruce Wayne vibes.

Netflix

The kings of Christmas schmaltz continue to flood their service with seasonal stuff, their own and older stuff too.

• A Very Murray Christmas (2015) – I’ve watched this every December since it came out. Murray’s schtick, which can be hit and miss for me, works really well in this. There are some cool songs that add to the storytelling and Sofia Coppola infuses some of her visual style in here as well. Importantly it’s also super funny.  
• The Christmas Chronicles (2018) – AKA Kurt Russell Santa The Movie. This is actually quite a meaningful take on the Christmas mythos. Plus it looks really ace and is well acted all round. A lovely sense of magic and wonder to the world created here. Another favourite I watch pretty much every year.
• The Christmas Chronicles 2 (2020) – Not as good as the first, but a more than worthwhile continuation of the characters and themes. Slick but in a not altogether bad way as there’s plenty of charm here. Goldie Hawn brings such joy and compliments Russell’s Santa very well. Leans into the elf stuff here, giving us loads more of that mythology.
• Klaus (2019) – This is an absolutely stunning looking animation. There is an interesting out of time quality to this, there’s no hint as to when it is set. It’s a different take on the character of Santa too, how they reframe it. The film at times falls into the pitfalls of contemporary animation and having too modern a sensibility, with glib winking montages making multiple appearances. But that take on Santa and the really quite poignant ending make it worthwhile.
• Holidate (2020) – Not strictly a Christmas movie. But it features and in terms of schmaltzy rom-coms this is extremely good. Plus there’s a grand romantic Christmas payoff. The sublime casting helps a lot, Emma Roberts is always ace (seeing her spit “fucking holidays” whilst smoking a durry makes this worth a watch by itself) and Like Bracey is solid too. It’s kinda raunchy and there are loads of good laughs.
• Jingle Jangle (2020) – Love the storytime feel to this one. The whole vibe around the songs is great too. Musically interesting, great dancing and it flows beautifully with the film. Design and costuming are absolutely spot on. There are some charming relationships built up throughout the film as well, particularly a grandfather-granddaughter one.
• Black Christmas (2019) – This is a solid Christmas slasher that has the added bonus of making a certain subset of horrible dudes irrationally angry. A rare proudly (if unsubtly) feminist flick that would fit rather nicely in a Christmas horror marathon.
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine: ‘Captain Latvia’ (season 4, episode 10) – Has everything you need – Latvian gun runners, a Jingle All the Way riff and a carolling competition. Is the best, and most Christmassy, of the series’ seasonal episodes. Also stands alone easily so can be watched in isolation.  
• Nailed It! Holiday! – Nailed It absolutely rules. It is somehow the kindest reality show that pokes fun at people truly awful at what they are attempting. Charming, unserious and Nicole Byers is the perfect host.
  • ‘We’re Scrooged’ (season 2, episode 1): A Christmas Carol themed episode with co-host Jason Mantzoukas. I haven’t always been the biggest fan of his comedic energy. But he’s fucking hilarious here. And there’s some delightful riffs on Dickens’ work. The hosts, and I, basically had a laughing fit at one of the cakes presented.
  • ‘A Classic Christmas’ (season 2, episode 2): The great Maya Rudolph brings a dry wit to this one that complements Byers and Jacques absolutely perfectly. I could listen to Rudolph riff over stellar incompetence such as not being able to open the fridge every day of the year. 
• Stuff mentioned elsewhere that’s also available on Netflix: Community: ‘Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas’ (see the Stan section), Parks and Recreation: ‘Ron and Diane’ (see the Stan section).

Disney +

Maybe the other kings of Christmas content, as far as sheer volume goes.

• The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) – The best Muppets movie and one of the better adaptations of Dickens’ work (which is one of my favourite pieces of art ever). So charming. Captures that snowbound sense of (northern) Christmas. Shows the class situation of the masses well too and Michael Caine is a really excellent Scrooge. It’s a very funny script but laces it with direct lines from the book to give it the Dickens vibe. Never shies away from the absurdity that it’s the Muppets doing this story.
• A Christmas Carol (2009) – Robert Zemeckis is the man and this is a criminally underrated adaptation of the source material. The performance (or four) from Carrey is the best use of his wonderful physicality in the last 20-odd years. And it doesn’t forget this is a ghost story, some of the horror beats are chilling. The script is an excellent, emotionally resonant rendering of Dickens’ novella.
• One Magic Christmas (1985) – First the good stuff (and it’s mostly really good stuff). Harry Dean Stanton as a cowboy Christmas angel! An excellent Mary Steenburgen performance as an utterly worn-down mother figure, in a film that is super concerned with class. Another film that digs into the load on mothers at this time of year. Quite an adult film thematically. Now the bad (which is a bit of a spoiler): The film has a woman believe her whole family is dead, so she’ll get some Christmas spirit… that’s super super fucked up. But the fact I still recommend this shows how strong (and original) those good elements are.
• Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas (1999) – Donald Duck is the worst fuckin character. But despite that, this Disney anthology is a good, easy Christmas watch. Some nice slapstick and traditional Christmas messages presented in a slightly different way. And the final segment functions as a quite sad indictment of what the consumerist nature of Christmas forces us into.  
• Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983) –Scrooge being cast as Ebenezer Scrooge is spectacular (funny that). And Goofy mmakes a great, silly Marley. Especially once the three spirits stuff starts, this rules hard. Absolutely crushes the messaging through all three. Gets really bleak and frightening (seriously I will never understand how Dickens’ book came to be for kids) but the second half of this is as good as any of the other adaptations on the list. Amazing it’s only 26 minutes long, but feels faithful.
• Santa’s Workshop (1932) – A rad little short. Old fashioned Disney hand-drawn animation and music at its best. It’s all nice and jauntily done, particularly the lovely rhyming script.
• Winnie the Pooh: A Very Merry Christmas (2002) – A good one for the smallest of Christmas fans. Uses carols well and Eeyore is quite funny. Some of the messaging – spirit over presents – is really nice.
• Duck the Halls: A Mickey Mouse Christmas Special (2016) – First off, this is not as really young kid friendly as I was expecting. So that’s worth being aware of. But it’s also unexpectedly anarchic. Has a lot of little jokes more aimed at parents, which didn’t bother me like it often does. Uses music, both traditional and new, really well and the animation styling is cool too.
• The Simpsons – I was sort of surprised when I went looking that there were actually very few Christmas episodes in the show’s golden age. The ones that do exist are only ok really and I think in a way the show is too cynical to totally embrace the spirit of the season. But these two are decent enough if you really want a fix:
  • ‘Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire’ (season 1, episode 1): Rough as guts animation and voiceover. But it’s a passable Christmas storyline with a nice finish to it.
  • ‘Miracle on Evergreen Terrace’ (season 9, episode 11): Nice and Christmassy with lots of the iconography. A reasonable arc for Bart too which is rarely a strength of the show.

Amazon Prime Video

As evidenced by the small list of stuff only they have, Christmas is not a prime focus of these big evil folks at the moment.

• The Field Guide to Evil (2018) – This is a good not great horror anthology, held together by the commitment to the folklore vibe. But importantly for the purposes of this piece, the fifth short from Greece titled ‘Whatever Happened to Panagas the Pagan’ is a Christmas story. A very cool little one at that, with a nice mixture of and new themes and imagery. The creature is super creepy too.
• Stuff mentioned elsewhere that’s also available on Prime Video: Parks and Recreation: ‘Ron and Diane’ (see the Stan section), Bad Moms 2 (see the Stan section), Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol (see the Stan section).

Tubi

A new service for this year’s list – Tubi is a really fun, free (though ad supported) streaming service. Traditionally known for their genre/lower budget stuff, there’s some really interesting pockets of Christmas viewing to be had.

• Jack Frost (1997) – Stories about killer snowmen should be fun, and this one really is. An absolute silly delight. Plays in the slasher space. Incorporates Christmas iconography very very well (and bloodily). Though one word of warning: there is one crappy assault scene in here involving the Shannon Elizabeth character.
• A Christmas Carol (1984) – I don’t say this lightly: this is the supreme adaptation of the Dickens novella. George C. Scott as Scrooge nails the world-weariness, frustration, and coldness of the character. It’s a super-rich characterisation. A very strong piece of adaptation that is brought to life in a really atmospheric way. Gets to the melancholy of the story, which is so important – that recognition of time wasted. Has the class politics of the Dickens, but also the emotion. A masterpiece.

Shudder

Horror streamers Shudder have a small, but interesting selection of Christmas stuff. What I watched was a mixed bag, but loved these couple.

• A Creepshow Horror Special (2020) – This has a delightfully off-kilter vibe to it. It creeps along for a while, with no real Christmas content. But the moment it reveals the Christmas connection is a brilliant little beat! An awesome reframing of the department store Santa.  The whole thing weird and funny, really helped along by a wonderful performance from Anna Camp and some super funny effects & costuming.
• Saint (2010) – A surprising Christmas horror. Playfully gruesome and schlocky. Really like the way the film infuses mythology into the (mainly) contemporary setting. Turns into a fun little buddy-cop jaunt at the end. Charming and super Christmassy.

Paramount +

Not too many folks have jumped aboard this service. And I see why to be honest. But these are two of my absolute favourite new additions to this list. So grab a free trial and check these two out.

• Hey Arnold!: ‘Arnold’s Christmas’ (season 1, episode 20) – this absolutely crushes and is my favourite new addition to this year’s list. Helga is a perfect character to be a cipher for Scroogey Christmas commercialism. It looks great – snowy city streets and decorations. Uses some heavy shit to convey its message – we’re talking Vietnam War flashbacks and families being separated. A refugee story, which is pretty bloody apt for Christmas. Close to perfection as a piece of Christmas media. I cried.
• The Twilight Zone: ‘Night of the Meek’(season 2, episode 11) – Bloody radical stuff. Drenched in Christmas from the start. Opens with a department store Santa on the turps. The emotion is really raw in this thing. It’s well realised and slick, with a very good script. Stark depiction of alcoholism and super class conscious. It’s a great take on the magic and spirit of Christmas.

SBS on Demand

• Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010) – This sparse, snowbound horror succeeds wonderfully at what it is trying to do. A great, taut little storyline drives a film that is as much about family as anything else (just like Christmas). A truly original, stylishly shot film that has some fantastically creepy moments. Cool, unique father/son tale too.

YouTube

• Santa Clause (1898) – A fun little curio. Directed by British film pioneer George Albert Smith, this is a one minute 16 second long piece of early cinema trickery as Santa visits a couple of kids. You can see a nice copy from the BFI here.   
• Star Wars Christmas Special (1978) – I can’t in good conscience recommend you sit down and watch this. As a piece of art it’s wildly misjudged. But it’s a hilariously ‘good-bad’ choice to have on in the background as you wrap presents or even at a Christmas party. It’s well known that Disney will never release this officially. But given the version here has been up for 6 years and been watched a couple of million times, it’s clear they don’t give a shit enough to have it pulled down.
• A Luchagore Christmas (2015) – Two minutes of very atmospheric Christmas horror. Cool set dressing that gets darker quickly. Really dig the reinterpretation of Christmas imagery and tropes here, particularly the carol on the soundtrack. There’s a rad, gross kicker to finish it off. You can watch it here.

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Filmy people will (understandably) reject the question. But I am often asked why I watch horror by those around me. Here’s four semi-formed thoughts as to why.

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Horror allows us to ruminate on the supernatural and the unknown. In many horror films, the supernatural is plainly real. There is life after death and power is wielded from beyond. In something like The Conjuring franchise God and the Devil exist and are able to exert power on earth. These films, particularly The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) sit at the intersection of these kind of powers, and how humans can possibly hope to interreact or counteract those forces. Horror also allows us to grapple with physical things that may be true. Pondering whether there is life beyond earth in a universe that is apparently endless can leave us feeling alone and shit scared. Strangely, aliens in film, while making elements of that fear more tangible, can also be almost comforting as the concreteness of them allows them to be explored in a new way. They can provide real danger and menace, but they can also be defeated. Horror films can answer the ‘is there x’ in the first 5 mins and spend the rest of that time looking at how the fuck that operates and how it effects characters.

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Horror is a physical experience. Apart from a ‘side splitting’ comedy, film is rarely a physical experience. In horror there is tension and release. Often the former is long and the latter sudden. Watching a decent horror film is never a flat line. It is up and down. Terror and comfort. Total engagement. Horror comes in short bursts. Though at times this physical element can go too far. The claustrophobia of The Descent is an experience that was too oppressive for some viewers (though loved by many). Horror is concerned with the physical form in many ways. It’s destruction or its transcendence (sometimes both). But more than any other genre, it makes the viewer more aware of their body. How it tightens, grips the seats or even how the eyes can be averted to a part of the screen that is perceived as safer (how many viewers have taken a spell looking at the exit sign to the side of the cinema screen rather than at the film unfolding). Nothing in cinema compares to getting caught out by a jump scare – the absolute and immediate rush of adrenalin and fear, the sharp relief and then so often the awareness and embarrassment of sheepishly looking around to see who noticed that the film really got you.

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Horror is a way of engaging with the fucked-up world in a safe way. It’s not quite that crime fiction thing of being comforted by the bad guy always getting caught so we are safe. It’s something realer and often more unsettling than that. Horror is often drawn from fact and some of the best of the genre does not shy away from the fact that the bad guy does not always get caught. Great horror can grapple with murder, sexual assault and other real-life horrors in a thought-provoking way. It can examine and illuminate. This can happen in a few different ways. Something like Ti West’s The Sacrament (2013), or even Justin Kurzel’s Snowtown (2011), immerses us in an event that has been repeated in passing endlessly. But these films dwell on that horror and make us feel a tiny percentage of what the people there would have been feeling. Strangely this deeper engagement with real life horror and real-life horrific people is often perceived as more disrespectful than passing mentions or flat out pretending an event did not occur and that it did not irreparably change people and places (a debate most recently seen here around the release of Kurzel’s Nitram (2021)). The Purge franchise has evolved to fit this description too. What was initially a just a cool high concept idea has evolved alongside the rapidly changing world. Embracing head-on the sweeping tide of conservatism and Trumpism, incorporating the real-life atmosphere more and more into the events and messaging of the film. Along the way, and perhaps as a result, growing into the best contemporary horror franchise there is.

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Horror is comforting. All genre thick with iconography comes with a level of comfort. Even horror. There’s reassurance in that surface level familiarity. Hats and guns in the western, chases in action, cops and baddies in crime films.  Here it’s basements or grotesquely oversized animals that charm and strangely comfort. The classic Universal Monsters series trades heavily on this, and films like House of Frankenstein (1944) are predicated almost solely on this. This underappreciated classic is a jaunt of characters such as Dracula and the Wolfman, with charming effects and playful tropes (quicksand!). And that’s really all there is to it. That stuff is a warm blanket to horror fans. This is repurposed and taken to an extreme in something like the Hotel Transylvania series or even the playful takes on horror from The Muppets and Lego Star Wars that we’ve seen this October. We also see more modern creature features trade in, and update this. Something like Anaconda (1997) or particularly Lake Placid (1999) are charming in the scripts they choose to lay their gigantic killers against. The creativity of the visuals and the kills make the horror fan feel at home.

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Over six years ago I reviewed the first nine films in the Friday the 13^th franchise on this blog. For some reason I never got around to reviewing the final entry. I thought Halloween season was as good a time as any (obviously wrote this last bit a couple of months ago and only just getting around to finally posting this now).

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Jason X (2001) hasn’t quite achieved total cult status yet. But there has been something of a warming to the film over recent years. Honestly, it’s hard to see why.

Futuristic Jason in space is an utterly wild, and inspired, place to take this franchise. More the pity then that they made it so incredibly boring. Opening text on the screen informs us the location is ‘Crystal Lake Research Facility’. Which is awesome. The short prelude sees Jason and scientist Rowan LaFontaine cryogenically frozen, then ending up thawed out on a spaceship in the 2400s. Which is also awesome. For the most part though, what follows is tepid rather than awesome. Almost as if they wanted to give this silliest of concepts a relatively straight presentation for some reason. It also becomes apparent that a not very imaginatively put together spaceship is a less engaging locale for a slasher than a camp in the woods. There’s less places for the characters to explore and escape to, and less texture to the visuals.

Curiously Jason is essentially invincible now. Which makes him a less interesting figure. Especially given his occasional vulnerable moments throughout the franchise is something that set him apart from his villainous contemporaries. Whilst it is clear Jason is never going to ‘die’ before the last few minutes, this lack of vulnerability makes him a really flat figure. But on the positive side, the design of Jason (both of them I guess) rules hard. It fits in with the setting and the vibe of what a better version of this film would look like. The reanimated version late in the film (uber-Jason I believe) looks harsh and metallic and rad. There are one or two fun moments through the film – the first kill which is the only one where the creators tapped into any sort of creativity with this stuff; and the dated CGI is actually rather charming rather than distracting. But wow what a bloody let down.  

Verdict: How in the world do you make Jason In Space this incredibly dull. It’s certainly not the worst of the franchise. But it is the most disappointing. Schooner of Carlton Draught

1. Friday the 13^th Part VII
2. Jason Goes to Hell
3. Friday the 13^th Part 2
4. Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI
5. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
6. Friday the 13^th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan
7. Friday the 13^th
8. Jason X
9. Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning
10. Friday the 13th Part III

If you’d like to see more regular writing from me, I’d love for you to head here and subscribe to my Five Rad Films newsletter. It’s an occasional (every 3-4 weeks) look at the last five films I’ve seen I rated 4 stars or above.