As the holidays come and winter starts to set in, most of us sit down to watch movies we absolutely love. So let us settle in and instead watch the worst movies we can find for the holiday season. Wonder what the people were thinking, who was dumb enough to buy into this, and why we’re stuck watching this even if it’s an atrocity. Starting off with a tale as old as time… a buff man thinks he’s Santa and he’s here to save Christmas! What could possibly be wrong with a movie like that?
“Santa with Muscles” is a 1996 movie with a lovely score of 26% on Rotten Tomatoes. The main star is Hulk Hogan who is a mean multi-millionaire that gets a concussion and starts to believe he’s Santa. Through this turn of events he learns to be kind and changes his ways to be helpful.
If that was the only thing that happened in the movie it might have been all right. However, most of the runtime is full of men screaming at each other, greedy characters, and small-town cops that have no idea what they’re doing. You’ll left wondering, at the very least, why would any give law enforcement in such a small town a bazooka?!
Not only that but there’s a man buying up that whole town to dig under it for minerals. But he’s a germaphobe, so he sends his henchmen out to do all his bidding. Did we mention his henchmen include a doctor and a bunch of scientists who have been kicked out of universities and other workplaces?
If that’s not enough of a red flag for you just wait till the you see a character do a jig with her electric gloves, or experience the full onscreen madness of one Canadian chemist. We could go on and on at the things wrong with this film.
Now if a multi-villain trope isn’t your thing there are other awful holiday movies around. For our second horrible holiday piece, how about we introduce a little horror? It would be too easy to watch something like ‘Krampus’; so instead we settled for ‘Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Snowman’.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a nice relaxing vacation in the tropics during winter? Have you ever been hunted down by a killer snowman? Have you ever wondered how horrendous movies got a sequel?
We at The Clarion regularly ponder all but the second, but rest assured each of those questions applies to this atrocious cash grab. The main premise follows a genetically altered man who now has been reduced to the form of modified water after he was defeated in the first movie and as the title suggests: now time for revenge! Of course, a mutant snowman cannot possibly pursue personal vendettas out of season, that would be ridiculous. So, he waits for the holidays and decides to stalk his vacationing prey in the Caribbean.
Like any horror sequal you have a number of tropes that might work in other franchises like Halloween and Friday the 13th. There’s the survivor that is terrified the killer they defeated will return, there are the family/friends who think they are crazy but later on realize they’re right. In this movie, however, they take the accusations of madness to a bit of an extreme.
The scariest part of the movie starts at the beginning, where the protagonist tells their therapist’s about their problems only to be laughed at. Some might say, well, that’s to be expected when talking about murderous mutant snowmen, but that’s besides the point.
We would love to say that this movie had no redeeming qualities, but it was so stupid it was funny. You’re first truly introduced to our mutant snowman Jack Frost when he’s just a carrot nose— is that any less murderous? No, but it’s funny to hear a talking carrot and watch it slither into the sand.
That isn’t the only time we see Jack Frost as bits of the snowman he used to be. We also get to see him as a vengeful ice cube! When they say ice is bad for you in this case they actually meant it’s deadly.
It doesn’t stop there though with a number of other outrageous scenes. You’re often introduced to the members of the resort our main protagonist is staying at. That includes a former CIA agent that is somehow magically there to help advance the plot. Every scene he’s in features the awfully predictable and cliché plot twist sound that have aged about as well as Y2K bunkers.
The end of the story is just as funky as every other part of the film with Jack Frost ending up creating an army of snowball sized mutant snowman children. That is how we find out that all the mutant snowmen are allergic to bananas.
Of course on a tropical island I think it’s one of the things you don’t have to worry about running out of quickly, you’d expect our protagonists leave plenty of banana peels on the ground ala Mario Kart. Of course, they weren’t that creative but we do have squirt guns filled with banana juice that kill all the monster babies and the mutant Jack himself. It ends with what is obviously a stolen scene of a horribly dubbed Japanese movie.
Hopefully after hearing of these horrendous tales you don’t have to sit down and watch these bad movies. Instead you can sit down and watch your own horrible movie and even recommend it. Or don’t, we don’t promote spreading pain, even if it’s just of the mental variety.
Faith Harrell, Reporter and Advertising Representative