Hard to
believe now, but once you could count the number of films released at Christmas
on one hand. Not just the films released on or around Christmas Day, but the
wide-release films that came out weeks in advance.
If you were
looking for a new movie in December 1976, for instance, you had a choice
between Silver Streak, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, King Kong and A Star Is
Born. That was your lot, unless you really wanted to take a chance and sit
through The Shaggy D.A.
For some of
us, Christmas has always held more promise than the summer movie-going season.
Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings movies came out at Christmas, as did Richard
Donner’s Superman, and those are the types of movies that fit the season: epic
fantasy tales that effortlessly whisk us away from the drudgery of Christmas
shopping and bad weather.
Every so
often, however, a studio will take leave of its senses and release a massively
inappropriate picture for audiences to enjoy in between bites of turkey.
Scarface was released in December 1983 and it’s difficult to imagine a less
seasonal film than one where a character is dismembered by a chainsaw….unless
it’s Sudden Impact, which opened the same week.
Here are 10 movies it’s difficult to imagine viewers rushing off to see after
tearing open their presents on Christmas morning.