10 Alternative Christmas Movies
3. Gremlins
Why is Gremlins one of the greatest Christmas movies ever made? Because you think it’s a movie about monsters attacking a small town, but it’s really a cautionary tale about how imbuing an arbitrary date with significance can impact on people’s lives.
You see, Kate (Phoebe Cates) was decorating the tree with her mom one year, waiting for dad to come home, but she didn’t know that he’d already finished work and was planning on surprising them both. Which he did: while dressed as Santa, he attempted to navigate their chimney, slipped and broke his neck, lying there until his 9-year-old daughter discovered his body hours later.
And that’s how she found out there was no Santa Claus.
Fast forward a few years and Gremlins are everywhere, exposing themselves to Kate when they’re not killing her neighbours or attacking her boyfriend, giving her yet another reason to hate Christmas.
For everyone else, there’s a perfectly decent reason to hate the festive season that has nothing to do with dead parents or a Mogwai’s bastard offspring. Spend a few moments in front of the tube on Christmas Day, and you’ll see what I mean.