The Christmas Chronicles (2018)

Directed by Clay Kaytis

Viewed on Netflix

 

Summary: Kurt Russell’s presence does nothing to stop Christmas Chronicles from being another DOA attempt at making a modern Christmas classic. Trite and kind of gross.

 

Now it is officially Christmastime so I can present you with a piece of newly minted Christmas history. Ladies and gentlemen, I present you with the first found footage Christmas movie! Now, I am a connoisseur of terrible found footage movies, so it is my sworn duty to watch this movie and report back to you on its quality. To my delight I learned that not only is this a found footage movie, it also stars Kurt Russell as Santa Claus! How could I not want to watch this movie?!? Time to grab that eggnog and get ready for our first real Christmas extravaganza with The Christmas Chronicles!

The Not At All Predictable Origin of Sad Christmases

We begin with a lovely found footage montage of several Christmases that our lovely family is enjoying together. The two children, Teddy and Katie, are joined by their Mom, Claire, and their Dad, Doug, and together they all celebrate many wonderful Christmases which surely will never be complicated at all by the fact that Doug works as a firefighter. They certainly aren’t setting up Doug to die as a way of creating easy drama! Now we’re at our current Christmas Eve where the family is reeling from the death of Doug…wow movie, didn’t want to waste any time, huh? Didn’t even bother letting us get attached to him. You might as well have just held up a sign saying, “Please Be Sad.” It would’ve had the same emotional impact as this!

 

WHAT A TWEEST.

 

Ultimate Hipster Christmas List

Young Katie has grabbed the family’s VHS camcorder, which somehow still works perfectly despite its decade of use, and records a Christmas wish list for Santa vlog-style. The concept of using a VHS camcorder to record a vlog has caused a hipster somewhere to spontaneously orgasm. Katie’s video is mostly just her saying how good she’s been this year while completely throwing her older brother under the bus because of his various alleged crimes. Teddy, no doubt sensing this familial betrayal, bursts into the room and grabs the camera, mocking Katie for using the camera. Wow Teddy, I was sticking up for you and you pull this shit? No wonder your sister hates you.

 

Santa, for Christmas I would like a new brother.

 

Teddy’s Wild Christmas Eve

Teddy soon tires of torturing his sister and leaves, but not before distracting Katie by dumping a whole tube of fish food in Katie’s fish tank, momentarily distracting her so he can get away. Katie follows her older brother, filming him with the camcorder. While out and about, Teddy gets involved with normal teenage shenanigans, like hanging out with his friends, going to the deli that sells beer to anyone, and ending the night with a smidge of grand theft auto.

 

~One of these things is not like the other, one of these things is a serious crime.~

 

Katie Learns That Blackmail is Always the Answer!

Confident that she now has all the power in their relationship, Katie blackmails Teddy with the tape of him committing multiple felonies. Katie considers just handing over the tape to their mom but she decides against it at the last second, surely realizing that such a tape gives her untold power over her brother. This blackmail tapes comes in handy as Katie, while looking through the tapes of Christmas debauchery that her parents recorded, notices a strange arm that seems to resemble Santa’s robed sleeve. Excited at the thought of catching Santa Claus on film, Katie promises Teddy that she’ll give him the blackmail tape if he helps catch video evidence of Santa. The two, in a forbidden junk food fueled haze, setup Santa traps all over the house and then promptly pass out.

 

The least believable thing here is that someone willingly ate a box of Good and Plenties.

 

Santa’s Magical And Not Entirely Stealthy Escapades!

Suddenly our heroes are roused from their slumber by all the Santa alarms going off! He’s here! Katie isn’t fast enough to catch Santa as he dashes out of the house and onto other houses where he…jumps from rooftop to rooftop in clear view of the street. Does Santa not care about being seen? He’s jumping roof to roof and making quite a bit of noise during this, also he EXPLODES INTO RED MAGIC DUST DURING THIS.

 

The horrible blur is meant to distract from the horrible special effect.

 

Seeing Santa’s Sleigh Starts Something Strange.

Katie then spots Santa’s sleigh…..which IS JUST HOVERING ABOVE THE STREET. I know this is usually glossed over in these Christmas stories but why hasn’t anyone seen Santa yet if it is so easy to spot him? Maybe have the sleigh hover at least a bit above the rooftops, or park it behind a tree or put some camouflage on or something, anything! Santa’s sleigh is so unprotected that young Katie decides that climbing up a pole and hopping into it would be a great idea, with Teddy following close behind to try and keep her out of trouble. They climb aboard and are wowed by the magi-tech sleigh and the famed reindeer floating out front. This wonderment ends quickly though as Santa returns and they hide in the back of the sleigh to avoid discovery. Santa then flies through a Christmas Wormhole that hypnotizes the youth into revealing their location. Upon realizing he has stowaways, Santa proceeds to lose his mind, start screaming, and immediately lose control of his sleigh, crash landing in an alley somewhere.

 

This was Kurt Russell’s reaction to reading the script.

 

Santa’s Not An Expert On First Aid

With the children half dead in the snow, Santa eventually gets out of his sleigh, briefly checks to make sure they’re alright (Just as an FYI Santa, asking someone who was in a vehicular collision “Are you okay?” and then not doing any follow up on that is a terrible idea) notices that his magical sack and magic hat are gone, along with his reindeer, and then immediately blames them for all that has happened and declares that if he can’t deliver presents to good girls and boys then we will fall into a second Dark Age. I’m not joking. Apparently the entirety of Western civilization depends on ‘Christmas spirit’ which depends on Santa doling out presents to children. I don’t really see the connection, but whatever, I’m not Santa.

 

Santa Should Learn About Attractive Nuisances.

Also before we get too far let me just say, Santa, it is totally your fault that this whole thing happened! Your sleigh is the definition of an attractive nuisance, and there is legal precedent stating that the owner of something that children would be interested in, like a sleigh belonging to SANTA CLAUS, has to make a reasonable effort to stop children from being able to access it. So you need to accept your own responsibility in this and not blame these kids for everything. Or you could just blame them for everything and try to leave these kids who live in Massachusetts in an alley in Chicago. WHICH IS WHAT HE TRIES TO DO.

 

Also He Doesn’t Believe The Mainstream Media.

Oh, and this is after Santa said that he is nothing like that, “Big Fat Slob,” his words not mine, and that he does not go ‘Ho Ho Ho,’ declaring that to be Fake News. Yes, he actually uses the words ‘Fake News.’

 

Told ya.

 

Santa’s Pretty Okay With Leaving This Kids In An Alley In Chicago.

The two children run after Santa and say they want to help, which really only makes sense of them to offer because Santa might give them a ride back home after they find his magical bag, magical hat, and the team of reindeer. I still can’t get over Santa Claus, the supposed friend to all children, was ready to leave these kids here and go about his quest all on his own while these kids froze to death in a snowbank. So Santa needs to get some wheels. Trekking down to the local watering hole, Santa tries to use his charms and knowledge of what anyone has ever wanted for Christmas to convince the patrons that he is the real Santa Claus and needs help. The scene goes absolutely nowhere and is only in the movie to setup Santa explaining to Teddy that if he doesn’t stop stealing cars, he will end up like the guy working the bar, who is on the “Naughty List Hall of Fame.”

 

I believe Santa, that mustache hides great evil inside it.

 

Santa’s Willing To Bend The Rules For A Sweet Ride.

The solution to all their problems come in the form of a car that they steal! Wait, that sounded bad, let me rephrase that. So, in order to fulfill a greater good, acquiring Santa’s magic objects so he can perform his world-saving gift-delivering duties, the group decides that a smaller act of evil, stealing a car, which had apparently already been stolen, and surrendering the car to the police after they’re done with it, would be alright. I genuinely did not expect Santa to weigh in on the ethical dilemma of the ends justifying the means, but I guess that’s just a given when Santa was ready to let two kids fend for themselves to ensure the goodness of the rest of the world’s children.

 

An adherent of Machiavellian thought.

 

Santa’s Willing to Endanger His Young Friends With a High Speed Chase!

So Santa and these two kids are zooming through the streets of Chicago trying to find their reindeer when Santa decides to jury rig the radio to pick up police reports and learns that the cops are hot on their trail for stealing that stolen car. Santa, being all about protecting children, embarks on a high speed chase to distract the cops while Katie goes to find and wrangle the team of reindeer. Because Katie clearly has the experience in animal wrangling to get eight giant reindeer to do her bidding. Shockingly, Katie successfully wrangles the reindeer while Santa has an unfortunate accident, crashing the car into a snowbank. Just as this happens the police are on the scene, holding Santa and Teddy at gunpoint. Santa proceeds to actually do something decent and distract the cops while Teddy rushes away to join Katie, hopping up on one of the reindeer so they can get away and find Santa’s things! Oh, also Santa gets arrested.

 

 

All those Breaking and Entering charges finally caught up with him.

 

Santa’s Willing To Risk Katie Being Eaten By Elves.

Santa gets interrogated in a bunch of scenes that are not amusing or heartwarming, so let’s talk about how weird this movie gets. The two siblings find Santa’s sack, with Katie rushing inside to get the elves to help as Santa instructed. This sack is a portal to the North Pole, I think, because once she crawls in she gets transported into a workshop. That’s fine though, that’s the least unbelievable part of this story. What happens next though is that Katie is accosted. By elves. Terrifying, terrifying, cat monster elves.

 

Euuugh.

 

Santa’s Magical Toy Bag Attracts Some Shady Attention.

Unaware of Katie’s predicament, Teddy is also accosted by a dangerous group, a group of Christmas thugs! You know, people who wander around parks on Christmas Eve looking for presents to steal! Like the Grinch but with less flair for the dramatic. The thugs see Teddy holding a bulging sack and decide that he must have some great swag in that bag, prompting them to try and take it from Teddy. Teddy says that they can’t have said bag and instead of just punching Teddy in the face and taking it they realize that the logical choice would be to kidnap Teddy just to get the bag. They then take Teddy back to a…chop shop? Why would thugs at a chop shop be interested in petty larceny and/or kidnapping? Wouldn’t they be more into stealing cars or something related to that? Whatever, maybe they just diversified their crime portfolios.

 

The One Stop Chop Shop. All Your Crime Needs Taken Care Of!

 

Santa Will Also Risk The Elves Cutting Off Teddy’s Dick.

One clever thing does happen in this chop shop. When the thugs reach into Santa’s sack to steal his presents all they find are boxes filled with coal. It’s a cute bit and that’s fine, they’re clearly on the naughty list. What’s weird is that the boss of these thugs gets fed up and goes to throw the sack into a furnace/boiler, which is just in the middle of the room for some reason. At the last moment Katie’s new friends, the monster elves, rush out and begin attacking the thugs in an action sequence that looks straight out of a Gremlins knockoff. Teddy almost gets caught in the crossfire, as the elves can smell his lack of Christmas cheer and almost chainsaw his dick off.

 

NO, THAT WASN’T A JOKE. THAT HAPPENS.

 

Santa Will Come Down Your Chimney If You Know What I Mean.

While that’s all happening, Santa is, of course, performing a Christmas jam with everyone at the jail, and singing about how Santa is coming down your chimney to have sex with you. It’s making me a little uncomfortable. Damn you, Kurt Russell! I’m not supposed to have these thoughts about Santa! This sweet jam sesh ends and it’s the elves to the rescue, chainsawing through the ceiling to give Santa his magic hat and reveal that they completely repaired his sleigh and everything is fixed! Naturally what happens then is Santa continues delivering presents and the kids go back home, but because there’s almost 30 minutes left in this movie and there isn’t nearly enough padding, it’s time for fifteen minutes of present delivering then a jolly ending where everyone learns a lesson and realises that Christmas is great. Also Santa gives Teddy an ornament that lets him see a reflection of his dead dad. So that’s cool I guess.

 

Ahhh, just a corny enough ending to satisfy everyone!

 

Not The Proudest Moments of Cinematic Christmas.

Okay, I was maybe a little harder on this one than it deserved but I maintain that this is still a terrible Christmas movie. What made me want to talk about this, more than just its recent release, is the insanely awful message at its core that just sickens me. In a good Christmas story, like the original How The Grinch Stole Christmas or A Christmas Carol, it is emphasized that toys and presents are a fun part of Christmas but they aren’t the main part and even if we didn’t have them, we can still have a great Christmas. This movie spits in the face of that tradition and declares that presents are the only thing stopping the world from falling into another dark age. I’m sure that wasn’t the intended message, but I see no other way to read this. Also, I love Kurt Russell and I was really excited to see him as Santa but he just isn’t Santa. Maybe it was how he was written, maybe it was the kind of performance he was directed to give, but there is zero holiday cheer in the entire movie. I need to cheer myself up, maybe next week’s Christmas movie will remind me what it’s like to feel joy. Let me just check Netflix and…oh…oh my…prepare yourselves everyone, for a triumphant return next week!

 

 

I do not own the images used here, they are the property of their copyright holder.