While we’ve been granted the opportunity to witness some truly amazing classics since the inception of the modern-day Christmas movie, we’ve also constantly had to deal with uncontroversial, standing, and generic fluff. Sometimes the formula goes switched up and sees get energizing crossovers into action, fright, and musicals. These are interesting bits of experimental cinema, but that gamble doesn’t ever pay off.

RELATED: 10 Of The Oldest Christmas Movies Of All Time (& Their IMDb Scores )

For those who are tired of the same old-fashioned trope-filled specials that aura every Christmas on Hallmark, or even the trademark Christmas comedies that are great but eventually is getting older and repetitive, we’ve compiled a schedule of Christmas-related films. Not all of them are bad movies, but all are original and surprising Christmas movies.

Updated on December 25 th, 2021 by Ben Hathaway: Christmas is a holiday that seems to welcome cinemas of every genre. With all of the strange Christmas movies that try, and flunk, be borne in mind, it stands to reason that there will only be more strange Christmas movies in the future.

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Michael Keaton and the late great Kelly Preston did their best, but Jack Frost( 1998) was widely seen as a erudite anniversary household film. It flopped at the box office and didn’t do well with critics, who announced it exceedingly maudlin and bland.

It’s too somewhat dark, considering the film deals with a child’s grief process after losing his father. But Frost comes back in the form of a snowman, coming into hijinks with his son that, naturally, include a snowball fight.

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Of all the curious Christmas movies on world markets , nothing are quite as humbly notorious as Jack Frost( 1997 ). American Pie‘s Shannon Elizabeth has a scene with the mutant assassin snowman that they are able to stand no chance of being shot today.

The plot makes target in a imaginary town named Snowmonton, which articulates it in league with Troll 2’s township of Nilbog( goblin, backward ). Jack Frost is a serial assassin who, en route to his executing, disintegrates into a genetic research truck. Man becomes snow and Jack Frost continues his rampage. This includes one panorama where he liquefies and slips under a doorway. The exponent shoots the irrigate with standard missiles and shouts “It’s not working! ” Lines like that obligate Jack Frosta cult classic Christmas horror movie.

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Far from being Ben Affleck’s best movie, Surviving Christmas does at least have a terrific supporting cast. With Christina Applegate, the late James Gandolfini, and Catherine O’Hara all playing pre-eminent personas, the movie had the chance to be more than the unpleasant mess it is. As it stands, the talented performers are saddled with seriously unlikable and argumentative characters.

Released in October of 2004, the movie was positioned to die a speedy extinction at the box office. On top of flopping, it was also nominated for three Golden Raspberry Awards: Worst Picture, Worst Actor, and Worst Screenplay.

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Santa with Muscles certainly ranks among the most forgotten Christmas movies. Professional wrestler Hulk Hogan stars as Blake Thorn, millionaire is chairman of a bodybuilding augment business.

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The movie then becomes a mistaken identity tale, with Thorn being mistaken for a mall Santa after coming in the garb to avoid police. There’s too a megalomaniacal scientist trying to obtain magic crystals remaining beneath an orphanage. It’s a difficult film to take seriously, but on the upside, it does boast an early figure by Mila Kunis.

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Elf Bowling was a popular computer game in the early 2000 s, but it’s inconceivable to see why anyone would have conceived, even at the height of the game’s popularity, that uttering the dealership its own inspired movie was a good idea. Video game movies almost never work, because video games( specially arcade-style creations like Elf Bowling) don’t usually focus on their planned above other constituents like movies do, and this leads to video game modifications often please give unoriginal, trite storylines that are only somewhat related to their source material.

Elf Bowling The Movie followed this path, and this led to critical and commercial-grade failure. The movie remains a bizarre example of filmmakers trying to cash in on a long-deceased trend.

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In some curves, this has been identified as the epitome of bad filmmaking. The film stars Kirk Cameron as a imaginary copy of himself, trying to convince his brother( too a fictional portraying) that Christmas has always been deeply rooted in Christianity despite the holiday’s commercialization in recent years. He adds they should embrace and celebrate this relationship.

Terrible acting, cinematography, and direction combine with overarching preachiness and cringiness to create a nightmarish Christmas outing.

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The original name of this movie is 3615 code Pere Noel, but it’s also known as Deadly Games, Dial Code Santa Claus, Game Over, and Hide and Freak. It’s obvious that issues with publicity and localization are going to push this movie into gloom before it even get started. It’s a horror-thriller movie that North American audiences would find too shocking and reasonable since the vagrant in the film is a stalker and murderer who doesn’t mess around.

Home Alone was released a year later during the holiday season and both movies were very similar with an important tonal inconsistency. The escapades of Kevin were a series of entertaining jokes with no real stakes while the homeless advance as Santa in this movie is a scary villain.

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The 2014 Lifetime special Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever was liberated at the heyday of the titular internet sensation’s popularity and follows a girl reputation Crystal, who experiences a friend in the antisocial animal( played by Aubrey Plaza) after discovering the government has special communication abilities. The duo is then thrust, Paul Blart-style, to stop a team of amateur robbers from reaching off with an extremely expensive dog housed in Grumpy’s pet store residence( although Grumpy, in reference, is against saving the pooch ).

While Worst Christmas Ever was gone by pundits( leading to a lot of predictable “Worst Movie Ever” jokes ), this campy Christmas cash-in might save a Christmas movie fan’s attention piqued.

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It’s a dare crossover even if it’s not the most highly-rated movie, but it got some positive recognition for the talented shoot. Anna and the Apocalypse blends cruelty, teen theatre, and a musical with that glamour and cheesy festivity aesthetic.

The mix of categories once concludes it weird. It’s a cinema from the UK and has been favorably is comparable to similar off-kilter parodies likeShaun of the Dead which uses the same dry and sarcastic brain. Had there been more of a budget for notoriety and bigger words in the casting, this movie might not be so obscure, but most people have never heard of it.

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This one is just inexplicable, and bad-movie reviewers still debate about how exactly it was greenlighted in the first place and how it was able to snag an all-star voice cast, including expertises such as Jim Belushi, Debi Derryberry, and Jim Cummings. It’s a strange, riling, and sinister retelling of the Nutcracker story, supposedly originated for teenagers, with fresh fruits and veggies added to the cast of characters.

The embarrassing vibe combined with a disturbing artwork vogue singularly derivative of the then-popular cartoon succession Veggietales only serves to alienate the unfortunate viewer, and it’s so tedious and irritating that it barely even efforts as “so-bad-it’s-good” fare.

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While it is reached for babies, that doesn’t tell the peculiarly storied 1964 fantasy film The Magic Christmas Tree off the hook, and it’s truly that strange. The film follows a young boy appointed Mark, who soars a tree to save an old lady’s cat. Unfortunately, he comes and is briefly knocked out, waking to realize the woman is a witch. She makes him a supernatural ring he can use to grow an evergreen tree that will grant him three wishes.

The film comes stranger from there, dealing with the implications of supremacy and throwing Santa Claus into the mix.

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Folks who love their vintage Christmas movies might know this one. The Rankin-Bass version of Rudolph the Red-Rosed Reindeer was pretty weird once, but if that wasn’t enough, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus will crowd that strange void.

RELATED: 10 Best Animated Christmas TV Specials

Frank L. Baum wrote the story on which this movie is based, and he’s the person responsible for The Wizard of Oz records. It’s a entertaining watch, just for the ingenuity involved, but it’s tough to describe. Let’s just say that the Great Ak dedicates a baby to a lion to raise, who is then kidnapped by a wood nymph, and just go with it.

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The 2007 Christmas special Holiday in Handcuffs became ABC Family’s most-watched broadcast ever, thanks, at least in part, to the film’s undeniably quirky proposition. It follows Trudie( Melissa Joan Hart ), an craftsman who decides to seize a wholly random, hapless individual, David Martin( Mario Lopez) so that she’ll be able to show him off to her mothers at her family’s Christmas reunion.

Throughout the part film , nothing of the characters’ decisions or interactions make sense, and that’s approximately attractiveness, as it leads to quite a few laugh-out-loud moments that the film’s administrators might not have intended to be amusing. Truly strange, but likewise very funny for people wanting to watch something certainly bizarre this Christmas, Holiday in Handcuffs is definitely a top pick.

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Think Saving Christmas was the worst Christmas film ever shaped? Well, yes, it was likely was, but Santa Claus Conquers the Martians certainly comes close.

The 1964 sci-fi comedy follows a group of aliens who decide to abduct Santa Claus so he can give their children brand-new, recreation events similar to the ones the children on Earth have. Becoming famed after its look on the popular humor series Mystery Science Theater 3000, the movie have already established a gift as one of the most difficult cinemas ever induced due to its incoherent area and good make importance( the opening credits refer to a “custume” designer ). Though it is really, really exhilarating sometimes, albeit unintentionally.

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The deadpan horror film Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale follows a group of secretive British archaeologists who unearth an evil, horned edition of Santa Claus in Finland. This leads to the area’s regionals being forced to defend themselves against a group of loyal, fiendish elves with only one purpose, to protect their master.

Sure, it’s weird, but it’s genuinely a pretty good, entertaining film with some huge minutes and a nonstop, rapid-fire wittiness. In fact, as a Christmas-themed horror, it competes with other Yulish cruelty movies like Silent Night, Deadly Night, Krampus, or Black Christmas in terms of quality.

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This movie is more often referred to simply as Santa Claus, but let’s be honest, this alternative title is much better for describing the eye. Maybe that’s why this movie has remained unnoticed in the palls because it was sold under a generic entitlement. The movie was established in Mexico and the English dub was released in the US a year later.

The plotline cranks the strange up to 11 not only by bringing the savage himself in as one of the principal villains but by frame Santa’s workshop in space along with other curious accessories that don’t seem to have anything to do with Christmas or Santa Claus, like throw Merlin as Santa’s trusty assistant. Yes, that Merlin. Together they have to thwart the Devil’s plan to send his beast Pitch to tempt children to do risque things. And that’s time the tip of this crazy iceberg.

The plot of Elves speaks more like a delirium dream than a storyline actually to be applied for a cinematic boast, but that’s part of the film’s unique style. A strange merger of cruelty components is clearly visible in its scheme. Around Christmastime, demonic, Neo-Nazi elves plan to breed with an Aryan virgin in order to create the hasten that, in the world countries of this movie, Hitler was actually working to create, human-elf hybrids.

There isn’t truly much more to say about this film – it’s just so odd that it leaves viewers at a loss for words. There are probably people who will enjoy it for its fascinatingly original brand of strangeness.

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A comedy about Santa stranded in Florida is actually a somewhat clever, original theme, it actually sounds like the patch of a modern-day Christmas movie from Netflix or even Hallmark. However, that’s the only “normal” idea this film has. After Santa crash-lands in Florida, many strange incidents transpire. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn appear, for seemingly no reason. Santa telepathically summons children and then reads them a floor, which is actually a lead-in to a fairy-tale-themed film-within-a-film( Thumbelina or, in one version, Jack and the Beanstalk) that runs nearly twice as long as the “Santa” narrative.

At long last, the famed Ice Cream Bunny materializes, of course, in his supernatural relic firetruck after having been summoned by a puppy, and transports Santa back to the North Pole. The film’s over, but it’s even more confusing now than it was when it began.

NEXT: 5 Of The Naughtiest Versions Of Santa Claus In Christmas Movies (& 5 Nicest )

Read more: screenrant.com