I've always loved Santa Claus, but not only for the supposed gift giving and seasonal sweetness (which is wonderful of course.) No, I love Santa, in part for frequently appearing so...disturbed. Santa Claus is just inherently creepy. Any guy who knows when you’ve been sleeping, when you’ve been awake and when you’ve been bad or good is going to create a little tension in your life. And though one usually thinks of Santa as that jolly old fat man in a red suit riding a sleigh stuffed with presents, in world history, he’s quite a bit darker. For instance in Austria, Santa used to partner up with a devil figure named Krampus who would beat the naughty kids with switches. Santa and Satan? (Come to think of it, that would make for a really good movie -- Krampus sounds scary or...really pretentious).

But speaking of movies (and what else would I be speaking of?), cinema well understands not only the goodwill and joy that the holiday’s can bring but also the anxiety and terror. Bob Clark's brilliant sorority house slasher/masterpiece Black Christmas, a movie I've written about numerous times, put me in a morbid mood, so I thought I'd look at the darker side of Christmas via, who better? Santa Claus himself. Be them drunks, sociopaths or green Grinches, here’s my seven screwy (and in the case of Popeye Doyle) sexy Santas.

Billy Bob Thornton in Bad Santa (2003)

I know this comparison is rote but...is Terry Zwigoff’s Bad Santa the Citizen Kane of Santa movies? I think so. It's certainly more the true re-make of How the Grinch Stole Christmas than Ron Howard's horrid attempt. The story of a thieving, drunken, lecherous, cantankerous, no good son of a bitch (etc. and so on) Department Store Santa is one of the most subversive Christmas movies ever made and also, surprisingly, one of the most touching. Billy Bob Thornton carves out a role that is now iconic -- stumbling through the movie with such assured misanthropy that at a certain point, you’re actually impressed.

And if any of you have felt cranky during Christmastime, you can relate. As for me, I might not get busy in a dressing room with an extra large lady (so great), but I understand the nastiness. And yet, crude humor aside, Bad Santa truly does examine the real meaning of the spirit of Christmas with a foul mouthed message that’s strangely powerful.

Robert Brian Wilson in Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

Thank God for outraged mothers -- if not for their, uh, valiant (and successful) efforts to ban Silent Night, Deadly Night from movie theaters, we might have forgotten this 80’s slasher milestone. Because the controversy (and poster of Santa coming down the chimney with an axe) is honestly the only thing that makes this film at all memorable. That and the unusually good looking Robert Brian Wilson (who looks like he’s pissed he didn’t get that Calvin Klein contract) as a sociopathic Santa. The filmmakers had something with the story -- that of a little boy who, after witnessing the brutal killing of his parents by a homicidal, rapist Santa Claus, grows into a murderous department store St. Nick -- but they botch up their premise with horrid technique, zero tension and un-clever sleaze. Still, the film remains required viewing (you’ve got to see it once) for both the anti-Christmas classic crowd and those sanctimonious mother’s who banned it in the first place. And you know at least half of them rented it eventually....and liked it.

Read my entire list here.

And Merry Christmas!

--posted by Kim