Christmas, more often than not, is sad. That’s why “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is such a perfect seasonal song. The pressure to be happy, to have a perfect celebration, combined with the myriad pressures of cooking, cleaning, shopping, traveling, and decorating, combine to place enormous stresses on people. Plenty of folks lack the money or resources to buy piles of gifts or even to see family and friends for the holidays. This year is even more difficult—the threat of COVID looms large, and my partner and I are among the many who won’t be seeing our families.
The best Christmas media understands and reflects the melancholy side of the holiday, and that includes horror. Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol captures this well—on its way to a happy ending, it reveals that Ebenezer Scrooge’s miserliness stems from deep personal pain. The book also follows the tradition of Christmas ghost stories, so it’s inherently spooky—even Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983) features a coffin cracking open to reveal smoke and flames. The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) borrows heavily from the horror tradition, and tackles the story’s emotional themes head on, refusing to condescend to young audiences. That could be why it’s apparently a favorite of many horror fans.
“Words cannot express how happy I was to learn that the horror community is rife with Muppet Christmas Carol fans,” @blackmagicbarbie tweeted earlier this month. Michael Caine’s excellent performance as Scrooge helps immeasurably—he plays the role with the gravitas it deserves. The filmmakers deliver plenty of creepy touches, from Miles Goodman’s eerie score, to the series of close-ups that signal the ghostly ringing bells just before “Marley and Marley” (Statler and Waldorf) arrive to warn Scrooge of his potential fate, to the frightening hooded Ghost of Christmas Future. (“Should we be worried about the kids in the audience?” Rizzo the Rat asks at one point. “No, this is culture!” Gonzo replies.)
The spirits force Scrooge to confront his demons: the lonely childhood, the lost love of his life, Belle, who tells him exactly why she’s leaving him in the heartbreaking ballad “When Love Is Gone” (at least, in some cuts of the movie), and the strained relationships in his present day life. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard Miss Piggy go off on what a terrible boss, and dresser, Scrooge is. Of course, Scrooge ultimately finds redemption thanks to this eye opening, haunted evening, but The Muppet Christmas Carol, like all the best adaptations of the tale, confronts the sadness that is part of the holiday for many head on. Any adaptation of A Christmas Carol needs to hit the emotional beats as well as spooky atmospherics in order to work. The terrific Muppet rendition is no exception. Moments like the heartbreaking scene in which Kermit and Piggy discuss the gravesite of Tiny Tim really make the emotional side hit home. The happy ending is joyful precisely because the lead up has been both sad and frightening.
A darker, but still hopeful, Christmas unfolds for Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) on “Midnight of the Century,” a memorable Christmas episode of Chris Carter’s series Millennium (1997). The episode, written by Erin Maher and Kay Reindl and directed by Dwight Little (Halloween 4), opens with a Christmas Eve flashback to Frank’s childhood. As a selection from The Nutcracker plays, Frank’s mother Linda (Cheryl McNamara) helps him draw an angel (the flashbacks are all in gorgeous black and white). Over the course of the hour we come to learn that Frank’s mom was troubled, like Frank, by visions of her own—of angels. She also struggled with more mundane challenges, like lacking the money to buy Frank the train set he coveted from the local toy shop. Linda died suddenly one Christmas, leaving Frank’s relationship with his father Henry (Darren McGavin) in shambles. But a series of mysterious events push Frank to confront his tragic past. Bells ring inexplicably in his apartment, and a letter postmarked 1946, with the same drawing from the opening teaser and the message “It’s the midnight of the century,” arrives in the mail. Catherine (Megan Gallagher), Frank’s estranged wife, tells him that their daughter Jordan (Brittany Tiplady) made her own angel drawing—with the help of Frank’s mother. (Jordan has shown signs that she shares Frank’s gift.)
It’s an interesting episode, and one of the series’ strongest. There’s no case for our hero to solve, but there is a mystery to puzzle out—threaded through holiday traditions like a Christmas party, a pageant starring Jordan, and a Midnight Mass. The separation from Catherine makes the holiday challenging and painful, and Frank spends several scenes trying vainly to pick up a suitable gift for his daughter. (A chorus of snarky gay sales clerks don’t exactly help.) Frank has difficult conversations with his wife, who worries about the impact of Jordan’s heightened perception on her well-being. He ignores voicemails from his dad, who is similarly alarmed by Frank’s abilities in flashbacks. At one point a mysterious spirit tells Frank about “fetches,” souls of those destined to die in the coming year, and warns him not “to put off until tomorrow what should be done today.” He serves a similar purpose to the ghosts in A Christmas Carol, for Frank ultimately reconnects with Henry and learns that his father isn’t the monster he thought he was. On Christmas Eve he and Jordan see a trail of fetches walking towards the church where they’re attending Midnight Mass—including Frank’s father. The episode exudes Christmas atmosphere, capturing the holiday as effectively as the series’ previous installment, “The Curse of Frank Black,” captured Halloween.
Another Christmas tale that deals directly with the trials and tribulations of the season is Michael Dougherty’s 2015 film Krampus. The terrific opening credits montage sets the tone. The sequence, set to the treacly “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” hilariously depicts frenzied shoppers descending on a big box store in the lead up to Christmas. It also reveals the ugliness and depression that are part and parcel of the holidays: a memorable closeup of a deeply sad woman waiting at the checkout says as much as the bit where a security guard tazes an unruly customer. We also meet the Engels, who are having a crappy time—son Max (Emjay Anthony) has gotten into a fight with another actor in the Christmas pageant, as his parents (Toni Collette and Adam Scott) look on in horror and his sister Beth (Stefania LaVie Owen) gleefully films it all on her phone. Things only get worse from there.
The stress and misery of the holidays seem to be closing in on all members of the family, with Max’s grandma Omi (Krista Stadler) his only safe harbor. The arrival of mom Sarah’s sister Linda (Allison Tolman) and her family heightens tensions; Sarah and Linda don’t quite get along, and Linda’s husband Howard (David Koechner) looks down on dad Tom. There’s no love lost between Max and Beth and their cousins Jordan (Queenie Samuel), Stevie (Lolo Owen) and Howie, Jr. (Maverick Flack), either. A humiliating incident at dinner pushes Max past the breaking point, causing him to tear up his letter to Santa—and unleashing the forces of Krampus.
Co-writer/director Dougherty has a keen understanding of the dynamics of family, and draws them vividly with the help of his talented cast. The squabbling clan grows closer as their situation becomes more desperate. They discover, finally, that they’re not so different after all. Sarah and Linda bond over memories of their late mother. Howard gains new respect for his brother in law after Tom saves him from a beast in the snow. Even the cantankerous Dorothy has a sweet moment where she lets her grand nephew sip her peppermint schnapps. It’s not enough to save them from Krampus and his helpers—or maybe it is. Max makes a desperate appeal to Krampus to spare them. He’s finally come to see that for all his family’s flaws, they’re people he loves and cares about. As dark and bizarre as the movie is, it displays real heart and makes a case for the joy that might be found amidst the sadness and heartbreak of Christmas.
source https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3645673/embracing-darker-side-christmas-muppet-christmas-carol-krampus-millennium/
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