Movies for people who hate holiday movies

Had it up to your teeth with the sickeningly sweet holiday movies all over the place? You know, the type of movies that try to make you feel all warm and fuzzy, and teach everyone a lesson about being nice to each other?

I couldn’t agree with you more. I do love “A Christmas Story,” probably the all-time best Christmas movie ever made, but I can only watch it so many million times before I start getting it mixed up with “It’s a Wonderful Life,” a movie, for the record, that I hope I never have to see again.

So to try to get everyone in the holiday frame of mind, here are a handful of yuletide flicks that will warm the hearts of any Grinch.

Take “Die Hard,” for example. Most people will say it’s not a holiday movie, it’s a bloody action movie with lots of killing and carnage. Which is also true, but why can’t the movie be both?

After all, our hero is lone-wolf cop John McClane (Bruce Willis), heading from New York to L.A. to spend the holiday with his estranged wife and daughter. He is to meet her at a ritzy Christmas party at a high-tech high rise. But, as luck would have it, a group of ruthless terrorists crash the party and take everyone hostage.

MaClane is alone, unarmed and barefoot, but he’s got to take on the band of killers to get his wife back and save Christmas. If there is anything more wholesome and life-affirming than that, I’d like to hear it. Not only do we get colorful lights and a Christmas cheer, but we also get gun battles, fist fights and eye-popping explosions.

As if that wasn’t enough, “Die Hard” also gives us Alan Rickman, playing the kind of scenery-chewing villain that has made him a living legend.

“Die Hard” is one of the best action movies of them all, good any time of year, but especially around the holidays, to give you a break from TV Christmas specials and grandma getting run over by a reindeer.

“Bad Santa” may be the ultimate Grinch movie. Stalwart scumbag Billy Bob Thornton stars as a drunken, foul-mouthed criminal who dresses up like Santa to rob shopping malls on Christmas Eve.

Thornton was born for this role. The movie itself is a dark comedy-slash-crime movie, with just enough holiday cheese to make it a bona fide Christmas classic. But in the title role, Thornton creates as foul and despicable a human being as you could ever have the displeasure to meet.

That he can show such genuine pride at admitting to beating up a bunch of schoolchildren proves how unique this man is. I’d say he could give the Grinch himself a run for his money.

“Bad Santa” has as much drinking as “Leaving Las Vegas,” and as many cuss words as an Eddie Griffin stand-up routine (according to the Internet Movie Database, the f-word is used some 147 times, which has to be some sort of yuletide record). It wears these excesses like a badge of honor, and trudges boldly into greatness as the most profane and off-color holiday movie ever made.

Another classic holiday film that doesn’t get its due respect is “Gremlins.” Here’s a movie about a kid with a lovable pet trying to save the town from a holiday swarm of murderous, mischievous monsters that doesn’t waste too much time trying to warm our hearts and touch our spirits.

Hoyt Axton gives his son Billy a cute pet named Gizmo. Gizmo comes with very specific rules; 1) don’t get him wet, or he’ll spawn others 2) don’t feed him after midnight, or he’ll turn into a gremlin and 3) don’t wear white after Labor Day. Gremlins really hate that.

Rules are made to be broken, and this time it results in a horrific crime wave that sweeps the town. It’s up to Billy and a young Phoebe Cates to save Christmas. “Gremlins” has scares and a sly sense of humor that make it a personal yuletide favorite.

Sure, the old lady in the wheelchair gets thrown out the window, but she was a real Scrooge, so it’s all in good fun. You’ve got to take your Christmas cheer where you find it, be it with egg nog or a family dinner, or a gremlin getting tossed in the microwave.

Now, in addition to there being a bevy of holiday-themed horror flicks, there is a whole sub-genre about serial killers who dress like Santa and wreak havoc on nubile young people. I cannot recommend any of these movies, not even “Silent Night, Deadly Night” the original, which I thought was pretty cool 15 years ago.

But I can recommend an episode of the HBO series “Tales of the Crypt” which is available both on DVD and on VHS. This particular episode is called “And All Through the House” and was directed by Robert “Forrest Gump” Zemeckis.

This half-hour fright fest is about an adulterous woman who kills her husband with a fireplace poker for the insurance money on Christmas Eve. But as luck would have it, as she is trying to dispose of the body, her house is attacked by an escaped mental patient wielding an axe and dressed as Saint Nick. The two killers face off in a tense, scary, and funny battle of wits.

“And All Through the House” may be tough to find, but its well worth it for anyone who likes their good holiday cheer served up with an axe.