Over many decades of cynicism burrowing their way deeper
into the collective subconscious, what was once the most wonderful time of the
year is now incredibly demented. Yuletide cheer has given way to soaking those
festive colours in many darker shades, resulting in a time of year that is
joyous but for entirely different reasons and for entirely different people
than it was originally intended.It’s with this in mind that Terry Zwigoff’s Bad Santa might be the most perfect representation of our incredibly warped and yet still loving attitude towards Christmas. Dark and bitter with a foul-mouthed and violent demeanour, Billy Bob Thornton’s titular character brought a whole new kind of Christmas champion to mainstream attention, one that was more likely to smack the baby Jesus than bring it any gifts. It was delightfully demented without really sacrificing the sense of goodwill associated with the holiday (not entirely, at least) and made for a quite enjoyable watch, especially around this time of year. And then the guy who made Mr. Popper’s Penguins was brought on to make a sequel to the story thirteen years later. Insert your own joke about unlucky numbers here because, quite frankly, this film has had enough unnecessary derision laden on it already.
