Let’s get real—nothing captures the pandemonium and magic of the holiday season quite like a downright bad Christmas movie. Every holiday season, film critics sharpen their knives, ready to skewer these glitter-covered stinkers. And yet we keep watching them.
Maybe it’s nostalgia, maybe it’s tradition, or maybe it’s the cozy familiarity of background noise while we fight lights into submission, but something keeps us coming back to these so-bad-they re-good holiday bombs. Here are five Christmas stinkers critics despise, but fans can’t seem to stay away from.
5. Deck the Halls
Ever seen a Christmas lighting display so gratuitous that it breaks out a full-blown neighbor war? That’s the premise here, with Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito engaging in a battle to see who can block the block first.
Critics were tough, labeling it mean-spirited and lacking warm fuzzies you’d want to get from a holiday film. But the wacky antics and blow-up shenanigans yield the kind of over-the-top spectacle that somehow gels for the holidays.
4. Surviving Christmas
Ben Affleck stars as a rich loner who pays a random family to act as his holiday surrogates—because that’s an option. Critics didn’t feel the cheer either, labeling it grating and empty, but the chaotic family dynamic somehow functions as a weirdly reassuring holiday wallpaper. At the very least, it’s the on-screen equivalent of eavesdropping on a family fight in the mall food court—uncomfortable, but you can’t turn away.
3. Jingle All the Way
Arnold Schwarzenegger chasing after a sold-out toy during a last-minute stampede? It’s absurd, loud, and totally out of hand—and that’s more or less the point.
Critics panned it for tone whiplash, trying to juggle satire and slapstick, but cult viewers have embraced the chaos. With aerial punches, mall Santas, and Arnie’s pure willpower, this one is now a holiday stress breakdown guilty pleasure.
2. Four Christmases
Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn star as a couple who are forced to share the holidays with all four of their ex-parents. Holiday fun, yes? The critics disagreed, condemning the movie as predictable and clunky.
But there’s an odd kind of pleasure in watching these two squirm through a barrage of dysfunctional holiday dinners—it’s a little too real for most of us, and perhaps that’s why we can’t help but watch.
1. Christmas With the Kranks
Gonna skip Christmas? Not on our street. Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis attempt to do so and are guilt-tripped by each and every person on their block. Critics called it dull and unjoyful, but somehow or another, it still rounds the turn every December. Maybe it’s the comfortable names, the warm lighting, or just the promise of knowing exactly where the story is headed.
So Why Do We Keep Watching?
Not even the most vitriolic of reviews can prevent these movies from becoming seasonal staples. As Vox once put it, no one is necessarily hungry for quality—they’re hungry for something comforting, easy to tune in and out of, and maybe even laugh at for all the wrong reasons. After a season of mayhem, wrapping paper, and cookie-induced coma, sometimes a “bad” movie is precisely what we need.