Quick, name a Christmas movie you never miss each December.
Chances are you name checked “Elf,” “A Christmas Story,” “Christmas Vacation” or “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Good choices, all.
What about the other yuletide films? These are the ones you saw once and vowed never to watch again. They provoked torturous, not uplifting, sentiments. They may have been made with the best of intentions, but the finished products are only for folks on the Naughty List.
Here are five such movies. Screen them out at your own peril.
5. “Deck the Halls”
Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito team up for this off-putting holiday yarn. The stars engage in a not-so-friendly battle over who can decorate their houses better.
Filled with Christmas spirit yet?
You haven’t watched the limp gags masquerading as humor, nor the awful moment when the leads mistakenly lust after their daughters.
4. “Four Christmases”
This 2008 comedy isn’t as unbearable as the other films on this list. That’s faint praise. Yet this Vince Vaughn/Reese Witherspoon vehicle helped usher in the current wave of crass Christmas features. Think “The Night Before,” “Bad Santa 2” and “Office Christmas Party.”
The stars play a couple forced to spend Christmas with … their family … instead of jetting off to a warmer clime. Who can’t relate?
It takes a special writer to make despicable characters worth our yuletide cheer. Think Charles Dickens, the fella who penned “A Christmas Carol.” The folks behind “Four Christmases” aren’t quite in that league.
3. “Eight Crazy Nights”
Yes, this is more of a Hanukkah story, but it’s so lame it deserves to be lumped in with the other Christmas duds.
Adam Sandler isn’t a disastrous choice for an animated movie. His “Hotel Transylvania” franchise is surprisingly good. Here, he brings a toxic brew of salty language and ugly characters to a tale of Jewish redemption. Oy.
We still love his “Hanukkah Song,” though.
2. “Jingle All the Way”
Laurel and Hardy. Abbott and Costello. Schwarzenegger and Sinbad.
What’s wrong with this picture? The oddest of odd couples is just the start. Add some overly orchestrated mayhem and a leading man far better suited to smashing skulls and you’ve got a holiday clunker.
There’s a fine idea here all the same — a distracted dad is desperate to get the one toy his son craves. It’s lost in a sea of silly storytelling and the aforementioned power duo.
1. “A Christmas Story 2” (The Official Sequel)
There are plenty of low-budget, lower-ambition Christmas stories to pick on here. The straight-to-DVD halls are overstuffed with them. This film deserves a spot on this Naughty List for desecrating the memory of a genuine classic.
It’s Daniel Stern playing the Old Man this time around, and Ralphie is now a car-obsessed teen. It’s essentially a sad rehash of the jokes that clicked the first time and gags that could never, ever make us chuckle.
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