-->

Monday, December 26, 2022

This Year's Boxing Day Horror Show Makes You Feel Worse than a Trip to the Gym

It's December 26 — the day after Christmas, or what the nations that formerly made up the British Empire (and a number of other countries, too) call Boxing Day. The holiday is named for the custom among the British aristocracy of providing service workers and the underprivileged boxed gifts of household items to clear room for the many new gifts that had been received the day before on Christmas. Over time, Boxing Day became less about gift-giving and more about an extra day off. Stores and other businesses remain closed on December 26, and people tend to stay home with their families to enjoy the good feelings kindled during the preceding two days. There's lots of laughter and fellowship and plenty of leftovers to share, and everyone benefits from an extra day away from the cares of everyday life. Boxing Day never quite caught on here in the United States, Here, the 26th of December typically means a trip to the mall to return the gifts we didn't like, and maybe picking up an extra helping of fried dough or something.

I like the idea of extending the Christmas holiday myself. Families should be allowed to stay together an extra day as the food and refreshments run out and the fun of opening presents has ended. Let everyone stay cooped up together as they're running out of clean clothes and the hangover of overspending on gifts begins. In that spirit, we started a fun little tradition ten years ago called the Boxing Day Holiday Horror Show. It involves posting a perfectly dreadful holiday movie to allow folks to really wallow in the after-Christmas blues. There's no better way to double-down on the feelings of guilt and angst that typically overwhelm us anyway on the day after Christmas.

This year's horror show is called Santa with Muscles, a 1996 feature starring Hulk Hogan and (sadly) Ed Begley, Jr. (whom I usually like). Hogan plays a conceited millionaire with a fitness business who runs afoul of the law and dons a Santa suit at the mall in an effort to evade the police. Ordinarily in movies, this is where the fun begins, but there's no fun to be had here. As one of the more favorable reviews of the film explains, this movie is

[b]ad, bad, bad, BAD. With the possible exception of Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny, Santa With Muscles is not only the worst Christmas movie ever made, but it is one of the worst that could be made … ever. Weighing in at a whopping 2.4 at IMDB and ranked in the bottom 100 movies of all time, you know it is going to be beyond terrible, and it was. Nothing other than actually watching this 97 minutes of Hell can prepare you for how incompetent this movie actually was.

So find a comfortable place to sit, grab a big hunk of fruitcake and do your best to endure this year's Boxing Day Horror Show:


Need still more punishment? Why not revisit some of our previous horror shows, But be advised that Santa with Muscles is a five-star Academy Award winner compared to most of the films below:






Posted by at
Labels: ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)