OKLAHOMA CITY – We all know the standard Christmas movie formulas.
A kid has a fantastical adventure that confirms that the holiday magic is real. A feuding family is taught the importance of love and community through the Christmas spirit. Or maybe an unflappable grouch is made to learn kindness and charity a la “A Christmas Carol.”
Those time-honored scenarios make up a majority of holiday fare in film, and for good reason. Those are all the makings of some indisputable classics and some undoubtable yuletide fun.
But maybe this year, you want to celebrate the holiday with a weirdo action/adventure instead. Maybe you’re still in “Wicked” mode and you’re craving another singalong musical. Or maybe this year has you feeling more cynical or macabre and you’d prefer some classic horror with a Christmas twist.
Well, OKC theaters have you covered with a winterlong slate of holiday-ready films for every cinematic taste.
‘Black Christmas’ – Oklahoma Film Exchange – Sunday, December 7th
Everybody loves the holiday classic “A Christmas Story,” right? Well, did you know that film’s director, Bob Clark, made a whole other holiday movie nearly a full decade before that classic?
So surely anyone that loves the hilariously nostalgic childhood romp of “A Christmas Story” will love Clark’s 1974 “Black Christmas.” Right?
Right?
Sure, maybe, if your favorite part of “A Christmas Story” was Ralphie getting his eye shot out.
That’s because “Black Christmas” is not only a total tonal shift away into full-on knife-murdering horror territory, it’s arguably the film that co-created the entire American slasher genre alongside “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.”
Following the residents of a college sorority house being stalked and stabbed and asphyxiated while hunkering down during their winter break, “Black Christmas” effectively drew the blueprints for practically every slasher that came after, from “Halloween” to “Scream.”
But because of its use of POV, its employment of buried and vague explanation, and some chilling reveals (or maybe lack of reveals, more accurately,) this one still chills even after all the imitators that it spawned.
It’s bloody, it’s bleak, and it’s got a great pre-“Superman” Margot Kidder. It’s everything you could want in a Christmas movie.
For more, visit oklahomafilmexchange.com.
‘Gremlins’ – Flix Brewhouse – December 17th; Rodeo Cinema – December 19th & 20th
One of the great pop-cultural debates of our time is whether or not “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie.
Well, I’m not here to open that whole can of festive worms right now, so instead, let’s turn to another endlessly quotable, massively influential 80s action/adventure classic that most assuredly is a Christmas movie.
That’s right, it’s director Joe Dante’s immortal “Gremlins,” a true holiday classic that finally answered that long-lingering question on every put-upon parent’s mind at Christmas time: “what if this present I give my kid ends up absolutely wrecking my life?”
That present, of course, is the furry, cuddly, irrepressibly cute mogwai, Gizmo (just like a Furby,) whose care comes with a few famous rules about sunlight, water, and never ever feeding after midnight, lest any mogwai become a terrifying, demonic talking nightmare (just like a Furby) called a gremlin.
When those cautions go predictably awry, all hell breaks loose with creature carnage, wacky action, and Amblin-style whimsical adventure enveloping the town, all against a backdrop of unmistakably 80s American Christmastime.
For more, visit flixbrewhouse.com and rodeocinema.org.
‘White Christmas’ – Oklahoma City Museum of Art – Saturday, December 20th
OKCMOA is rolling out a multi-month slate of the mid-twentieth century’s most vividly colorful and eye-popping films in a series they’ve dubbed “Technicolor Wonderland,” curated to coincide with “Paul Reed: A Retrospective,” and the VistaVision classic “White Christmas” certainly fits that bill.
The 1954 musical mainstay is obviously a perennial holiday go-to, but it still stands out from the pack mainly just by the virtue of not falling into all of those tired Christmas movie formula clichés.
Rather than a child’s magical journey or a family’s Christmas reconciliation, “White Christmas” is a post-war musical, a romcom, a buddy movie, and pretty clearly the film that “Black Christmas” is calling back to with its title.
In fact, its story of begrudging romance and its conceit of staging a big show to save a beloved-but-threatened inn in a picturesque Vermont town make it more like a super early precursor to the Hallmark Christmas movie formula. But, let’s be honest, way better.
But it might also carry just a touch of winter wistfulness with its lightly dusted themes of post-WWII aimlessness and an already yearning nostalgia pushing against the domestic changes and global developments that were just beginning to reshape the world of the 1950s.
For all of its farcical romance, catchy songs, and vibrant Technicolor dance sequences, “White Christmas,” just like the timeless title song itself, is really about the overwhelming desire to return to a bygone time when things were simpler, friendlier, and less uncertain.
And that’s a theme that we can all relate to this year.
For more, visit okcmoa.com.
Catch Brett Fieldcamp’s film column weekly for information and insights into the world of film in the Oklahoma City metro and Oklahoma. | Brought to you by the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.
Brett Fieldcamp is our Arts and Entertainment Editor. He has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for 15+ years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
