The holidays are a great time to cuddle up with friends and family and enjoy a nice film or two, and there is no shortage of good movies to watch. When we think of Christmas movies we think of movies that are timeless in their craft. Home alone, The Grinch who stole Christmas, It’s A Wonderful Life, and The Peanuts Christmas are all movies that are loved for good reason. These movies have great acting, good story lines, well-written characters, and give the viewer a sense of fulfillment. But some may not know about the complete opposite of those movies: Lifetime Christmas movies.
The Lifetime and the Hallmark network is notorious for its low budget, bad acting, terrible directing, and offputting movies. Lifetime and Hallmark pumps out Christmas movies like there is no tomorrow, this year alone 94 new films will be aired on tv. A lot of the movies are hard to watch or just extremely boring but once in a while, there are a few so bad it’s good. The channels that produce these movies mostly aim towards middle-aged women or stay-at-home moms, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t watch them for a cringe or laugh.
Some examples of the movies that have been premiering this year are Christmas Unwrapped, Christmas Tree Lane, Deliver By Christmas, Candy Cane Christmas, and Cranberry Christmas. Each movie that seems to be premiered always follows the same premise: a working girl in her hometown falls in love with a mysterious man she meets, they fall in love, and everyone learns the true meaning of Christmas. For example, EW.com provided a synopsis of the movies that are premiering; the synopsis of Holidate is “Sloane (Roberts) and Jackson (Bracey) hate the holidays. They constantly find themselves single, sitting at the kids table, or stuck with awkward dates. But when these two strangers meet one particularly bad Christmas, they make a pact to be each other’s ‘holidate’ for every festive occasion throughout the next year. With a mutual disdain for the holidays, and assuring themselves that they have no romantic interest in the other, they make the perfect team. However, as a year of absurd celebrations come to an end, Sloane and Jackson find that sharing everything they hate may just prove to be something they unexpectedly love.” (EW.com)
With the number of movies premiering this year through Hallmark and Lifetime, you might want to sit down with your family and try out a bad Christmas movie this holiday season.