By Setareh Sanaei
(spoilers ahead)
Several of my closest friends are obsessed with watching bad movies. And I mean the kind where it is so painfully obvious it will be bad just from the title, description, and poster. Regardless, they choose to press play and spend an hour and a half of their life watching a trash movie and saying how bad it is. For me, I usually choose not to partake in such masochistic activities. However, this year, I decided my Christmas gift to our dear readers would be to watch every horribly cringey holiday rom-com so you don’t have to. You’re welcome! Shout out to my friends for watching with me, although they probably would’ve watched these anyway (masochists, I tell you).
Without further ado, here is my ranking of the worst holiday rom-coms of the season. Watch at your own risk!
7. Happiest Season (Hulu)
To start off, we’ve got the only movie on this list that I would actually call a “good” movie. Happiest Season is a star-studded film about the conflicts that arise when Abby (Kristen Stewart) goes home with her girlfriend Harper (Mackenzie Davis) for Christmas—except Harper isn’t out to her family yet. And when I say star-studded, you better believe it—in addition to the film’s two lead characters, we’ve got Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza, Dan Levy, Victor Garber, and Mary Steenburgen. The writing is believable and the characters are both written and portrayed at the perfect level of cringey, which honestly is more than I can say about the rest of these films. It’s funny, it’s cute, it’s got Kristen Stewart; what’s not to like?
6. Holidate (Netflix)
I’m not going to lie to you: this movie is bad. Like bad. BUT, it was entertaining. The movie starts when Sloane (Emma Roberts) and Jackson (Luke Bracey) decide to become each other’s “holidates”—someone to bring as a date to holiday gatherings to avoid judgement for being single. As the movie goes on, we jump from holiday to holiday—which is presumably the only time the two see each other—and watch as they progress from holidates to good friends to catching feelings to (spoiler) finally getting together. The whole premise is a little ridiculous—especially the part where Jackson joins Sloane and her mother for Mother’s Day brunch. I mean I get they needed more holidays to move the plot forward, but who needs a date for Mother’s Day? And why weren’t her brother and sister there? Make it make sense, Hollywood. But despite all that, it was entertaining in a frivolous kind of way.
P.S. this one is NOT for children. Or anyone else not prepared for sexually inappropriate dialogue.
5. The Princess Switch: Switched Again (Netflix)
Weirdly, I have the most neutral feelings about this one—weird because usually I either hate or love something; there’s not much of an in between. Even weirder, I don’t have anything good to say about this movie, but I still don’t hate it. The film is a sequel to The Princess Switch, which I did not see, and I can confirm that you don’t need to watch the first one to understand the sequel. As a quick recap, the first one is a remake of the Mark Twain classic, The Prince and the Pauper. In the first film, Margaret (Vanessa Hudgens), Duchess of Montenaro, and Stacy (also Vanessa Hudgens), a baker from Chicago, meet by accident, Margaret asks Stacy to switch places so that she can experience what it’s like to be a commoner. The sequel picks up two years after the first film ends as Margaret is getting ready for her coronation as Queen of Montenaro. Stacy is getting used to fulfilling her duties as the new Princess of Belgravia (she got married to a prince in the first movie). The sequel introduces a new character, Margaret’s evil cousin Lady Fiona (ALSO Vanessa Hudgens). This might sound mean, but Vanessa Hudgens will always just be Gabriella Montez from High School Musical, so all I could think about this entire movie was her laughable fake accents. The plot was predictable, and some parts were not very believable, like when (spoiler) it took them such an unreasonable amount of time to figure out that Stacy was acting weird because it was actually Fiona pretending to be Stacy. Despite the implausibilities and the wacky accents, it was still slightly amusing for some unknown reason, and that’s really all I can say.
4. Operation Christmas Drop (Netflix)
I’ll make this one short and sweet, because if I’m being honest, I only half-watched it while doing homework. Erica (Kat Graham of The Vampire Diaries) works for a U.S. congresswoman and is given the task of finding a reason to close a US Air Force base in Guam. Andrew (Alexander Ludwig of Race to Witch Mountain) is an Air Force captain who convinces her to keep the base open because of Operation Christmas Drop, the Air Force’s tradition of airlifting supplies and presents to Guam for Christmas. Like The Princess Switch, I don’t have any strong feelings to place it at a certain part of the list; it’s just not as good as some and not as bad as others. Boring and predictable. I felt exactly zero emotions the entire time.
3. A California Christmas (Netflix)
To get right into it, a rich lady sends her sleazy asshole son, Joseph (Josh Swickard—WHAT? You’ve never heard of him??), to a ranch to convince the owners to sell them the land. In a turn of events, the feisty owner Callie (Lorynn York—yeah, no, me neither) assumes he's the new ranch hand. With this opportune mix-up, Joseph decides that the best way to close the deal is to pretend he is the new ranch hand and charm her until she loves him and accepts the deal. You see where this is going, right? They fall in love, and he doesn’t tell her the truth about who he is until it’s too late (like every man in every movie ever, ugh). The worst part about this movie was the absolutely unrealistic character development. At the beginning, he was the world’s biggest asshole, she was angry and rude, and then like FIVE MINUTES LATER, there’s a montage where he’s nice, she’s nice, and everything’s fine and dandy? I don’t think so. If they had started just slightly asshole-ish, it would’ve totally been believable. The best part of this movie was Leo and Manny’s quickly-budding, hilarious bromance. Leo is Joseph’s assistant (played by an Iranian actor, so obviously, we stan) and Manny is the ranch hand that Joseph is pretending to be, who they bribe to keep him from telling Callie about Joseph’s true identity. I realize I haven’t mentioned them up to this point, but please just watch the movie for this iconic duo. It’s seriously adorable.
2. Midnight at the Magnolia (Netflix)
Lifelong friends (Natalie Hall and Evan Williams—this guy reminds me of my old boss and it’s really all I thought about for 93% of the movie) deny that they are too close and have feelings for each other. And then (spoiler) they get together. Obviously. That’s it. Cliche, predictable, boring. Sorry not sorry. The only reason it’s not #1 is because the acting was believable, which…
1. Christmas on Ice (Amazon Prime)
THIS MOVIE. Oh my lord. Explain to me how this was the only one that we had to pay for and how it was SO bad. AND NOW IT’S FREE AFTER MY ROOMMATE ALREADY PAID FOR IT (thanks and sorry, Hamsa). They probably had to make it free because we were literally the only ones that thought, “let’s spend real U.S. dollars on this.” One line summary: An ice skating teacher (Abigail Klein) is heartbroken when the mayor decides to shut down the town’s outdoor skating rink due to budget cuts and looks for help from someone close to the mayor (Ryan Cooper) to keep it open. Multi-line upset review: The only redeeming quality of this film is that there was a small surprise twist that I did not predict (although my friend Rachel did). The acting was so bad that it felt like the first five minutes of a one-dollar-budget porno. I’ve seen high school student films with better acting. The lead character said every line like she was reading it off a PowerPoint for her school presentation. No emotion whatsoever. The child was the best actor in every scene she was in. The writing? Atrocious. I can’t believe someone wrote this script and then some Lifetime executive said, “Yes, we will make this movie.” Even for Lifetime, it doesn’t make sense. I am angry that this movie now lives in my head rent free. Please watch it. I need others to share my pain. Please.
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