Worst Holiday Movies of All Time

The holidays are full of cheer. These movies aren't.

Worst Holiday Movies of All Time

Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick in Deck the Halls

There are few better things than cozying up on a couch and turning on a holiday-themed movie while leaves or snow fall outside. And nothing can ruin that experience quite like turning on a Christmas or Thanksgiving movie that turns out to be utter trash.

Instead of looking at the best holiday films, we're tuning in to what most people should tune out — the worst holiday movies ever made. These bad holiday flicks are worse than a lump of coal in your stocking and were much more expensive to make.

50. Pottersville

Year: 2017

Distribution company: Echo Bridge

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 0%

Bottom line: In "Pottersville," Michael Shannon walks in on his wife (Christina Hendricks) in a fur suit having an affair with the town sheriff (Ron Pearlman), also in a fur suit. Distraught, Shannon gets rip-roaring drunk and finds his own full-bodied fur suit and blacks out.

The next morning, he discovers that he went on a rampage and everyone in town believes they finally found Bigfoot. The town's resident weirdo (Ian McShane) vows to kill the beast — but not until a famous monster hunter (Thomas Lennon) brings a TV crew to town and puts Pottersville on the map.

Michael Shannon as a drunken Bigfoot? Ron Pearlman and Christina Hendricks as furries? Ian McShane being Ian McShane? This movie should have been at least entertaining, but it's just inexplicably bland and boring. We're not even sure this was meant to be a Christmas film, but it features a Christmas soundtrack and it has a very snowy setting.

How did they mess this up?

49. Daddy's Home 2

Year: 2017

Distribution company: Paramount Pictures

Budget: $69 million

Box office: $180.6 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 21%

Bottom line: The original "Daddy's Home" wasn't great, but it wasn't the biggest steaming turd Will Ferrell ever made (that crown belongs to "Holmes and Watson"). "Daddy's Home 2," however, was just more of the same but with a bigger budget and even more wasted talent.

This time, Mel Gibson and John Lithgow play the parental figures of Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell. There's just something so bland and limp about this movie, with nothing going on and nothing to laugh at.

It's abnormally clean, too, polished to take all the edges off so as to offend no one, and it suffers for it.

48. Unaccompanied Minors

Year: 2006

Distribution company: Warner Bros.

Budget: $25 million

Box office: $21.95 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 29%

Bottom line: "Unaccompanied Minors" is based on a story from NPR's "This American Life" about children snowed in at an airport in 1988. Unfortunately, it was not nearly as entertaining.

The movie features a cast of young kids stuck in an airport on Christmas Eve who are going to be locked in a room assigned to unaccompanied minors (the UM room). Zany, nonstop antics ensue as the children break free and evade security throughout the airport.

Critics lashed this one for being formulaic and forgettable, and for bringing nothing new to the table.

47. Reindeer Games

Year: 2000

Distribution company: Dimension Films

Budget: $42 million

Box office: $32.2 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 25%

Bottom line: "Reindeer Games" is a failed Ben Affleck crime movie featuring a bunch of bank robbers in Santa costumes. After poor test screenings, the movie was moved from a December release date and dumped in February, where it made only $32.2 million on a $42 million budget.

Charlize Theron cited this film as being one of the worst ones of her career, telling Vogue in 2004, "'Reindeer Games' was not a good movie, but I did it because I loved John Frankenheimer."

This was, unfortunately, Frankenheimer's last film. The director was best known for making "The Manchurian Candidate" and "Ronin."

46. Santa's Slay

Year: 2005

Distribution company: Media 8 Entertainment

Budget: N/A

Box office: $6,982

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: N/A (43% audience score)

Bottom line: "Santa's Slay" is a pretty bad film, but it's so bad it's awesome.

Wrestler Bill Goldberg plays an evil Santa Claus, complete with giant evil reindeer, who rampages across town (the aptly named Hell Township) murdering people in Christmas-themed ways. You see, in this movie, Santa isn't the jolly fat man from the North Pole. He's literally the Antichrist.

It's stupidly over the top and ridiculously violent and worth a watch for a so-bad-it's-good movie night this season.

45. Santa Claus: The Movie

Year: 1985

Distribution company: TriStar Pictures

Budget: $50 million

Box office: $23.7 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 20%

Bottom line: Did you know they made an origin story about Santa Claus? Well, they did — "they" being TriStar Pictures and French director Jeannot Szwarc.

David Huddleson (Mr. Lebowski from "The Big Lebowski") plays Santa, and John Lithgow plays an antagonist toymaker whose business is under fire from Congress for making unsafe toys.

But before we get there, the movie takes place in the 14th century. Claus (Huddleson) and his wife, Anya (Judy Cornwell) and their two reindeers are saved from a blizzard by magical elves. The main elf, ominously known as the Ancient One (Dudley Moore), christens Claus as Santa Claus and gives him magical Santa powers.

Marvel should remake this movie as a gritty superhero flick. He's already a mutant, after all.

44. Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa

Year: 2002

Distribution company: Promark Television

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: N/A

Bottom line: "Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa" is a bizarrely animated musical Christmas special featuring the voices of Mark Hamill and Nancy Cartwright.

"Believe in Santa" briefly appeared on The WB during Christmas of 2002, but it was excoriated by critics and disappeared entirely, never even making to home video.

Someone uploaded it to YouTube and Vimeo in the 2010s, and it has since gained popularity for its awfulness. Just look at that animation!

43. Just Friends

Year: 2005

Distribution company: New Line Cinema

Budget: N/A

Box office: $51 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 43%

Bottom line: Ryan Reynolds dons a fat suit in "Just Friends," a predictable romance about a guy who gets rejected by the girl he loves in high school, loses weight, and then gets the girl while returning home to visit for Christmas.

You could do worse, but you could also do a lot better than turning on this one.

42. Mixed Nuts

Year: 1994

Distribution company: TriStar Pictures

Budget: $20 million

Box office: $6.8 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 10%

Bottom line: This is another one of those films where you see the cast and, if you didn't know anything about the movie, you would figure it's a good watch.

The movie has an ensemble cast starring Steve Marin, Garry Shandling, Juliette Lewis, Rita Wilson, Adam Sandler, and features Liev Schreiber in drag in his first film role.

"Mixed Nuts" is a wacky, everyone's-so-crazy comedy where Martin plays an angry suicide prevention hotline owner. The movie was on numerous worst-of-the-year lists when it came out in 1994 and bombed at the box office, only making $6.8 million on a $20 million budget.

41. Home Alone 3

Year: 1997

Distribution company: Hughes Entertainment

Budget: $32 million

Box office: $79.1 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 29%

Bottom line: You've seen it before, now see it again! John Hughes wrote and produced "Home Alone 3," which makes it all the more surprising that it's this terrible.

With Macaulay Culkin taking a hiatus from acting and unwilling to return as a teenage version of Kevin McCallister, Hughes decided to retread the plot of the first movie. Eight-year-old Alex Pruitt (Alex D. Linz) is left home alone, robbers attempt to infiltrate the house, and the kid thwarts them with booby traps.

None of the original actors returned for this movie, and it feels like a "Home Alone" knockoff rather than an actual sequel.

Roger Ebert called it "better than the first two," bizarrely.

40. Trapped in Paradise

Year: 1994

Distribution company: 20th Century Fox

Budget: N/A (but more than $6 million)

Box office: $6 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 10%

Bottom line: "Trapped in Paradise" is one of those movies where you might look at the cast and say, "How bad could it really be?" The answer is bad, very bad.

"Trapped in Paradise" is about three guys who steal $275,000 from a bank and spend the rest of the movie running away from the FBI in terribly unfunny chase scenes and bad jokes.

If you're still curious about it, just watch the trailer.

39. Black Christmas (2006)

Year: 2006

Distribution company: MGM

Budget: $9 million

Box office: $21.5 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 14%

Bottom line: "Black Christmas" is a remake of a 1974 slasher film of the same name. The original is actually good. The 2006 remake isn't. Thanks to studio intervention by Bob Weinstein, the 2006 "Black Christmas" ended up being a piece of garbage.

"It was humiliating, it was horrible," said director Glen Morgan. "I stayed to try and protect the cast and crew, friends of mine, and ended up taking it on the chin."

Many reshoots, script alterations and changes made this film a movie that didn't make a lick of sense. This was Morgan's last feature film.

38. Love the Coopers

Year: 2015

Distribution company: Lionsgate

Budget: $17 million

Box office: $42.4 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 18%

Bottom line: How did they squander a Christmas comedy starring Steve Martin, John Goodman, Diane Keaton and Ed Helms?

Instead of playing to these actors' comedic strengths, the film is stuffed with overly sentimental plot points and a predictable, fake-feeling ending.

Also, it's narrated by a dog.

37. Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July

Year: 1979

Distribution company: Telepictures Corporation

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 20%

Bottom line: This is by far the worst Rankin/Bass special, the studio behind "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman."

It's about a lunatic ice wizard named Winterbolt who wants to kill Santa. The Queen of the Northern Lights calls on the reindeer Rudolph and shoves some magic in his nose. There are dragons, too, and magical hats.

It's all just sort of one big fever dream that lacks the charm of most Rankin/Bass flicks. It's also the last Rankin/Bass to use Rudolph and Frosty.

36. Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas

Year: 2013

Distribution company: Lionsgate

Budget: $25 million

Box office: $53.4 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 20%

Bottom line: There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who hate Tyler Perry's Madea movies and those that love them.

Clearly, there are many people who love this stuff. The movie has a 70 percent audience score, broke even at the box office and picked up another $17.1 million in DVD and Blu-ray sales.

But for us, "A Madea Christmas" is just another insufferable Madea movie, with additional points subtracted for including Larry the Cable Guy.

35. Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever

Year: 2014

Distribution company: Lifetime

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 27%

Bottom line: Remember Grumpy Cat? Well, the little girl passed away in 2019, but she lives on in this film — although she's better to be remembered for the 2012-2013 memes.

One of the earliest examples of studios trying to cash in on a viral meme, Lifetime signed Aubrey Plaza to voice Grumpy Cat. The film centers on Grumpy Cat, who is grumpy because she lives in a mall pet shop and hasn't been able to land an owner. Grumpy Cat meets another lonely cat, Chrystal, who aren't friends at first, then become friends, and also there's a stolen dog that they have to find.

The AV Club described "Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever" as "[Lifetime's] largest turd in its crap crown of original programming." Now that is an achievement!

34. The Knight Before Christmas

Year: 2019

Distribution company: Netflix

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 70%

Bottom line: This super low-buck, Lifetime-esque movie is about a time-traveling medieval knight who gets hit by a car driven by Vanessa Hudgens.

Had the movie ended there, with the dead knight, this would have been passable. Instead, they have to fall in love so she finds her literal knight in shining armor.

This movie has a 70 percent critical rating at Rotten Tomatoes, and that is a grave injustice to the world of cinema.

33. Elves (1989)

Year: 1989

Distribution company: Action International Pictures

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: N/A (29% audience rating)

Bottom line: "Elves ... they're not working for Santa anymore. Their mission: To mate with a virgin and conquer the world as a pint-sized master race!" So says the trailer for "Elves," a 1989 horror movie starring Dan Haggerty, aka "Grizzly Adams."

It's a strange film, that, probably due to making it on a "Best of the Worst" episode by Red Letter Media, has become a niche cult favorite. The special effects are horrible, and the plot is insipid, but if you're looking to watch a bad Christmas movie that isn't torture, this should fit the bill.

Hint: Search for the full movie on YouTube.

32. Santa's Little Helper

Year: 2015

Distribution company: WWE Films

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A ($603,084 Blu-ray sales)

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: N/A (24% audience rating)

Bottom line: This is a Christmas movie made by WWE, and it stars professional wrestlers.

If you've ever seen wrestling, you know that wrestlers have acting ability somewhere between D-list soap stars and a four-year-old holding a crayon trying to tell you he didn't scribble on the walls.

Just go watch some classic "Simpsons" episodes about Santa's Little Helper instead.

31. The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause

Year: 2006

Distribution company: Buena Vista Pictures

Budget: $12 million

Box office: $110.8 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 17%

Bottom line: The original "Santa Clause" is pretty much a classic. The second one wasn't all that great, but it was passable Christmas background noise. But the third one? Oh, man, it's a stinker.

The plot centers on that guy who got caught with well over a pound of cocaine in his luggage and then turned into a government witness, Tim Allen, as Santa Claus and an evil Jack Frost (Martin Short). Instead of laughs, you get product placement.

Almost universally reviled by critics and audiences, that didn't stop this movie from making nearly 10 times its budget worldwide.

30. A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby

Year: 2019

Distribution company: Netflix

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 33%

Bottom line: There are three films in the "A Christmas Prince" franchise (if you can call it that), and this is the worst one.

The entire franchise seems to have been made just to jump on the Prince Harry and Meghan Markle bandwagon, and the third one was made just in time for when the actual royals were expecting.

"A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby" is basically terrible fan fiction written by someone obsessed with Harry and Meghan. And, dear God, is it just a mess of terribly acted, gushy romance with low-buck sets and a paint-by-numbers story.

29. Bad Santa 2

Year: 2016

Distribution company: Miramax

Budget: $26 million

Box office: $24.1 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 24%

Bottom line: The first "Bad Santa" is a family-unfriendly Christmas classic. It's crude, funny and even manages to be kind of heartwarming in the end. So expectations were high for "Bad Santa 2," which included Billy Bob Thorton reprising his role as a drunk-as-hell Santa and Tony Cox returning as his partner in crime. Kathy Bates and Christina Hendricks have starring roles as well.

Yet everything about the movie is forgettable. The humor was distilled from a witty vulgarity to base obscenities while the plot was entirely predictable. As much as we love a drunk Santa on screen, "Bad Santa 2" is as fun as a dead reindeer on Christmas morning.

28. Jack Frost (1997)

Year: 1997

Distribution company: A-Pix Entertainment, Inc.

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 7%

Bottom line: The 1997 version of "Jack Frost" is a super low-budget movie about a killer snowman. Tons of stupid-looking CGI and a goofy snowman dummy do bring some charm to the film, as do the death scenes (decapitation by bobsled, anyone?).

Writer/director Michael Cooney said the movie's budget was so low that it was on par with the catering budget for the 2003 thriller "Identity."

It's a so-bad-it's good movie, so you could do worse.

27. Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Year: 2000

Distribution company: Universal Pictures

Budget: $123 million

Box office: $345.1 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 49%

Bottom line: This big-budget movie from Universal Pictures is a weird, creepy live-action version of the beloved children's story.

It's a downright strange movie, and although Jim Carrey tries his hardest as the Grinch, the story itself is a slog.

The odd camera angles and mutant-looking characters make this feel more like a Halloween movie than a Christmas one.

26. Jingle All the Way

Year: 1996

Distribution company: 20th Century Fox

Budget: $75 million

Box office: $130 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 15%

Bottom line: We know some people love "Jingle All the Way," and we don't care because the movie sucks.

Nostalgia feelings aside, "Jingle All the Way" is one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's worst films.

Its biggest saving grace is Phil Hartman, who steals the few scenes that he's in.

25. A Christmas Carol (2009)

Year: 2009

Distribution company: Disney

Budget: $200 million

Box office: $325 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 52%

Bottom line: Disney's crack at the Dickens classic with Jim Carrey at the helm was an expensive, all-CGI affair that just did not have the magic it needed. Sure, the CGI was great, but you can't throw money at a movie and expect people to pile in (unless that movie is about superheroes).

Disney didn't really understand that one. "A Christmas Carol" had a runaway marketing budget, which included a six-month train tour of 40 U.S. cities with specially designed Amtrak cars.

As a film, it's forgettable. There are much better versions of Dickens' story out there, including Bill Murray's "Scrooged" and the 1951 version with Alastair Sim.

24. Four Christmases

Year: 2008

Distribution company: Warner Bros.

Budget: $80 million

Box office: $163.7 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 25%

Bottom line: "Four Christmases" is one of those forgettable slapstick comedies from the mid-2000s.

Vince Vaughn plays himself, Reese Witherspoon plays herself, and John Favreau plays an oversexed cage fighter.

This is a movie that you've seen before even before you hit play. It has all the same beats and all the same bland jokes.

23. Silent Night, Deadly Night I and Silent Night, Deadly Night 2

Year: 1984 (1), 1987 (2)

Distribution company: TriStar Pictures/ Silent Night Production Company

Budget: $750,000/$100,000

Box office: $2.5 million/N/A

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 35%/14%

Bottom line: "Silent Night, Deadly Night" is a movie about a serial killer dressed as Santa Claus that caused quite a bit of controversy at the time. Parent groups turned out to protest the movie, and some theaters wouldn't even show it.

But there's nothing great about the movie. It's a mediocre slasher with a better premise than its execution.

As for why we included both 1 and 2 in this ranking: Half of "Silent Night, Deadly Night 2" is a recap of the first film. Like, entire scenes from the first movie.

However, it did give us the "Garbage day!" meme, which gave the film new life. Scream Factory released a Blu-ray version because of it.

22. Eight Crazy Nights

Year: 2002

Distribution company: Sony Pictures Releasing

Budget: $34 million

Box office: $23.8 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 12%

Bottom line: Adam Sandler's "Eight Crazy Nights" is an animated musical Hanukkah movie that bombed among critics and audiences alike.

The film focuses on a 33-year-old loser/known troublemaker (Sandler) who, in one scene, knocks a 70-year-old into a porta-potty, then sprays him with water until he's frozen in poo. Deers lick him free.

"Eight Crazy Nights" is also filled with Sandler's singing.

21. I'll Be Home for Christmas (1998)

Year: 1998

Distribution company: Buena Vista Pictures

Budget: $30 million

Box office: $12.2 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 23%

Bottom line: Oh, Jonathan Taylor Thomas. How you stole all the pre-teen girls' hearts on "Home Improvement" and then went on to make some truly terrible films.

"I'll Be Home for Christmas" stars JTT as a college student who needs to make it from Los Angels to New York in three days in order to be home for Christmas so he can win his father's vintage Porsche.

Jessica Biel costars as Thomas' girlfriend. The plot mainly revolves around Thomas trying to get back to Biel after Thomas' "friends" leave him in the desert dressed as Santa Claus so Thomas' rival (Adam LaVorgna) can steal her away. Blech.

20. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

Year: 1964

Distribution company: Embassy Pictures

Budget: $200,000 (estimated)

Box office: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 23%

Bottom line: No list of worst holiday movies — or any list of terrible movies — would be complete without the trainwreck that is "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians."

After the film was popularized by MST3K, many believed it was one of those so-bad-it's-good movies, but it's not. It's just an awfully boring, low-buck movie about Santa being abducted by Martians in order to bring joy to Martian children. Of course, another fundamentalist Martian disagrees with bringing joy to Martian kids and tries to kill Santa.

The whole movie is available on YouTube if you want to torture yourself.

19. Christmas With a Capital C

Year: 2010

Distribution company: Pureflix Entertainment

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: N/A (49% audience score)

Bottom line: "Christmas With a Capital C" is a Christian film made to defend the so-called "war on Christmas" that used to dominate right-wing talking points a decade ago.

In this film, a small-town mayor (Ted McGinley) is shocked when his big-city lawyer and militant atheist high school rival (Daniel Baldwin, the worst Baldwin) sues to take down every Christmas-related thing in town, right down to the string lights.

Just look at poor Ted McGinley. You know he didn't want to be in this movie. He just needed the paycheck.

18. Jack Frost (1998)

Year: 1998

Distribution company: Warner Bros.

Budget: $85 million

Box office: $34.56 million

Rotten Tomatoes score: 19%

Bottom line: There had back-to-back "Jack Frost" movies in 1997 and 1998, and both of them are amazingly terrible.

1998's "Jack Frost" is the worst movie Michael Keaton ever made. He plays Jack, a 35-year-old, small-town musician who is still holding onto a pathetic hope that The Jack Frost Band will still make the big time, baby!

After neglecting his family to play a gig, he dies in a car crash. His soul possesses a snowman after his son, Charlie, blows on a magical harmonica.

There's an episode on the "How Did This Get Made?" podcast about it. Listen to that instead of watching it. Keaton even sang several songs for the film, and they're not as bad as you'd expect. But they're still not something that's going on our Spotify playlist.

17. Santa with Muscles

Year: 1996

Distribution company: Cabin Fever Entertainment

Budget: N/A

Box office: $220,198

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: N/A (23% audience rating)

Bottom line: Wrestling was weirdly popular in the 1990s, and a handful of studios tried to cash in on the world's most popular wrestler, Hulk Hogan.

Of course, Hogan was better at flexing and backstage politicking than he was at acting, and this movie was a botched move. Hogan plays a millionaire who hits his head which, like every other movie in the 1990s, results in amnesia. Finding himself in a mall and mistaken for a mall Santa, Hogan believes himself to really be a roided-out Saint Nick and eventually finds the meaning of Christmas or whatever.

Another strange thing about this movie is that it was executively produced by Jordan Belfort, aka the "Wolf of Wall Street." So it was probably a money-laundering scheme, too.

16. Fred Claus

Year: 2007

Distribution company: Warner Bros.

Budget: $100 million-$150 million

Box office: $97.8 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 21%

Bottom line: Director David Dobkin ("Wedding Crashers") wanted "Fred Claus" to be a PG-13 movie, but the studio wanted this film wrapped in a family-friendly package for the holidays.

So it's no real surprise that "Fred Claus" turned into an abysmal movie. Yet it was marketed to the moon, and Warner Bros. kept stuffing money into its stocking. According to Bomb Report, the film cost over $90 million to market globally on top of an inflated budget that swelled anywhere from $100 million to $150 million.

Vince Vaughn received $20 million for playing Santa's annoying baby brother who eventually finds the true meaning of Christmas.

15. Christmas with the Kranks

Year: 2004

Distribution company: Sony Pictures Releasing

Budget: $60 million

Box office: $96.6 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 5%

Bottom line: Mean-spirited Christmas movies can be great when done right ("Bad Santa" is the king of them). "Christmas with the Cranks" is just dog crap.

Despite a solid cast of Jamie Lee Curtis, Dan Aykroyd and 1990s Tim Allen, there's nothing even remotely entertaining about this movie. The plot itself is preposterous. Allen and Curtis' characters want to skip Christmas and go be lushes on a cruise for a while since their daughter isn't at home. But this upsets the neighbors, who apparently are in some consumerism-powered Christmas cult, and force them to take part in Christmas decorations.

Why? They're adults! Let them do what they want! Like use this movie as kindling.

14. Deck the Halls (2006)

Year: 2006

Distribution company: 20th Century Fox

Budget: $51 million

Box office: $47.2 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 6%

Bottom line: A movie with Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick as rival neighbors trying to one-up each other with Christmas decorations sounds like it should be a good movie.

But it was directed by the guy who did "Malibu's Most Wanted" and "Big Momma's House 2," so it immediately had that going against it. So did the PG rating, which definitely does not lend itself to DeVito's brand of humor (coincidentally, 2006 is the same year he signed on to play the deplorable Frank in "Always Sunny in Philadelphia).

"Deck the Halls" flopped at the box office for a good reason. Not only is it insufferable to sit through, but it's also maddening to see such wasted potential.

13. Christmas in Wonderland

Year: 2007

Distribution company: Freestyle Releasing

Budget: N/A

Box office: $649,509

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 0%

Bottom line: "Christmas in Wonderland" is about as fun to watch as it is to go gift shopping in a mall during Christmastime. Which makes sense, because "Christmas in Wonderland" was filmed almost entirely in a mega-mall in Alberta, Canada.

Tim Curry, Patrick Swayze, Carmen Elektra and Chris Katan star in this film, which is almost enough reason to see it. But once the novelty of the cast wears off, you're left with a vapid movie about obnoxious Americans stuck in a Canadian mall that ends on a freeze-frame.

It's pretty much an ad for the West Edmonton Mall and all of its glorious, glorious products.

12. Santa Claus (1959)

Year: 1959

Distribution company: K. Gordon Murray Presents

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: N/A (27% audience rating)

Bottom line: Santa Claus doesn't work at the North Pole in 1959's Mexican-made "Santa Claus." No, he works in outer space, in a castle. And he's not just battling bad cheer this Christmas. He's going one-on-one with a demon named Pitch, who is trying to turn the children of the world against jolly old St. Nick.

The wizard Merlin makes an appearance and gives Santa a key that can open any door on earth, kind of like how Q helps James Bond. The film ends after Pitch is hit with a fire hose and dies.

Alien Santa, Merlin and a demon. In the right hands, that combination can work. What "Santa Claus" turns out to be is a nonsensical, bizarre kids' movie that shouldn't exist. It gained popularity through "Mystery Science Theater 3000."

The film is also known as "Santa Claus vs. the Devil."

11. Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny

Year: 1972

Distribution company: R&S Film Enterprises Inc.

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: N/A (11% audience score)

Bottom line: Santa Claus crash lands at a beach in Florida. His reindeer abandon him. It's warm. What will he do? Will he call an adult? Learn how to drive a car? No, he'll telepathically summon a group of children and have them fetch a pig, a sheep and a man in a gorilla suit to tow his (completely present-less) sleigh, because Santa wants to keep the weight on.

Then he'll recite the stories "Thumbelina" and "Jack and the Beanstalk" so the movie can cut away and show mini-movies of those stories, which were already released by the director. (Different cuts alternate between which movie is shown).

As for the Ice Cream Bunny? He shows up in a fire truck and drives him to the North Pole.

This disaster is on YouTube.

10. Jingle All the Way 2

Year: 2014

Distribution company: 20th Century Fox/WWE Studios

Budget: $5 million

Box office: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: N/A (29% audience)

Bottom line: "Jingle All the Way" may be terrible, but at least it has Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sinbad and Phil Hartman. Surely recycling the plot for a sequel with the worst actors 20th Century Fox could find would be a hit, right? No?

How about partnering with WWE's abysmal filmmaking department and hiring a professional wrestler to costar alongside Larry the Cable Guy?

Money, please!

9. The Nutcracker in 3-D

Year: 2010

Distribution company: G2 Pictures

Budget: $90 million

Box office: $20.5 million

Rotten Tomatoes score: 0%

Bottom line: Want to watch a dreary Christmas movie about Nazi rats in jetpacks that was financed by a state-owned Russian bank? Then "The Nutcracker in 3-D" is for you.

This movie was a huge financial flop that made practically all of its ticket sales in Russia. Universally panned by bewildered critics, "The Nutcracker in 3-D" is a movie you would show only to children you hate.

8. Surviving Christmas

Year: 2004

Distribution company: DreamWorks Pictures

Budget: $45 million

Box office: $15.1 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 7%

Bottom line: An all-star cast of Ben Affleck, James Gandolfini, Christina Applegate and Catharine O'Hara couldn't save this film from being a steaming pile of Christmas-season trash.

In "Surviving Christmas," Ben Affleck plays a millionaire jerk who goes to his childhood home and pays the home's new owners to pretend they are his parents. When Applegate shows up, she becomes the love interest. While Affleck's character showers the family with an excessive amount of gifts, we eventually learn the true meaning of Christmas isn't about money at all.

"Surviving Christmas" is a tepid, hollow tale that bombed at the box office, not even making enough money to scratch its budget, let alone marketing costs.

7. Last Ounce of Courage

Year: 2012

Distribution company: Rocky Mountain Pictures

Budget: $1.2 million

Box office: $3.33 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 0%

Bottom line: We would like to say that we have nothing against Christian movies or the Christian faith. However, we have yet to see a Christian film that can be anything other than a horribly produced and heavy-handed mess rife with a persecution complex.

"Last Ounce of Courage" was one of those keep-the-Christ-in-Christmas movies made in the early 2010s. It's about a small-town mayor named Bob Revere (ugh) who is on a quest to make sure everyone knows he's a good, God-fearing Christian and that the country isn't going to take his faith away from him.

The entire friggin' movie is about how Bob Revere is going to keep his town's Christmas decorations up even though the ACLU (or its fictional equivalent) is trying to keep wreaths and trees from being displayed.

Every scene is a grievance. But the biggest grievance these filmmakers had was in 2017, when a judge fined them $32.4 million for spamming people with 3.2 million robocalls in order to promote their film. Even though the movie had a $1.2 million budget, financers decided to put $10 million into marketing this thing. Yikes.

6. A Christmas Story 2

Year: 2012

Distribution company: Warner Premier

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: N/A (37% audience score)

Bottom line: "A Christmas Story" is one of the best Christmas movies ever made. Thirty years later, Warner's Bros.' direct-to-video label, Warner Premier, decided to dig up its broken-leg-lamp corpse for one final attempt at a cash grab.

Billed as the "official sequel with all your favorite characters," the movie has none of your favorite actors, no returning cast or crew, and nothing of what made the first movie good.

5. An American Carol

Year: 2008

Distribution company: Mpower Pictures

Budget: $20 million

Box office: $7 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 12%

Bottom line: "An American Carol" is Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," but it takes place on Independence Day and is a right-wing satire on Michael Moore's movies. It's every bit as bad as that sounds, and worse.

One of the ghosts in this movie is an angel who shows the liberal Michael Malone (the satirized Moore) an alternate reality where Los Angeles is overrun by Islamic extremists. Jon Voight plays George Washington.

At the end of the film, crazy liberals stage an anti-Fourth of July parade (what?) and rush a seen-the-error-of-his-ways, now-conservative Malone, but he's rescued by the military. Then Malone convinces some extremists to disarm a bomb they have planted at the protest, thus saving everyone.

The crap film has an extra layer of weirdness because the Moore character is played by Chris Farley's brother, Kevin, who is a spitting image of the late actor.

4. Christmas Vacation 2

Year: 2003

Distribution company: Warner Bros. Television

Budget: N/A

Box office: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: N/A (12% audience score)

Bottom line: "Christmas Vacation 2" is a made-for-TV movie with Randy Quaid starring as Cousin Eddie in the leading role. That alone makes it terrible.

The movie takes place on an island, presumably because fake snow would have been too expensive. But why would anyone make a Christmas movie on an island? And why would anyone cast Randy Quaid as the lead?

This was a cheap attempt to cash-in on the "Vacation" series and the absolute worst iteration in the franchise.

3. Star Wars Holiday Special

Year: 1978

Distribution company: 20th Century Fox

Budget: $1 million

Box office: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes score: 27%

Bottom line: "Star Wars Holiday Special" is one of the most confusing and terrible "movies" in existence. It's not a fun movie to watch whatsoever, but it's certainly fun to watch people dying inside while they watch the movie (many examples can be found on YouTube).

This pile of Christmas garbage cost $1 million to make — an eleventh of the 1976 classic's budget that produced something a million times worse. The show only aired once in 1978 and was promptly pulled from syndication.

It became a legend among Star Wars fans and a highly sought-after item for tape traders. Now it's on YouTube for anyone who wants to feel like they're on LSD on Alderaan as it explodes.

2. Jack and Jill (2011)

Year: 2011

Distribution company: Sony Pictures Releasing

Budget: $79 million

Box office: $149.67 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 3%

Bottom line: "Jack and Jill" is not just one of the worst holiday movies. It's one of the worst movies ever made.

This astoundingly horrible movie cost $79 million to make, yet the film's biggest special effect is slapping a wig on Adam Sandler so he could play his twin sister.

"Jack and Jill" is a Thanksgiving movie about Jack (Sandler) who wants his sister, Jill (also Sandler) to leave. Al Pacino stars as Al Pacino, and he performs a full-fledged ad for "Dunkin' Donuts" in the middle of the movie. He eventually falls for Jill.

This is Adam Sandler's worst film, and that's saying something.

1. Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas

Year: 2014

Distribution company: Samuel Goldwyn Films

Budget: $500,000

Box office: $2.78 million

Rotten Tomatoes critical score: 0%

Bottom line: Kirk Cameron, the man who sincerely believes that the shape of the banana disproves the theory of evolution, has made the worst holiday movie of all time.

The pseudo-philosophical plot of "Saving Christmas" centers on Cameron (who plays himself) "debunking" facts about Christmas, like how the holiday has pagan roots and that Christmas trees have no root in the bible. (Cameron's rebuttal: Christmas trees were made by God and therefore are Biblical by nature. Pretty much everything is proof of God because God did it, according to Cameron.) Slowly, the smarmy know-it-all brother-in-law is convinced by Cameron's iron-clad arguments for Christmas, and he embraces his Christian upbringing.

"Saving Christmas" was made at a time when Starbucks writing "Happy Holidays" on their cups made headlines. You know, simpler times.

"Saving Christmas" is frequently cited as one of the worst movies ever made, and it is. Even without Cameron's holier-than-thou explanations, it's terribly acted and horribly filmed. Cameron, ever the victim, claimed the movie's abysmal across-the-board ratings were due to "pagans," "haters" and an atheist conspiracy against him.

May you clutch your banana tight as you fight that good fight against critical thinking, Mr. Cameron.