Battle of the Faves: Tales from the Crypt vs. The Holiday

The Editors of In the Mood discuss two of their favourite holiday films. Both are about breakups, but only one of them involves a killer Santa Claus.

Gabrielle: What do you look for in a Christmas movie, Sennah?

Sennah: I look for low stress, warm and fuzzy, hammy and cheesy. Something you can watch while falling asleep or talking on the couch with your family. I don’t usually watch that kind of thing outside of the holidays, so it’s a comforting indulgence! What about you?

Gabrielle: Christmas movies are all about production design for me. I want the decorations, big snowflakes falling, turtleneck sweaters... I want the whole winter fantasy. I don’t have a lot of patience for schmaltz however, which probably explains my pick for today. 

Sennah: Let’s dive in—you chose this holiday-themed Tales From the Crypt episode, “And All Through The House,” and I chose The Holiday.

Gabrielle: Was this your first Tales from the Crypt episode?

Sennah: Yes! I didn’t even know what it was. I mixed it up with both Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark?—so I totally thought it was for kids. But it absolutely wasn’t! Did you watch it as a kid?

Gabrielle: I definitely didn’t, we only had three channels growing up so I missed a lot of shows. I started watching them a few years ago and I also assumed Tales was for kids, but in the first episode I watched, someone gets a blowjob!

Sennah: Omg. So, why did you choose this episode?

Gabrielle: I find there’s something very satisfying about a killer psycho Santa Claus. It’s this totally unsubtle, heavy-handed juxtaposition that is really enjoyable and playful. The production is amazing too, the gorgeous snowy set, her red robe, Nat King Cole crooning. It really nails the Christmas fantasy and then immediately derails it.

Sennah: Totally. I also felt very validated by this spooky Santa Claus, because I was so scared of Santa as a kid! I remember crying to my parents because I didn't want this intruder to come down the chimney—I told my parents that I wanted Santa to knock on the door!

Gabrielle: That’s really cute. In Tales, I think the Santa killer takes the suit from one of his victims’ houses, like he saw it and thought, “it would be hilarious if I wore it.”

Gabrielle: I guess Robert Zemeckis has a thing for Christmas: he also did the infamous Polar Express and a CGI version of Christmas Carol. Have you seen Polar Express?

Sennah: Nooo, I haven’t! I always thought it looked so creepy, though.

Gabrielle: I watched it with my family last Christmas and the animation is truly alienating. The characters have these dead eyes, and everything is too smooth and unnatural. I found it uncomfortable to look at, but my family loved it. They were riveted! The kids in the movie eventually get to the North Pole and although it's not intended to be spooky, the city looks like an empty cavernous shopping mall. There’s a room where the elves watch surveillance footage of children on a wall of monitors. The Santa surveillance state!

Sennah: Ha, that’s also what freaked me out about Santa as a kid! I was like excuse me, who’s this guy who knows when I’m sleeping or awake, and if I’ve been bad or good. But I’m intrigued by your parents being hypnotized by Polar Express—especially because its animation is like the textbook example for the uncanny valley!

Gabrielle: They didn't even seem to notice how weird it looked. Maybe we’re overly analytical about images? But it did make me think about Zemeckis’ interest in bodies in his work.

Sennah: Yeah, I was thinking about all the body horror in Death Becomes Her, and then how shockingly violent this episode of Tales from the Crypt was.

Gabrielle: Exactly. The last shot is a zoom into her face, and she just keeps screaming, her face seeming more and more deformed.

Sennah: Totally. It was, I was like, give this lady an Oscar! One thing I was curious about is if each episode is its own little contained story?

Gabrielle: Yeah, it’s like The Twilight Zone. They’re these little Edgar Allan Poe-style morality tales, where the greedy and adulterous always get some kind of ironic punishment at the end. Rewatching this episode, it made me think that it’s often the cynical or sneaky one who gets axed, while the psycho killer is more pure of intention.

Sennah: I love that. It’s like a galaxy brain moment—we have a “bad” murderer on the loose, wearing the costume of Santa, a “good” person, and basically punishing the “bad” greedy housewife. He’s got morals! He chose to kill her over the daughter...

Gabrielle: Yes, they felt the need to mention at the end that the daughter doesn’t get murdered, that’s a step too far, even for them! But the whole thing is very fun, I love the shot where she's in the foreground, and he appears in the window behind her like he’s going to say “peek-a-boo”! And a few moments later he crashes through the window on a tire swing. He’s really hamming it up!

Sennah: And as I said, I love me some hammy performances in my holiday movies… which is a perfect transition to start chatting about our next one!

Gabrielle: Also, in a way, both of these films are about breakups around Christmas. Why did you pick The Holiday?

Sennah: It’s definitely a nostalgic movie for me. I remember seeing it in theatres when I was fourteen. And it was just that DVD that was always at my best friend’s house, always visible under the TV by the DVD player. We’d throw it on all the time.

The cast is also a huge reason—each cast member has their own specific and special place in my heart, whether it’s Titanic, School of Rock, Charlie’s Angel, or Talented Mr. Ripley. So seeing them all in a single movie is like this perfect nostalgia storm… I have such a strong emotional connection to who I was when I first saw each of them.

All that said... I know you hate this movie! I’d love to hear more. When did you first see it, and why do you hate it?

Gabrielle: I first saw it last winter as part of a Zoom movie club. We wanted something light for Christmas and none of us had seen it. I didn’t laugh once.

Gabrielle: I'll say I found the Jack Black, Kate Winslet, and Eli Wallach section of the film to be charming enough. But the Cameron Diaz and Jude Law plot was like nails on a chalkboard to me. Talk about the production design doing all of the heavy lifting! If it weren’t for the adorable English cottage she’s staying in, those scenes would be unbearable. The comedy is bad enough, but there is also this serious plot that falls flat. I mean, it’s really hard to feel any sympathy for their problems. 

Sennah: I’m dying lmao—we literally have the exact opposite notes. I wrote down that I love watching these sexy silly people with silly problems. There’s just something about this movie that makes my brain completely turn off. I love watching these people feel sorry for themselves.

Gabrielle: You know what, I'll say it: I don't think Cameron Diaz is a good comic actress.

Sennah: What! I can watch Cameron Diaz on her own, doing anything, and find it entertaining.

Gabrielle: I love her in Charlie's Angels. And I think she’s great in dramatic roles like Vanilla Sky and Being John Malkovich. I remember a few male film critics have said that she’s very underrated as a comic actress, but watching this I think we were all right the first time lol. She can’t pull any of this off!

Sennah: Noooo! I love her physical comedy LOL. One of my favourite moments in this movie is during her and Jude Law’s meet cute, when Jude heads into the washroom. The moment he closes the door, she fixes her hair in the mirror and fusses with her PJs, then he opens the door and she instantly stops—but then he knocks over a lamp and turns to catch it, and during that brief moment he’s not looking at her, she bends down to untuck her socks from her sweatpants.

Gabrielle: Did you like the physical comedy of her dancing to Mr. Brightside?

Sennah: Yes!

Gabrielle: The physical comedy of Mr. Napkin Head?

Sennah: Also yes!

Gabrielle: There were truly crickets in my home at Mr. Napkin Head.

Sennah: Omg. Meanwhile my friends and I would redo Mr. Napkin Head with our own glasses!

Gabrielle: That’s… cute lol. I don't think it’s entirely Cameron’s fault, Nancy Meyers does like to direct her actresses to be shrill, hysterical clowns. At one point during the film I started to think that I’m being tested. I had to work to suppress my internalized misogyny; I hate our voices! Why are we so annoying? Maybe women shouldn’t direct?

Sennah: LOL maybe I’m really latching on to that annoying energy because I’m so annoying. It’s annoying girl representation, people!

Gabrielle: Ha! Don’t you think Cameron Diaz is trying too hard to make the role work, and that there isn’t much chemistry between her and Jude Law?

Sennah: I could not disagree more! What about their first kissing scene? When everything goes quiet, and he grabs her by the face. Then he kisses one eyelid, then the other eyelid, then her forehead, then her lips. Fourteen-year-old me was smitten. Twenty-nine-year-old me is still smitten!

Gabrielle: Yeah. I could see why a fourteen-year-old would find that romantic.

Sennah: Even if I didn’t think they had chemistry, I don’t think I’d be able to notice because I feel so much of a pull to them both even just separately. I’ve found them both so alluring since I was young because they were like, the epitome of what we were told was attractive; they’re impossibly white, blue-eyed, and blonde.

Gabrielle: Maybe that's the problem, they’re both so blonde, blue-eyed, rich… there’s just no tension! Their only conflict is that he has (adorable, well-behaved) kids and that she’s holding back because of the trust issues she developed from her parents' mildly dramatic divorce! When was the last time you've seen The Holiday?

Sennah: Last year during quarantine, I “accidentally” recommended watching it virtually to like, four different friend groups. So I ended up watching it almost every other week from November to December. Very unhinged.

Gabrielle: Oh, well good thing you like it!

Sennah: Haha yeah. It’s just so comfy to me. You know nothing’s really going to go wrong, which I usually hate in movies—like, “why should I care?” But in the context of a Christmas movie, it works well for me when I’m trying to unwind during the holidays. I can just kick back and not care about anything bad that happens, because it’ll all be okay in the end—for these characters, at least!

Gabrielle: That makes sense, that’s the big appeal of these films I think. I don’t totally love rom coms, but I really bristle at Meyers. Do you remember the poster for It’s Complicated? It haunts me.

Sennah: Oh God, yes. I’ve actively avoided that one of hers, because I don’t like the leads.

Gabrielle: I do think Meyers is decidedly a woman’s director. These films are made for women, I mean just look at the interiors! I like that she really indulges in the fantasy version of LA and England. And I guess it’s nice that these women are shrill and messy and annoying, but they still get to fall in love.

Sennah: Ha, totally. Speaking of homes, turns out the English cottage is fake! They built a bare-bones structure in the middle of a field for the exteriors, and then the interiors are all sets. I thought that was very fitting, that this dream home truly is one in that it doesn’t exist. I was getting ready to look it up on Airbnb as a novelty trip or something!

Gabrielle: They made an Airbnb of Carrie's apartment from Sex and the City, so maybe Iris’ cottage is next? I think The Holiday is what we hoped Airbnb would be like, but it’s just disappointing. There’s no Jude Law, there’s no crackling fire, no great wine. It’s just a sad bottle of water on an IKEA nightstand.

Sennah: I once went to an Airbnb in Montreal that didn't have a single light source in the living room. I was on my laptop during the day and didn’t notice, then the sun set and I was in complete darkness!

Gabrielle: That’s crazy! So, what other Christmas movies are you going to watch over the holidays?

Sennah: I’ve already rewatched Phantom Thread—what a delicious little movie! I especially love the new year’s eve scene, so epic yet intimate. And I’ll likely rewatch my all-time favourite, The Nightmare Before Christmas! I know every line by heart. Oh, and my family will throw on A Charlie Brown Christmas. What about you?

Gabrielle: I'll probably watch Meet Me in St. Louis, which is one extremely schmaltzy movie I love, and Curse of the Cat People, maybe the first half of Fanny and Alexander before it turns into a Dickens novel.

Sennah: Something else I love about holiday movies is that they often ask the classic Christmas question: what do you want? What do you have to give? And they often lead into the new year, which is another sweet, cheesy moment of thinking about what kind of new beginning you want for yourself. So, what do you want for this holiday season?

Gabrielle: I’m trying to stay in more, so I’m going to production-design my own home; I'll make mulled wine or apple cider, light candles, turn the place into a Nancy Meyers fantasy! What do you wish for your holiday?

Sennah: I feel bad now because I was just gonna say I want a Dyson vacuum cleaner.

Gabrielle: Oh, that's what you meant!

Sennah: Haha no, no, I also meant that! I love what you said!

Gabrielle: Okay, I definitely want a Dyson too.