“The Star Wars Holiday Special inspired me to do this,” is a dangerous statement and sounds like something a guy acting as his own lawyer would tell a judge. But a while ago I asked around on social media what people thought was the worst movie they had ever seen, and one person responded with the Holiday Special. Worst ever, hm? What if I reviewed a bunch of movies like that? What if I spent all of January reviewing absolute dogshit movies, and Mr. Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas being (as of writing) #6 on the IMDB Bottom 100 would be a good transition to that since it’s still December? So here we are, talking about the dork from Growing Pains doing what he does best: be insufferable.
The movie is mostly Kirk lecturing his brother-in-law, Christian (played by director and co-writer Darren Doane). See, Christian believes that Christmas has become a consumerist holiday, that the money spent on decorations and presents could be better spent helping the needy, and that Jesus has become an afterthought in a holiday ostensibly all about Him. All those points are wrong, Kirk says! So he rambles on about a truly mind-boggling amount of theories and/or bullshit: the swaddling cloth that wrapped baby Jesus is important because it symbolized the death shroud that was left in the cave after his resurrection; the date on which we celebrate Christmas has nothing to do with proximity to the Winter Solstice or any old pagan holidays; decorating a Christmas tree with ornaments represents Jesus placing his body on the cross to replace the apple taken by Adam and Eve; and that we should take the stories written centuries after the death of Saint Nicholas of Myra–who may not actually have existed–as the gospel truth, and especially the story of him striking Arius at the Council of Nicaea for not believing in Trinitarianism (that Jesus was an aspect and therefore equal to God), which is a story that started in the 14th century and probably never happened. Yeah, I did some research. Anyway, Christian accepts all of this (just like the students of Liberty University probably did, HEYO!) and embraces his missing Christmas spirit. But we still have 25 minutes left, so the rest of the movie is just reiterating points already made, dancing, and credits stuffed to the brim with outtakes.
Do I really have to say that yes, this is a bad movie? Okay, fine, this is a bad movie. But does it deserve a spot on the IMDB Bottom 100? …yeah, I think it does. It’s pure conservative Christian propaganda that’s supposed to reinforce its target audience’s fringe beliefs while being an incomprehensible mess to anyone else–including other Christians! Both my best friend and husband have more of a religious background than I do, and they were gobsmacked at some of the ideas Cameron spouts as fact. There’s also so many unnecessary moments (I get to the worst one at the end) whose only purpose is to make sure this is movie length. 80 minutes? Close enough!
Let me end this post by transcribing the “war on Christmas” rant from the conspiracy theorist character that appears a third of the way into the movie and delivers this pre-QAnon rant that haunts my nightmares. The closest we get to this being relevant to the rest of the movie is that in the flashback where St. Nicholas beat the fuck out of Arius, the conspiracy theorist also played Arius. So without further ado, feast your eyes on pure madness:
Alright man, check this out. We got to go on the offensive. It’s like the rapper Sugar Free said, “If you stay ready, you ain’t got to get ready.” They’re already taking away our freedom of speech. I can’t say Merry Christmas at work no more! I have to say Happy Holidays, but I am not in a daze. I am wide awake. It’s deeper than that, though. You heard about Area 51? What about Area 52? That’s where they keeping all the mangers and trees and Nativity scenes they keep taking down. Speaking of down, you know why the Pope really stepped down? Da Vinci code, right? Wrong. There’s a whole Picasso code. I’m actually still working on that one… Come on, man, they got fluoride in our water. I’m saying that’s gotta cause at least Asperger’s! Speaking of burgers, you probably ain’t even had one in years. That ain’t no ground beef, homie! That’s pink slime. I seen it on YouTube; look it up. You know what you got to do? Get like me and wifey, strictly ostrich and emu meat, homie. Delicious and exotic! Come on, you got the chemtrails and HAARP trying to control the weather with the womp, womp, womp sounds. Then GMO’s and pesticides. You know there’s a huge honey bee shortage, right? Exactly! Colony collapse disorder. Oh look, that rhymes with “new world order!” Coincidence? I think not! I saw Loose Change, I know what’s up with the whole Koch brothers, Halliburton, Dick Cheney, Enron, Fannie Mac, Freddie Mae tie-in. But I mean, that’s obvious. Look man, I saw it on Fox News, so you know it’s true. War on Christmas, it’s everywhere!
-A character credited only as “conspiracy theorist”
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