If you’re looking for a pure, wholesome Christmas movie, you’ll want to spend your time on the cable channels like Hallmark Channel or UPtv. However, most modern, bigger-budgeted holiday films will subvert the genre to make it more original, enticing and engaging with different audiences. Holiday movies that subvert the genre provide a fresh take on holiday themes, often adding humor, horror, or action amongst the usual Christmas tropes.
Red One is a Christmas-themed movie starring Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, Lucy Liu and J.K. Simmons. Unlike conventional holiday movies, this one is a global action-adventure that involves kidnapping Santa Claus, and the team that must get him back. While this movie is a far cry from Miracle on 34th Street and The Santa Clause, it’s very much in line with the type of four-quadrant holiday film that can get audiences into the spirit of the season.
To subvert the Christmas movie genre is to play on tropes and deliver something that is both original in concept yet familiar to the movie-going audience. There are seemingly endless possibilities when it comes to writing a unique screenplay in a genre like holiday movies – let’s focus on a few of the top multi-hyphenate Christmas stories.
Grown-ups have been watching Christmas classics for decades. Every year, streamers and cable stations play the same movies that people have seen over and over again. While their familiarity has a warm, cozy feeling, sometimes grown-ups want something a little more adult-oriented.
R ratings and Christmas don’t seem like a good pair, however, there are plenty of options that take a twist on the usual holiday fare and bring on the laughs. R-rated humor, especially around Christmas, is subversive from the start. Movies like Bad Santa, The Ref and A Bad Mom’s Christmas push the limits on humor because they go against the wholesomeness of the season.
Bad Santa was a comedy featuring a mall Santa who is a thief, a drunk and likely not someone you would want your kids to be around. It’s the anti-Miracle on 34th Street. The Ref takes the joys of families coming together and turns it on its head. This movie follows a thief who evades the law by hiding out with a husband and wife on the brink of divorce and a family who can’t stand to be around each other. Think Christmas Vacation minus the optimistic Clark Griswold and warm family vibes.
Then there is A Bad Mom’s Christmas, a sequel to the hit film about a group of moms who just don’t want to deal with the unrealistic expectations put upon them.
Nothing says ‘Christmas’ like serial killers and murder. The Holiday horror film is nothing new – the first Black Christmas was released in 1974. Within the last decade, there have been several films that involve killing at Christmastime, including two new versions of Black Christmas in both 2006 and 2019, which involve the stalking and killing of sorority girls, as well as It’s a Wonderful Knife, which was a play on It’s a Wonderful Life and posing the question, what if you never killed the serial killer? Winnie (Jane Widdop) does just this but then is thrust into an alternate reality where she didn’t stop the killer and must see how things would have played out.
A mythical holiday horror film is Krampus, based on European lore about a beast who kidnaps or hurts the kids on the naughty list. The movie takes this concept and runs with it - a family struggling to enjoy the holidays now must come together to fight the evil beast.
At one point, Santa liked to sit in his chair and listen to kids as they read off a list of toys they wanted for the holiday. More recently, there have been Santa action flicks such as Violent Night which takes a magical, powerful Santa and pits him against a group of bad guys who have kidnapped a family on Christmas Eve. There is also The Christmas Chronicles in which two youngsters go on an adventure with Santa as he tries to retrieve his hat, sleigh and reindeer. Fatman is an intriguing concept about a spoiled brat who hires an assassin to kill Santa and how jolly ole St. Nick fights off his would-be killer.
There are also Christmas-related action movies that bring in the holiday spirit minus the magic. These are any number of Shane Black films like Lethal Weapon or A Long Kiss Goodnight as well as others like Die Hard and Reindeer Games.
Red One falls in line with this type of subversive holiday genre – an action-packed story with big set pieces and fighting bad guys.
Christmas often doesn’t conjure up Santa’s security team beating up vicious snowmen, getting into slap fights up or chase scenes through the North Pole, but Red One brings the PG-13 action.
Here are five screenwriting takeaways from the Dwayne Johnson/Chris Evans film Red One.
When we first meet Jack he’s a young kid who opens a closet door revealing to his cousins that Santa doesn’t deliver presents. He’s the bad kid in the Christmas story who doesn’t believe in Santa and grows up to perpetually be on the naughty list. 30 years after showing his cousins there is no Santa, Jack (Evans) is now a crafty criminal who sneaks into buildings and steals data. He swears, he has a gambling problem, he never sees his son and he’s just an overall jerk.
Now, he’s tasked with saving Santa, which not only gives him faith St. Nick exists, but the journey naturally gives him the much-needed Christmas spirit he has lacked.
Screenwriters can see how the filmmakers set up the character that doesn’t believe in Santa and how their arc ends up with them believing. Other films that use this trope include Polar Express, Miracle on 34th Street and Elf.
Every Santa is the same, yet they all have to be different. Santa wears red, delivers presents, lives in the North Pole, etc. The list goes on. Part of creating a Christmas movie that includes Santa is defining him as a character and differentiating him from the other iterations.
In Red One, Santa is carefree and moves with ease even as his security team manages potential issues all around him. While Callum (Johnson) sees danger everywhere and takes his Head of Security position seriously, Santa trusts him and can navigate the world without issue. Santa moves around like a President, with security and vehicle details as well as escorts by the Air Force.
Screenwriters can observe how this Santa (played by J.K. Simmons) is much different than others we’ve seen, yet still maintains the familiarity of the others.
Some Christmas action movies take place in a single location, like Die Hard, while others go on an adventure that spans the globe. Red One is like Mission: Impossible meets Christmas. Callum and Jack must travel to different countries and worlds to track down Santa before Christmas Eve, which adds excitement and adventure to an already intriguing concept.
The global adventure matches what the movie is set up to be. Die Hard doesn’t make sense to go around the world and The Christmas Chronicle takes place mostly throughout parts of the United States. When creating an action film like this, it’s important to give audiences what they want and expect. If Santa was kidnapped in New York, for example, and the story only took place in the city, it’s likely the film would be grittier and smaller in scope.
The buddy comedy has been around since the days of silent films. To make it work, the two soon-to-be buddies must be different people with warring personalities. In Red One, Jack is the laid-back criminal who would do anything for money and doesn’t mind causing some damage in his wake. Callum is the super-serious bodyguard of Santa Claus who runs things by the book, wants to control everything and surveys the area like the most cunning secret service agent.
Put these two together and comedy ensues.
While the two operate in two different ways, what ultimately needs to happen, whether it’s Martin & Riggs of Lethal Weapon, Tommy & Richard in Tommy Boy or Ashburn & Mullens in The Heat, is the duo come together to save the day.
Red One is no exception and screenwriters can see how the filmmakers wrote the conflicts from the beginning and the journey in which they come together.
Christmas movies have Christmas spirit. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a subversive Christmas action flick like Violent Night or a raunchy comedy like Bad Santa, the film has some joyous moments that reflect the season. This also means that writers must be aware of the tropes that go along with igniting the Christmas spirit, which can include families finally reuniting, bad guys doing something good, gratitude and spreading joy.
Even the darkest of Christmas movies will have moments of the Christmas spirit shining through.
When it comes to writing a subversive holiday movie, it’s important to consider all the tropes that come along with the Christmas genre. There are more and more of these types of holiday movies hitting theaters and streamers every year so there is plenty of opportunity to research the multi-hyphenated Christmas film you want to write.