Childhood Creepfest: Muppet Christmas Carol

Wait. What is this?

Whilst researching the anatomy of fear used in childhood morality tales and media, I’ve been traveling down memory lane. The films and tv shows I am most interested in are the ones that frightened us in unexpected places or weird ways. A perfect example are the pink elephants in Dumbo. While researching I thought I would share some of my observations re-watching the films that I (or my peers) found creepy for one reason or another. Outright kiddy horror films like The Witches might be disqualified from this project since their sole purpose was to be scary. (But I will probably be lax with that rule.)

First up, the Muppet Christmas Carol. If you ask anyone from my generation they will probably tell that this is the version of Christmas Carol to watch. Hands down.

Intro

Nostalgia goggles have aged this movie well for me. I have seen various versions of Dickens' Christmas Carol (including some that stick faithfully to the original text) and none move me as well as this one. That may be pure nostalgia talking. Your first Scrooge is your best Scrooge and the first time you realize Tiny Tim has died will always hit you the hardest so it's hard to look at the competition without a little bias. But the thing I remembered most vividly about this film as a child was that it was fucking scary.

And not because a frog and a pig have babies. Amazingly enough.

This is one of the few movies I remember seeing in theaters as a child. I went with my family and a neighborhood friend who was a few years older than me and she led me out the theater just before the Ghost of Christmas Future waltzed in to give a generation of children nightmares. But years later I would watch the scene with my little brother and try to wear a brave face when it came. (Interestingly he was more unnerved by Christmas Past). Cutting through the Muppet fluff, there is something seriously creepy about those two ghosts and here I will try to examine why.

What was creepy?

If you get down to the basics, Christmas Carol is a spooky story. From start to finish, it is brimming with ghosts, threats of eternal damnation and death. Whoever decided to adapt it for children's media had the same issue Disney would have with the Hunchback of Notre Dame. We now (pretend to) have a rating system that requires things be not so extreme and scary for children. So how do you show the haunting of a greedy old man without creeping kids out too badly?

Throw some Muppets into the mix. Somehow, this works. Because the Marely ghosts are not scary in the least. One of the story's scariest moments becomes comedic by casting those grumpy old men as the haunters and they even have a catchy song to go with it. As a kid I was not sure what was going on. I knew the gist of it, but for the most part the scene was a pair of silly ghosts (like Casper).

The creep factor does not begin until the Ghosts of Christmas come in. The first one, a Muppet girl who would be innocent enough were it not for a ghostly light surrounding her, is creepy enough. But the real scare comes with the Ghost of Christmas Future, a hooded, mute figure who can only point. At least Gonzo and Rizzo give the parents in the audience a useful warning and high-tail it out of the movie until the end.

The message of the story comes across because of the intensity of the Ghosts. You could child-safety the story more but if the ghosts were tamed to the point of no threat then the moral might lose its punch. Though, arguably killing Tiny Tim off is message enough in any version. But children can take more intensity than modern movie-makers give them credit for.

Why was it Creepy? (For a Child)

Why were these moments creepy?

Well, firstly let's look at the fact that these are the Muppets. The most nonthreatening thing you could probably put on screen. These intense specters, Muppet-y as they look, are contrast to what the child is seeing throughout most of the film. Sandwiched in between jolly songs about love and Christmas are warnings of damnation and death. Rather than patronize the children by making all the spirits as nonthreatening as Marley and Marley, the creators took the risk of scaring them just a little more than necessary and it pays off.

Christmas Past looks like she could belong on Sesame Street if she was not floating and glowing. Something about taking a Muppet and turning it into a ghost is almost the opposite of what the comforting Muppets are supposed to stand for. She is also slightly more realistic than the usual Muppet and I remembered her looking more "real" as a child. It might look silly to you now but for a child it was eerie.

Apparently Scooter was going to be the Christmas Past originally.*

Imagine if I took your favorite stuffed animal from childhood and gave it this treatment. You might just call it weird or stupid but I bet if it appeared to you in the dark it might raise your hair just a bit.

Do I need to explain why Christmas Future is creepy? The character is horror-worthy no matter who you cast. And I have yet to see a version where the ambiguity and unanswered questions are so well portrayed in the faceless specter. Interestingly what makes this version exaggerated is what makes it creepiest. The robe opens to pure darkness. Most other versions show basically the Grim Reaper. Everything about the scene is intense and the film decides not to hold out. The better question is why wouldn't a child be creeped out by this?

Still creepy?

Christmas Past comes out looking like Casper's cousin to me now. There is simply no way I would be legitimately creeped out by her. But the design is fascinating and makes you wonder how all of the Muppet cast would look as heavenly ghosts. There is also something to be said about any glowing, floating doll. It still has the potential to be creepy.

An honorable mention to Christmas Present for aging. While the filmmakers sanely took out some of the characters darker lines and moments, they still allowed the character to grow old and ultimately die. As a child it might not hit you. But when you are older your realize just how much slipped past your radar as a child.

Christmas Future, while no longer creepy to me in this movie, is still an emotional scene to watch if not for the stellar acting from Michael Cane. I still prefer this film's take on Future instead of the straight-out Grim Reaper that most movies choose. And I can't shake the nostalgic creepiness I feel when it first appears.

Thoughts

This is probably just the right amount of scary for a children's movie. With no fear at all a child won't learn how to cope, after all. It's still one of the best Christmas Carol adaptations. Unless a child is particularly afraid of ghosts they should be able to handle it.

Also it has Gonzo claiming to be Charles Dickens with a straight face.

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Excellent Day for an Exorcism: "Deliver Us From Evil" (2014)

The film opens in the ancient times 2010 AD during the second Iraq War/Conflict/Disagreement/Quarrel, where several soldiers are scrambling about aimlessly in a cave for something unnamed. What they are doing in the earth’s vaginal cave is unimportant. What is important is that you know that Evil (or “Primary Evil” as this movie calls it) always piggyback rides back to the States from Iraq. This is a long tradition begun by the granddaddy (or grandMOMMY) of all exorcism movies The Exorcist. Remember that opening scene where Father Merrin is scrambling about aimlessly being freaked the holy-hell out by foreign people? That was in Iraq where a menacing statue of menace awaited to growl at him with its mighty snake phallus and lion head. In this movie, it is not Pazuzu the demon who awaits these modern American soldiers, but a wall of text. It seems a demon took it upon himself (or HERSELF) to graffiti the Menacing Cave of Menace with the most menacing language of all: LATIN!

Be still your heart. Bats are even exiting the cave in a hurry as if the Latin texts transcends species in its primary evilness. The soldiers see the wall of text and there begins our movie.

The film then takes a huge leap in time to the modern era of 2013 AD to the ancient archeological dig called New York City. A detective named Ralph Sarchie is attempting to resuscitate a dead infant and it becomes abundantly clear that this will be a laugh-riot right up there with Super Bad and 40-Year-Old Virgin. Sarchie is miffed that he cannot revive the dead baby but proceeds to pick yet another weird/violent case. His buddy cop Butler even comments that Sarchie seems to have a sixth sense—“radar”—for choosing bad cases like this. I would say this is true but given the evidence in the film it seems like he chooses fairly typical depressing New York cases. If the soul-crushing reality of crime in New York is “weird” to Butler and Sarchie then maybe detective work in one of the most violent cities of the U.S. is not the job for them. A “domestic dispute” calls Sarchie and Butler to a house where a man (Jimmy Tratner) has disputed his wife’s eye shut. (See now I made a word joke that makes me sound insensitive towards domestic abuse but really, why the hell is it called a “dispute.”) Rather than going with the detectives, Jimmy flips out and tries to stab them. Sarchie manages to chase the abusive Tratner and proceeds to beat the ever-loving shit out of him. Butler has to pull Sarchie off of the man. It looks like Sarchie has some issues he’s working out. You could even say he has DEMONS. (Not literally.) While arresting Tratner, Sarchie notices the man’s nails are bleeding. Either he has a bad nail biting habit or…DEMONS!

Because Tratner managed to stab Sarchie in the arm, our protagonist needs stitches. He and buddy cop Butler are called to the local zoo. A woman has apparently thrown her child into the lion’s pit… JUST LIKE A ROMAN CRUSIFYING A CHRISTIAN! But horror movies require that there be no child bloodshed so the pit was being repainted at the time and the lions did not dine upon infant flesh. Which must mean that the woman’s possessing demon is either very stupid and likes to throw children just for fun or that they sincerely did not realize the pit was being repainted. Nobody said demons are all-knowing. The zoo’s power went out and the woman escaped the police until Sarchie and Butler arrive. When they find her she is digging at the ground with her bare hands because the demon must be looking for cement treasure. (They give no reason within the film why the demon is trying to destroy the vessels’ hands, its main tool for acting out evil.) All the animals in the zoo are acting just as bizarrely. The possessed woman is repeating The Doors lyrics because nothing says raging demoniac better than psychedelic lyrics. Lions appear in the lion pit – what are they doing there!—and the painter who was renovating the cave also appears in a hood. Sarchie is unable to speak to him.

The police take the possessed woman (Jane) to the station where a chain-smoking, beer-drinking and probably gun-slinging Spanish priest named Mendoza appears. He claims that Jane must be possessed and is not insane. After expressing his disdain for all crazy people – fairly common comments like “She’s going to the loony bin where she belongs”—he takes the priest’s card anyway. Mendoza gives us the gem of the movie. He insists there are two kinds of evil: secondary, man-made evil and primary evil that demons do. Which makes one wonder what happens when you mix different primaries, secondary and other. Do you get tertiary evils? Jane also gives us the customary demonic behavior of possessed women in horror movies by blowing spit bubbles and acting like Gollum.

Despite the film setting Sarchie up as having a crisis of conscience over all the horrible shit he has to deal with, he continues to take cases that are clearly going to wear on him even more. He overhears some co-workers talking about a new case where someone had their supposedly deceased father call them quoting The Doors. Because of the tenuous connection to Jane, he relieves them of the case by taking it and goes to an apparently haunted house. A little boy translates for his foreign parents about how the house is haunted and Butler makes Addams Family jokes that don’t quite hit the mark because this is an ordinary house in New York and not the towering, majestic gothic of the Addams Family fame. For some damn reason, Butler lets Sarchie examine the basement all alone. In said basement Sarchie finds a corpse. The eye moves as though he is watching Sarchie. But that is only the vermin that now occupy the body and burst forth in a gross-out scare done perfectly right.

Let’s just say this is the film’s best moment. I type that with sincerity. Leading up to this moment the film takes its time, building tension, stacking on  the darkness that Sarchie faces on a daily basis. When the corpse’s eye moves and appears to see Sarchie for a moment, before an army of vermin burst free from the dead flesh, the movie reaches its true creep factor all too early. It is discovered that this poor fellow was Lt. Griggs, a painter who had been working on the house for the family. But the family is not able to confirm this because he always wore a hood.

At this point we are reminded that Sarchie has a family. Earlier in the film he was digitally messaged by his wife Jen but we meet them properly after nearly an hour mark in the film. Jen and their daughter Christina attend church and Jen explains to her daughter that Sarchie no longer believes in God and that is why he does not go to church. Seems like a huge existential question to lay on the shoulders of a small child. She is opting for full honesty with her child.

"I know, Mommy. Daddy is addicted to a wide array of narcotics. You already told me."

At this point I am obliged to let the reader/viewer catch up. You see, in case you missed it, all of the possessed men so far were soldiers in Iraq at the opening of the film. So when Sarchie and Butler got to Griggs’ apartment and discover that he was Jane’s (Mrs. Possessed) husband it should be no surprise to you that the cases are linked. A picture reveals that Lt. Griggs, Jimmy (the man who stabbed Sarchie’s arm) and a guy named Santino knew each other. It turns out that all three of them were discharged from the army for bad behavior. They were released from hard time a few years ago (presumably at the same time). Sarchie realizes that Santino (Hooded Painter Man) was the same spooky painter he saw at the zoo. The detectives use their super detective powers to infer that Santino also painted the Addams Family’s house and must have been the one to wrap Lt. Griggs in the tarpaulin. Why? Because that’s just how demon rolls. Oh, and Lt. Griggs killed himself by drinking paint thinner. Pay close attention to all the talking because it’s the only way you will get any of this information. 

Next, the detectives receive the zoo’s footage of when Jane tossed her child into the lion pit. The video, in true horror fashion, is shot grainy and unsettling. Jane is pushing a stroller passed the lion cage when she sees the ever-hooded Santino painting a wall. He is coating over an inscription and viewing it causes her to seize and then reenact the “Circle of Life” if Rafiki decided to throw Simba at the end. Santino turns to her menacingly and then returns to painting his wall of menace with menacing paint. While watching thi,s Sarchie exclaims that he hears children laughing and even sees a face of menace flash across the scene. Only to have his best buddy Butler tell him that the video is silent and he sees nothing out of the ordinary. 

Back in the Sarchies house, Sarchie’s young daughter Christina thinks she hears scratching under her bed. Sarchie arrives home irate and tells his daughter to shut up. This angers Jen, who tells him flat out that he is being an asshole and is never home. He then lays down the week’s grisly details to his wife in order to mentally torment her and it works because now she feels guilty. Meanwhile, I suppose Christina just has to suck it up and ignore that her father berated her. Because his life is so hard, what with all those cases that he chooses and he insists on going to because he is an egomaniac who thinks he can solve all the world’s problems. When he does go to his daughter’s room to check on her he sees a bloodied man in the mirror but when he turns around the man has clichéd himself into thin air.

“You should tuck your daughter in more often, Sarchie.”

Since Sarchie is unable to shake the static and children’s laughter in his head he calls on Father Badass Mendoza and the two drink and share manly stories. One such story is how Mendoza used to be strung out on heroin and hitting rock bottom helped him to find God. Oddly God has not chosen to save him from chain smoking and booze. Oh, well. Mysterious ways, as they say. He allows Sarchie to listen to an audio clip of an exorcism of a woman named Claudia, who we never meet but she is important to Mendoza’s back story. Anyways, despite being rather run-of-the-mill as far as exorcism audio clips go, it strikes a nerve for Sarchie and it seems as though he may be finding God. Why is it horrible shit causes people to believe in God?

Sarchie lets his new priest buddy watch the footage of the zoo to see if he can hear the children and static as well. Mendoza does not share Sarchie’s hallucinations. But never fear. Father Smoky Booze has an explanation! Apparently, Sarchie may be able to sense Primary Evil better than the average cop. He asserts that this is a gift and a curse, though I am failing to see the gift part of it. On the daily grind against evil, all of Sarchie’s cases tend to lead him to dead ends and existential crises. At no point does the film indicate that Sarchie’s gift has served to make a difference in the epic battle against Primary Evil. Oh well.

Mysterious ways.

Back at the Sarchies’ residence, Christina’s room is possessed by Poltergeist reject spirits. A toy owl likes to move towards her and a feeble scratching noise keeps her up. Her door also refuses to open when she is scared. All of this is clearly Sarchie’s fault for not being home more. Jen asserts that Christina does not feel safe at home because she needs a father. Fathers frighten away lame poltergeists. Actually, females, being ever ripe for possession, should always have a man around to keep things spiritually safe. The man is the spiritual head of the household after all.

Mysterious ways.

Meanwhile in a mental ward Jane, who has now become Linda Blair, apparently kills a physician, steals his keys and escapes like Gollum, crawling on all fours with the keys in her mouth.

She frees Jimmy with these keys, by the way.

Sarchie decides to go back to Jimmy’s house for further investigation. Jimmy, the douchebag from the beginning of the film—remember, the one who beats his wife—was apparently possessed. Jimmy’s wife (Mrs. Tratner) tells Sarchie tearfully that Jimmy would sometimes claw at things and when Sarchie investigates further he discovers the demonic inscription everywhere. Footage at Jimmy’s house of the Iraq war also shows the inscription. Once again, Mendoza has an explanation. The inscription is a door/portal to hell and that is why all the references the possessed people make are of The Doors. Get it? Doors because of “doors to hell?” Makes sense, right? Yeah, no.

How helpful of the demons to lay out hints for the detectives. Mendoza confesses to Sarchie that he got the woman in the audio clip (Claudia) pregnant but he confessed his sin and now all is right in the world. But by the looks on their faces there is no hope for Claudia since she aborted the baby. To hell with you, harlot woman.  Also Satan has time breathe on Sarchie’s window and open the portal to Hell because every time the camera pans to him the car window has the inscription written in fog.

It is at this point that the film fully departs from simple possession flick territory and takes a shot of testosterone. This is about to become an action movie with demons for flavor. Butler (who has not left the film, he has merely taken a backseat to Father Smoky Booze) and Sarchie are able to locate Santino’s address. The three men wait at Sarchie’s apartment complex. Helpfully, Mendoza reminds Sarchie that it might be time for a confession. Sarchie seems as though he may just give in to the advice when Santigo (the hooded possessed man) appears home. The men try to confront him but he is not in his apartment room. Doing the smart horror movie thing, they split up and doom at least one of them to death. Jimmy (possessed) attacks Sarchie (stupid) and Butler (unlucky) is stabbed to death by Santino (possessed with new invisibility super powers, apparently). So Butler is murdered by the possessed Santino while Sarchie and Mendoza fight the possessed Jimmy. Why these possessed men are attacking is unknown but a motivation would be nice amidst all this action.

It is quite difficult to keep up with the action and who is who at this point in the film, mostly because all of the possessed characters look and act the same. By the time Butler dies, it is unclear whether Santino or Jimmy stabbed him just as it is unclear if it is Jimmy or Santino who Mendoza has restrained with the power of his cross. When Sarchie reveals why he is hearing children’s laughter it is also difficult to sympathize with him amidst all the confusion. Apparently a long time ago he caught a child killer and beat him to death. Why he is still on the force after beating a man to death is unknown. But this is weighing on Sarchie’s conscience. 

Father Smoky Booze and Detective “Guilty Conscience” Sarchie ready for battle.

Sarchie is on his way home when suddenly.

RIP Jane. We hardly knew ye.

This film does not waste its time with possessed chick foreplay. It uses the woman and tosses her off of a building. At least Sarchie tries to call it in. What a prince. Next he gets a phone call from a woman who matters. His wife Jen (whose name is so close to Jane’s I think they didn’t try). Jane is not the one on the other line though. No, it is Santino, who has Sarchie’s females captive. Christina and Jen are now the captives of a possessed man with no clear motif or plan. But Sarchie is able to successfully arrest the possessed Santino.

Wow, demon. You didn’t even try.

While in police custody the action equivalent of an exorcism happens. A wind-blowing, soundtrack-blaring, blood-flying, cross-wielding, Latin-shouting showdown between Team Sarchie and the demon—whose name turns out to be Jumbler or something—unfolds. At one point all Sarchie can hear is The Doors and the demon tells Mendoza that Claudia kept the baby. Sarchie, learning from Mendoza (and apparently The Exorcist) tells the priest to ignore the demon. Jumbler gives in after an action-packed exorcism and the soundtrack overwhelms all else with swelling action-movie violins and slow-motion to tell the audience that something huge has just happened. Christina and Jen are recovered from the back of a van, unharmed, because apparently the demon was just keeping them around.

After the birth of Sarchie’s second daughter—did I forget to mention Jen was pregnant?—the detective retires from the force and joins Mendoza in fighting Primary Evil. The movie ends with this factoid.

Cliché Board (scoreboard)

1.       Victim: Young, White, Female, Helpless- check (-1)

2.       Horrors of the Female Form: nope

3.       Projectile Vomit: Not really. Bubbles of spit don’t count.

4.       Cliché Demon Voice: Yes. (-1)

5.       Mental Illness is Scary (Ah!): Yes (-1)

6.       Troubled Non-believer and/or Science vs. Faith: Check (-1)

7.       Potty Mouth Demon: Nope.

8.       Whisper Lewd Things to Me, Satan (Horrors of Female Sexuality): Nope. For once.

9.       The Devil Does Yoga (+ if in a pretzel): Not really.

1.   Spider Walk: Crawling normally doesn’t count.

1.   Imitating Emily Rose: No.

1.   Based on a True Story. Yes. (-1)

Other Cliché Points Off:

•             Factual Errors if above is to be believed: Since I don’t know the true story and the film made no attempt to tell the true story only one point deduced. (-1)

•             Shaky camera: No.

•             Gross Out scares: Lots of blood and one really gross scare that was actually awesome. So deducing one point for relying on it. But it was still awesome. (-1)

•             Lights Flicker Out cliché: A few times. (-3)

•             Pointless Poltergeists: -1

•             Pointless creepy singing: Laughing in this case. Children laughing. -1

·         Evil is Foreign- the demon comes from overseas. Of course. -1

•             Pointlessly Big Body Count: -5

Grace Points

•                    This tried to be different. It was a bro movie dressed as an exorcism movie. So it gets 5 points for at least TRYING something different. The first 45 minutes were watchable. (+5)

•                    Rather than focus on the ickyness of female sexuality, it focused on the fear of demons from over seas…so….half a point. Maybe. Nah. 0. Switching misogyny for xenophobia isn’t acceptable.

•                    The priest was entertaining to have on screen. Not good, mind. But this cop-like priest who seemed just as likely to pull out a gun as a crucifix was at least a change of pace. Not as cool as the Jewish exorcist in The Possession, though. (+1)

•                    The first 45 minutes seemed to be leading up to something big and frightening. Before the film teetered off into an action flick about some aimless demon named Jambler, it did seem to be leading to the kind of creepy atmosphere of Exorcist III: Legion (and that, folks, is how you do a possession movie). (+1)

Overall

·         The first 40 minutes of this movie were building up to something solid but it soon becomes muddled down with too many characters with too little personalities. (-1) The demon appears to be aimless and even if the case of “chaotic evil” is to be made, has too little of a personality to leave much of an impression. (-1) None of the imagery is anything that will stick with you, save for the body in the basement which turns out to be a gross-out scare done right. The seen it all before feel of the movie may even bore some viewers. While the film does not take the lowest common denominator of sexualizing the possessed female, it also does not take any new risks or bring anything of worth to the possession sub-genre. As an action movie, it will probably disappoint from not making a connection with its audience and Sarchie is too generic to really feel anything for. The plot is too tangled to really root for anyone (-1). It almost seems like a movie trying to inject some testosterone into a genre already so obviously under the Male Gaze. That said, the special effects, acting and pacing leave nothing to be desired and if you enjoy action movies and horror movies you might enjoy it. At least this tried to be something a little different. Not bad, but not great.

Cliché Count: 5 out of 12 for main score.

Skipped Clichés:  7 out of 12 of the main ones.

Other Negative cliché points: 13

Negative Points from Synopsis: 3

Overall negative points: 21

Grace points: 7.

Your Score: 86