Five Films That Would Be Better If They Were Set at Christmas

One—The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Tobe Hooper’s long slow march through hell is pretty much as perfect as films get – a non-stop assault on the senses that lurches from horror to horror. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved upon, and what better way to spruce up Leatherface and his exploits by setting The Texas Chainsaw Massacre at Christmas? Imagine the sounds of a revving chainsaw mixing with gentle sleigh bells, and that demented final scene taking place in the falling snow.

Two—Midsommar

Ari Aster’s all-timer of a breakup drama finds its great power by pushing awkward social dynamics to their logical, if horrifying, conclusions. So imagine if he applied that same fascination with the tension between the said and the unsaid to a Christmas-time lunch? You’d barely need to tweak Midsommar to make it a Christmas classic – just throw a couple of crackers around those big wooden tables, and have Dani’s final moment of catharsis take place while she’s wearing an itchy ole fake Santa beard. Perfection.

Three—Taxi Driver

Christmas is the loneliest time of the year, so what better way to explore that deep isolation than by setting Martin Scorsese’s urban nightmare in December? Picture Travis Bickle burning his arm over the stove with a Santa hat jauntily on his head, or a scene with the man making his way around a mall, surrounded by shoppers ready to spoil their families.

Four—Face/Off

John Woo’s maximalist action classic is spiritually a Christmas film anyway – it has the exuberance of the silly season, and the same demented, half-cocked sense of fun. All it needs is a musical number, as John Travolta and Nicolas Cage circle each other to the strains of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’, and voila – a true staple of the Christmas season could be born.

Five—The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring

We deserve to see the Hobbits celebrating Christmas. In fact, we should all consider ourselves robbed that we’ve never seen Frodo roasting chestnuts over an open fire, or Merry and Pippin basting a turkey. In fact, the Christmas version of The Fellowship of the Ring should be as tacky as possible, for its full effect to be achieved – no lavish Christmas lunch, but some real overcooked prawns, sitting on an oil-soaked napkin, or a very tipsy Saruman, standing over the Christmas table to deliver a far too emotional speech. It’s what we, as a cinema-going public, need to see.