NAUGHTY OR NICE
Krissy Kringle receives a special delivery intended for Santa Claus, the "Naughty Or Nice" book he left behind while visiting a child, and uses the power of the book to expose the naughty deeds of those around her.
Krissy Kringle's life is in disarray. She's lobbying hard for a promotion at her advertising firm (I think it's an advertising firm, I don't really care), her lawyer boyfriend Lance (that guy with no belly button from Kyle XY) won't propose, her friend Jill is a backstabbing whore, and her water heater exploded (maybe), so she has to take cold showers. All she wants is a warm cup of joe at the local Starbucks trendy coffee shop.
Waiting in line, a clumsy little boy bumps into Krissy, and his mother warns him that if he continues being such an uncoordinated little brat that he'll end up on Santa's naughty list, which terrifies the child. Then she goes off on Krissy for having such an easy life because of her choice to not have children. This complete stranger begins verbally abusing another woman for absolutely no reason, all because she doesn't have kids.
You don't know what it's like! It's a 24/7 sacrifice! You've got it made, you shiftless layabout! Children are a blessing for those who are willing to put in the time and how dare you and blah, blah...
This is just the worst kind of person in a nutshell. These fucking martyrs who climb off their cross just long enough to tell their childless counterparts how they're terrible people who don't know anything about hardship because they never pumped out a handful of rugrats in their pursuit of happiness. Because people who aren't actively raising children have no idea what hard work or sacrifice truly is, and every single mother on the face of the earth is a fucking saint because they chose not to use birth control.
Nobody asked for your opinion, Mother of the Year!
What? Ugh. So our hero's name is Krissy Kringle, and she hates Christmas because her name is Krissy Kringle and everybody just assumes she loves Christmas and it drives her nuts. TV-G nuts, which is pretty tame as far as nuts goes.
She lives on a dead end street called Candy Cane Lane, which, to be fair, was not called Candy Cane Lane when she moved in, and every Christmas season she receives an over abundance of mail addressed to Kris Kringle, AKA Santa Claus. Don't ask me how all these fucking children have her address, because the movie never explains it. Half the mail she receives doesn't even have any postage on it, so I have no idea how it even gets to her house.
Having just lost her job due to her backstabbing whore friend Jill, Krissy is in a lurch. Then she discovers a rather large parcel in her pile of mail addressed to Mr. Kringle, which turns out to be his legendary "naughty or nice" list. Apparently the big guy was just hanging out with some kid, showing off his swank list, then he left it behind because he's a stupid old man who gets confused easily.
So instead of wielding the list for evil (or revealing it to the world to prove the existence of Santa Claus), the saintly kid mails it back to him, but it winds up in Krissy's grubby little mitts instead. And she uses the list to destroy the lives of every person who has ever wronged her, exacting bloody revenge on the oblivious fools one by one as she wields the power of the gods to learn their deepest, darkest secrets and mercilessly crush them underfoot like the pathetic little insects they are.
At least, that's what could've happened, had this been a slightly different movie. Because Santa's "naughty or nice" book is actually a book of sins. All Krissy has to do is speak aloud the name of the person she wishes to target, and the book reveals every last one of their dirty little secrets, all those things we try to bury under the pleasant veneer of so-called "polite society", the horrible things we would never reveal to even the people we love and trust the most.
This book is absolutely a weapon of mass destruction. An ambitious and enterprising individual could use the power of the book to rule the world, because nobody could ever hope to hide anything from their all-seeing eye. With a casual thought, all of your enemy's secrets would be laid bare, and you could utterly destroy them at your leisure.
A much different movie could have been made using the exact same premise as Naughty Or Nice, but Hallmark Channel would never make that movie. How come none of those supernatural-themed shows never used Santa's naughty list as a macguffin? It always seemed like a no-brainer to me. Hell, I'm surprised Supernatural has never used the list in some form. It's low-hanging fruit, ripe for the plucking!
Anyhow, Krissy doesn't use the power of the book to rule the world. No, she gets a job as a gift-wrapping elf at the local shopping mall to make ends meet, where she immediately bonds with her quirky coworker, a guy who looks like director James Gunn named Tigerman. Okay, his character's name is Marco, but the actor is named Gabriel Tigerman, so he'll always be known as Tigerman to me.
Her new boss is a twenty something madman named... something who inexplicably speaks in a ridiculous Australian accent. Tigerman tells Krissy that the guy is obsessed with the movie Crocodile Dundee and is trying desperately to channel the leathery manliness of forgotten actor Paul Hogan. This movie was made in 2012, so there's no good reason for it to include a Crocodile Dundee reference. Who the fuck remembers Crocodile Dundee?! I mean I do, but I'm a weirdo. Seriously? Crocodile fucking Dundee?! Where are your priorities, movie?
Krissy uses the book to fuck over her new boss, then she uses it to fuck over her overbearing neighbor, who literally puts her house up for the sale the very next day, attempting to flee the neighborhood in disgrace. Then she fucks over that backstabbing whore Jill and gets rehired by her old boss, which fills Krissy with cruel joy.
Then Krissy feels bad and reconciles with her disgraced neighbor who tells her some bullshit story about decorating Christmas trees and World War II. I don't know what kind of web of lies this woman is spinning, because the Christmas tree is a Germanic tradition, tracing its roots back to the ancient festival of Yule.
It was a popular tradition in Northern Europe that was little known to the outside world until the middle of the 19th Century, when Austrian transplant Prince Albert introduced the tradition to his bride, Queen Victoria. She fell in love with the Christmas tree, and it quickly caught on both in England and in America, because everybody wanted to be a royal bandwagon jumper.
Did you know that Krissy's parents are played by Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter? Michael Gross is in this movie, and he's always wearing ugly Christmas sweaters and he's a charming and naturally funny actor and why isn't he in more, better movies? He deserves better than this! You're my boy, Michael Gross! I can't wait for Tremors 6!
And Dana Barron has a small supporting role as one of Krissy's delightful neighbors. Who is Dana Barron, you may ask? Why, none other than the original Audrey Griswold from National Lampoon's Vacation, and my first love. I had such a crush on her when I was a kid, and she's still cute as a button in this movie. Talk about "aging gracefully".
At the end of the movie, Santa Claus shows up to take back his book and he's played by Googy fucking Gress. I loves me some Googy Gress, and this performance is no exception. What do you mean, you have no idea who Googy Gress is?! Who the fuck are you?! Googy's too good for punks like you. Googy Gress is a fantabulous Santa Claus, let me tell you. That fat jolly old fuck could play Santa Claus in his sleep, and I'm not entirely convinced that wasn't the case in this movie.
Anyway, Santa takes his book back, Lance proposes, Tigerman nods knowingly, and poorly-rendered digital snow falls from the sky as Krissy gets everything she wants for Christmas, especially destroying the life and career of that backstabbing whore Jill.
I guess Naughty Or Nice isn't terrible, but it completely wasted its tremendous premise, not to mention wasting such actors as Michael Gross and Dana Bacon Barron, so it can go fuck itself. But I'll always love you, Tigerman!
VERDICT: NAUGHTY (OR NICE)
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