Kevin Maher, chief film critic of the Times, pulls no punches in his review of the recently released Red One, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Chris Evans, Lucy Liu, J. K. Simmons, Kiernan Shipka, and Bonnie Hunt. “One of the worst abominations of 2024,” Maher writes of the Christmas action movie, “it is truly, gobsmackingly awful.” Maher blames lackluster “When can I go back to my trailer?” acting, a “near illiterate screenplay,” and overall “gross, grim yuletide yuck.”
The review was so scathing that of course I had to watch the movie. Maher was not that far off the mark in his conclusions, although I suspect that unlike Maher, my family and I thoroughly enjoyed how bad it was, putting it on our coveted list of Best Worst Movies. In Red One, an oddly weightlifting-obsessed Santa Claus (Simmons) is kidnapped by Gryla the witch (Shipka), and for “Red One” to be rescued (the security detail’s codename for Santa), his chief of security (Johnson) must team up with a Level Four Naughty Lister (Evans). There are so many things to criticize about the plot, but perhaps the most basic is the preposterous amalgamation of magic and sci-fi technology. If Santa has eight flying reindeer, then why does he need a turbo sleigh that breaks the sound barrier? And how on earth do the reindeer stay ahead of the sleigh when it is going Mach 5?
But if there is any silver lining in this “gross, grim yuletide yuck,” it is the cast of characters. Red One goes beyond the Santa-on-the-North-Pole narrative and incorporates a number of hoary Christmas legends from around the world. The villain in the movie, Gryla the witch, is based on Icelandic folklore. Gryla and her husband Leppaludi are child-eating ogres whose thirteen sons, the Yule Lads, were traditionally terrifying goblins who haunted the Christmas season until the Danish government forced Icelanders in 1746 to stop traumatizing their children with these stories and to make up better ones. Today, the Lads are impish but harmless gift-givers.
Red One also features Krampus, a terrifying half-goat, half-demon found in southern Austria, southern Germany, and outlying areas. According to the legend, Krampus is armed with a rod or whip for punishing naughty children and wears a wooden basket for abducting them; kindly St. Nicholas, however, always prevents him from carrying out his plan. The movie alludes to this tradition, although it adds the ridiculous detail that Krampus is Santa’s estranged adopted brother.
Although Red One does not make good use of its materials, it is at least drawing from them. The myth of Santa Claus has become so dominant in the American imagination that it not only eclipses the hallowed memory of St. Nicholas of Myra—it also blinds us to the myriad of fascinating Christmas ghouls that exist in other cultures. Beside Gryla and Krampus, figures such as Baba Yaga, Berchta, Père Fouettard, Cert, Hans Trapp, Schmutzli, Kallikantzaroi (half-human, half-animal Christmas goblins from Greece), Lutzelfrau, and Belsnickel punish naughty children or simply wreak havoc on innocent people. My personal favorite is a pet of Gryla called the Yule Cat, a giant cat that eats children who do not get new clothing for Christmas. What an incredibly specific predator! I suspect the impetus behind this menacing legend is to make children grateful for the socks they get at Christmas.
Christmas ghouls are as bizarre as they come, but perhaps the creators of these tales were onto something. Yuletide devils are real. Besides the weather-related hardships of winter, there are the psychological effects of the season: seasonal affective disorder, stress, depression, suicide, alcohol abuse, family strife. The Swiss even have a name for the Christmas blues: Weihnachtscholer. (Psychologists, on the other hand, call it post-Christmas traumatic syndrome.) One way to think about the old spooky elements of Christmas is that they are a subliminal way of addressing and coping with these issues, a kind of mythological catharsis.
And here is another consideration: The dark side of Christmas, like the principle of chiaroscuro in art, makes the lights of Christmas that much brighter. We define coziness as “comfort in the midst of discomfort.” The couple hanging out on a warm tropical beach in a Corona beer commercial are clearly enjoying the moment, but they are not cozy. Christmas coziness is one of the greatest feelings on earth, but it requires the presence of a real threat. It is only when the weather outside is frightful that the fire is so delightful. And even a frightfully bad movie like Red One can remind us of that.
Michael P. Foley is a Professor of Patristics at Baylor University and the author of Why We Kiss under the Mistletoe: Christmas Traditions Explained.
