There’s hope for vacation-loving cord-cutters who can’t access the Hallmark Channel and Lifetime’s bulging libraries and who’ve binged all the new Netflix offerings: Other streaming services have upped their game when it comes to tinsel and upbeat originals.
Here are five new movies that range from the violent to the heartwarming. Just try to guess where the new “Home Alone” episode falls in this range.
‘The Advent Calendar’
Stream it on Shudder.
Eva (Eugénie Derouand) is a former dancer who has started using a wheelchair after a car accident. Her best and ostensibly only friend, Sophie (Honorine Magnier), gives her a beautifully designed German Advent calendar for Christmas. It’s a gift that keeps on giving – and not in a good way, because it unleashes an evil force.
The most interesting aspect of writer-director Patrick Ridremont’s shockfest is that Eve is a complicated, flawed protagonist. Because she is in a wheelchair, she is constantly mistreated and bullied by heartless colleagues and friends. But the Advent calendar also taps into her bitter regrets and frustrations—it’s those colleagues, not her disabilities, that have left her vulnerable to the temptations and delusions that fuel her newfound possession.
‘8-bit Christmas’
Stream it on HBO Max.
The elevator pitch for this HBO Max movie is simple: imagine “A Christmas Story” set in the 80s, and with a Nintendo Entertainment System instead of the Red Ryder BB gun.
To stop her incessant requests for a cell phone, Jake (Neil Patrick Harris) tells his daughter, Annie (Sophia Reid-Gantzert), a long, complicated story — which he clearly hopes is a teaching moment — about winter. when he was 11 and desperately trying to get his hands on the console every kid coveted.
Most of the movie stays in the 80s with young Jake (the very good Winslow Fegley), as he and his friends come up with incredibly complicated plans to get their hands on that Nintendo. One even involves hard work selling wreaths to win a competition with a Nintendo as the top prize.
The best part of the film, at least for adult viewers, is a beautiful rendition of Steve Zahn as the father of young Jake, simultaneously cranky and warm, and with a welcome soup of almost disturbing unpredictability. But while there are plenty of references to the 1980s, including a subplot about the scarcity of a particular Cabbage Patch Kid, the decade’s main influence lies in the stories, which often recall National Lampoon’s films at their most politically incorrect. – think projectile vomiting, something happening to a family dog, a slight gonzo vibe.
‘Home Sweet Home Alone’
Stream it on Disney+.
Unless you’re a devoted fan, you may not have realized that the 1990 hit “Home Alone” had turned into a franchise. All the movies are about a boy who somehow finds himself alone during the holidays and has to fend off intruders. In the latest and sixth installments, available on Disney+, it’s up to Max (Archie Yates, from “Jojo Rabbit”) to be accidentally left behind by his family – this time when they go on vacation to Japan.
An important change from the story is that this film is usually told from the perspective of the house intruders, money-stressed Jeff and Pam McKenzie (Rob Delaney and Ellie Kemper), who are trying to get back a prized possession that they believe may have been stolen. Max has been stolen. As funny as Delaney and Kemper are – which is bad, and they should get a franchise of their own – to see a couple in fear of losing their home suffer from a booby-trapped gauntlet invented by a rich brat, doesn’t really feel funny right now.
As for the original forgotten kid, Kevin McCallister, we learn from his untidy older brother Buzz (still played by Devin Ratray three decades later) that he now runs a home security company and still likes to joke around. Sounds like an open invitation to Kevin’s eventual return to the franchise, should Macaulay Culkin ever decide he’s the game.
‘The Housewives of the North Pole’
Stream it on Peacock.
North Pole, Vermont, is the kind of New England only-in-movie town whose bustling Main Street has all the chic vibe of Rodeo Drive. Which makes sense, considering the self-proclaimed queen, Trish, is played by Kyle Richards of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”
Trish always wins the annual Christmas decorating contest, thanks to the help of her best friend, the sweet-tempered artist Diana (Betsy Brandt, from “Breaking Bad”). But when the women’s friendship abruptly spirals out of control, Trish’s streak is compromised as Diana feels betrayed and lonely. Don’t worry, lessons will be learned and bridges repaired.
Accepting a parallel universe where a Vermont town harbors insane displays of ostentatious wealth and people brave December in shorts and a T-shirt without freezing to death will greatly increase your chances of enjoying this Peacock original. Indeed, the film is so nutty detached from any semblance of reality that it is almost enjoyable. How far can it go? After a while you even start to think that everyone is in on the joke.
But what exactly is that joke? A satire of a status-obsessed, in every way necessary woman with a lot of free time? “The Housewives of the North Pole” never quite goes there.
Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas
Stream it on the Roku channel.
In yet another example of a canceled show finding new life on a different platform and, in this case, a different format, the Roku channel’s first original feature picks up where season 2 of the NBC series “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” had ended.
The general premise is that the title character (Jane Levy) hears people’s emotions as songs. And now her boyfriend Max (Skylar Astin) does too. Zoey gives a very brief explanation/summary for newcomers at the beginning, but they’re largely on their own – “Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas” is a gift to fans of the show, who now see the heroine attempt her first holiday season without her. by coming late father.
Those with a low tolerance for Christmas tunes will be happy to hear that while the film has quite a few of them, there are also regular songs in it – Mary Steenburgen’s version of “Call Me Maybe” is a sweet highlight. Other pluses include the great performances by Alex Newell, back as the gender-nonconforming Mo, and Bernadette Peters as Steenburgen’s boyfriend. Overall, though, the film may feel too one-sided for those who haven’t yet embraced the whimsical world.