Maintaining a permanent 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes is a rare feat — especially for older films that have had years to pick up a single contrarian, positive review to bump up their score. While newer releases are often judged on an initially small batch of reviews, they usually find a steady consensus over time, making a lasting zero incredibly difficult to sustain. That’s currently the case for a new horror-comedy and its dismal debut.
Mashing up Christmas and Halloween in film is uniquely appealing, as proven by The Nightmare Before Christmas, Gremlins, and Terrifier 3. Continuing the counterprogramming tradition he started with Nosferatu, Robert Eggers is also set to unleash Werwulf on Christmas Day. It’s still a risky gambit, and many movies fail in their attempts, including Christmas at the Kringles, which conveniently dropped on Halloween weekend.
Christmas at the Kringles is dead on arrival at Rotten Tomatoes with a 0% approval rating, based on 19 critic reviews as of this writing. Reminiscent of holiday horrors like Christmas Bloody Christmas, Krampus, and Violent Night, the film follows a family whose next-door neighbors celebrate Yuletide year-round. What started as a harmless house visit turns into a life-and-death rescue mission requiring the help of a rogue, cynical mall Santa help to survive the night. The movie is an absurd horror-comedy in the same vein as The Babysitter and Better Watch Out.
The premise falls flat in the execution, however, with critics overwhelmingly panning the plot and the writing. Variety describes the film as a seasonal caper that misses the mark, despite a capable comedic ensemble led by Ron Livingston (Office Space), Thomas Lennon (The Odd Couple), Rachel Bilson (The O.C.), and Rob Riggle (Step Brothers).
“Christmas at the Kringles feels like it’s been cobbled together from any number of other, much better movies, in the hope that seasoned improvisers like Lennon and Riggle can make the end result coherent… It’s like a gift-wrapped box with nothing inside.”
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The Los Angeles Times also slammed the film for its use of the Christmas angle as a mere plot device — “present only as gaudy decoration, creepy song cues and vulgarly reappropriated sayings.” ScreenRant noted how the film failed to land the tone, abruptly shifting from the straight comedy of the first act: “Everything before the curtain is fully pulled back is, frankly, painful to watch.” The overall consensus is that the cast is the only saving grace, even if they had to make do with a lackluster script and caricatured characters.
Speaking with ComingSoon.net, director Kevin Lewis said Christmas at the Kringles shared the DNA of his 2021 horror-comedy Willy’s Wonderland, which stars a stoic Nicholas Cage as a janitor beating up sentient animatronic mascots. “It had that bonkers vibe that I was always looking to get back to,” he explained. “That was one of the draws for me, and just to make it a Christmas movie that people could watch every Christmas and enjoy, which would be awesome.”
Whether the film ends up on annual Christmas must-watch lists like Home Alone or Die Hard remains to be seen, but it could easily join the ranks of cult films that are celebrated simply for being so bad they’re good. With its current 0% rating, it’s certainly off to a fittingly terrible start.
