Christmas is a time of peace and harmony, where we remember baby Jesus, born into a manger. There were shepherds, wise men, sweet hay and swaddling clothes. But we often forget how dark the Christmas story actually is. First of all you’ve got poor Joseph, convinced that his fiance has been knocked up by another man. Then she gives birth in a barn, which would not be sweet or pleasant in any way. If that weren’t bad enough, the wise men tip Herod off to the fact that a new king has been born, and he goes and kills all the first born sons in Judea, forcing the Holy Family into exile. Real smooth, wise men, did you miss the star that told you to keep your mouths shut?

There are plenty of movies about Christmas, a few about the nativity and plenty more about Santa. But there aren’t any that capture the despair and desperation of the original tale. Placed within the larger narrative of the Christian gospel, the nativity is about a god being subjected to the vulnerability of an infancy, in order to enter a cruel world whose purpose it is to kill him. Sure, it all works out in the end, but it’s still a pretty dark story.

This lack of grit in Christmas movies became clear to me two years ago. Around Christmas, 2006, both The Nativity Story and Children of Men were released. I saw them both within a few days of one another. I was struck by how boring The Nativity Story was, especially compared to Cuarón’s post-apocalyptic masterpiece. When I think of a baby bringing peace on Earth, I can think of no better image than Clive Owen stumbling out of a shattered building with a screaming infant, its cries literally silencing tanks.

In that spirit, here are five gritty movies where everything rides on the tiny shoulders of a baby.

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Better watch out, better not carry too much cash, I’m telling you why: Santa Claus is strapped financially, too, this year, and he’s on a mugging spree. That’s David “Champ” Koechner as the bad Santa and Jessica Biel in the sexy elf (or is it a Mrs. Claus?) costume in this new FunnyorDie exclusive. But Santa doesn’t need currency, you say. He’s magic! Perhaps, but this holiday, people are likely referencing the Kinks’ song “Father Christmas” and asking him for money rather than “silly toys.”

Interestingly enough, I saw in The Hollywood Reporter today that FunnyorDie actually just received a whole lot of money for Christmas (or Hannukah, or whatever it celebrates). That means we can look forward to a new year filled with plenty more comedy shorts, whether they be as brilliant as the Prop 8 musical or as uninspired as today’s clip (which is mostly only good to Biel’s fans). I guess it’s a given that humor prevails in bad times, but it’s also telling for our future that while many longtime industries are in need of bailouts that online video sites are netting secret investments.

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Need help cutting down your Christmas tree? Jason Vorhees can help. Want someone to cook holiday dinner? Hannibal Lecter’s got you. Even the Mummy is here to bandage your kid’s leg after a see-saw accident involving Chucky. It’s a horror villain family Christmas, featuring Darth Vader looking beautiful walking through the snow, Freddie Krueger snipping a bouquet of flowers with his glove, and Samara popping out of the television to deliver presents.

Yes, that present is a DirecTV dish, and this is a commercial. But it’s old, it’s foreign and it’s one of the more enjoyable DirecTV ads ever made. My only criticism: shouldn’t Leatherface have been in charge of the tree cutting? Jason could have just wandered around with no significant duty, like Dracula. Also, I would have loved an appearance from Tony Todd, preferably holding some candy canes. Otherwise, this clip is perfect. I’d love to see it become an actual video e-card for the holidays, along with the old SNL Season’s Greetings skits (for those wondering where Frankenstein’s monster is, he’s over with Tonto and Tarzan singing “Away in a Manger”).

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I haven’t seen Twilight, but from what I can tell the film only has one memorable scene. That’s the way the Twilight parodists make it seem, anyway. Everything from the puppet parody to  this new Christmas version (see below) recreates this scene, in which Bella acknowledges that Edward is a vampire and then the couple flies through the woods. It’s getting to the point where the parodies are losing their edge if only because of the familiarity. The one thing that could possibly be more tired is if someone parodied the bullet-time scene from The Matrix within a parody of Twilight.

But it’s mid-December, and tis the season for humorous movie-related Christmas videos on YouTube (like “Rambo Bells”). Twilight fans already got their Christmas wish with the announcement that Twilight: New Moon will be out before Thanksgiving next year, but this is a little stocking stuffer (for that Edward-face stocking pictured, available from Amazon). And if those little goths like the idea of Santa being a vampire (how is this not the concept of another Christmas horror flick?), they can buy an unrelated Santa Vampire t-shirt here. Oh nevermind, they’re not going to have enough cash for unrelated items when there’s so much real Twilight Christmas crap to buy.

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As the financial markets pull the entire economy into utter despair, it’s difficult to think about Christmas shopping. It’s tempting to shove your life savings into your mattress and ride this thing out in a homemade bunker, but holiday shopping is more important now than ever before. I’m not saying this with the hope that a boost in retail sales will jolt the sinking markets, that will never work. Think about it, they’re racking up trillions in debt and you’re going to help by buying an iPod? Nice try.

No, the reason you need to stuff stockings like crazy is because this will be the last Christmas on Earth, at least as we know it. A trifecta of economic, nuclear, and environmental apocalypses will surely befall our poor planet in the coming year, leaving a small band of survivors to fend off death in the savage wastes of our once great world. But don’t worry! You and yours will be prepared for this dark tomorrow, if you follow our handy Post-Apocalyptic Gift Guide:

Puppy

This is a classic Christmas gift, and it’s surprising useful in a post-apocalyptic environment. While watching post-apocalyptic movies in preparation for a life wandering the ruins civilization (cf. I Am Legend, The Road Warrior, and A Boy And His Dog), you’ll notice that many heroes keep a trusty K-9. The obvious reason is companionship, as going months without seeing another human can be maddening. While dogs do need to be fed, a tough breed can eat trash and carrion that you wouldn’t go near. The right kind of dog (larger breeds are best) can also offer protection and help with hunting, assuming natural flora and fauna still exist. Lastly, and I hate to say this, Fido can even become a meal if the situation gets desperate enough.

Solar Gadget Charger

Second only to clean water, a key to survival in a post-apocalyptic environment is the ability to watch movies. Classics like Tank Girl, Six String Samurai, and The Postman offer invaluable tips for survival in the wastelands. Luckily, portable solar-power devices have become more affordable. The 30 Watt Mono-crystalline Portable Briefcase Solar Panel 12V Charger is a bit pricey, but with it’s 25+ year life-span and ability to charge not only laptops but also any other gadget that can be plugged into a car cigarette lighter, it’s a must-have. Portable game systems, rechargeable flashlights, even GPS units (assuming the satellites haven’t been shot down by invading aliens), could be used for years after the collapse of the power grid.

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The biggest box office news of Christmas weekend was the utter failure of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Sony launched a wide and varied marketing campaign, the film was fairly well-reviewed (it earned a 78 percent “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes), and yet, it only managed to gross $4.1 million over three days. That’s $1,547 per screen, so assuming tickets sold at an average $10, and each theater hosted roughly five screenings a day, that adds up to about 10 ticket buyers per show per screen. This would be a crap opening under any circumstances, but it’s expecially crap considering that it ends a long winning streak for producer Judd Apatow. So what went wrong? Let’s go to the blogs:

• Nikki Finke quotes a rival studio exec with the snipe, “This shows Judd Apatow is not god. Sometimes you can be too clever for your own good.” Her own diagnosis? “The problem was the movie skewed overwhelmingly male, but that guy audience went for action-adventure and sawe National Treasure and I Am Legend instead.”
• Leonard Klady at The Hot Blog offers six possible reasons for Walk Hard’s failure. Perhaps most damning is #6: “A running series of “Cox” jokes that were barely funny the first time, much less the 3000th time… unless third graders are suddenly in the market for mock biopics.”
• Pajiba offers the Apatow fan perspective: “Walk Hard is that movie everyone thought would do really well, but that no one actually wanted to see. Indeed, my Apatow credentials are pretty well known, but I just had no interest. None. I guess the Apatow backlash now begins.”
• Jeff Wells is one of many who blames John C. Reilly’s lack of star power. It didn’t seem to be a problem for Seth Rogen or Michael Cera, but in any case: “It’s funny, clever, sharp, absurdist..what happened? My theory in a nutshell: (a) people figured that a spoof of Walk The Line and Ray wasn’t vital enough to see in theatres, and (b) John C. Reilly isn’t a star, doesn’t put butts in seats.”
• Finally, for Defamer, it all comes down to anatomical detail. “Judd Apatow gets his first taste of box office disappointment–something that surely could have been avoided had the marketing better highlighted the film’s frequent close-ups on a flaccid penis.” Meanwhile, sister site Idolator seems personally offended to have been embroiled in said penis-less marketing, branding Walk Hard the “Snakes On A Plane of parody biopics, the ‘hey let’s make a movie comprised of references to old bands and then aggressively market it to music bloggers because surely they will BRING THE NEWS TO THE PEOPLE’ flick.”

SpoutBlog is taking today and tomorrow off. While we’re away, take a look at the clip above from Meet Me in St. Louis–it’s part of one of the sequences that we referenced in last week’s podcast on Demented Christmas Movie Moments. Unfortunately, this clip cuts off *just* before Tootie decapitates the snowmen, but it’s still gorgeous and sad. We’ll be back on Wednesday.

• On the podcast: There Will Be Blood. There will also be demented Christmas moments. Behold visual aids, for the former and for the latter.
• The MPAA found a way to unite conservatives and liberals though a single act of censorship.
• Someone else found a way to blame Disney for turning your daughter into a slut.
• There is still a trailer for The Dark Knight, but the six-minute prequel bootleg is no more.
• Will Mark Romanek’s experience with Trent Reznor impact his remake of The Wolfman?
• Your iPod has broken you.
• Why The Hobbit is going to happen.
• Has Jodie Foster made her own Joe vs. the Volcano?
• Judd Apatow: good at both viral marketing and blow-job jokes.
• If Tracy Morgan was just a little bit more delusional, we might not have to suffer First Sunday.
• Oh, and I was watching 30 Rock when I should have been working. Oops.
• 2007: The Year of the Unwanted Pregnancy.
• Mike Figgis, pornographer.
• Belle and Sebastian, the musical.
• Sweeney Todd: a review, a marketing con
• Speaking of marketing con(troversy)s, a blogger invents one about The Dark Knight.
• Frowland’s latest honor sparks consideration of what it means to be undistributed.
• Focus Features scales new frontiers of advertorial.
• Can Clooney rub some of his magic dust on Zellweger? Does that sound dirty?
• A studio’s strike hypocrisy, somehow revealed by Jackass.

Consider this a preview of tomorrow’s edition of FilmCouch. I will say no more.

Last night, for the first time in almost 20 years, I watched Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I’m sure I saw this thing at least once a year from birth until, like 1989 (when we got cable and I basically refused to watch anything but Yo! MTV Raps), but I had totally forgotten about the strange and wonderful little narrative details.

Like, for instance, Rudolph’s friend Hermy, the queer little elf who runs away from Christmas Town because no one understands his desperate desire to become “a … dentist.” And Yukon Cornelius, the shady mountain man who befriends Hermy and Rudolph en route to pick up “cornmeal, ham hocks, gun powder and guitar strings” (the makings of any good night, no?) And, oh, the Island of Misfit Toys. I can’t even begin to top the Wikipedia descriptions of that whole mess. Their take on Misfit Doll: “Misfit Doll (voiced by Corinne Conley) is an unnamed, but seemingly normal girl rag doll. Her presence on the island is never explained, though one accepted reason is that the problem is somewhat psychological.”

The whole experience basically caused me to revert to my 8 year-old self–as soon as it was over, I fell asleep on the couch in a puddle of my own drool. While I’m getting my game together this morning, go here to watch an unembeddable clip of Rudolph and Hermy, finding each other in a snow bank and cementing their bond through song.