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What do you get when you combine a teen star from the Noughties with a tonne of fake snow and a plot so utterly bonkers, you have to take a moment to question whether someone seriously came up with it? The answer is a Netflix original Christmas movie.
A legacy of the trashy daytime delights of the Hallmark Channel, the streaming giant has taken it upon itself to bring cringy Christmas romcom cheer to the streaming age, digging out names like Chad Michael-Murray (One Tree Hill), Nina Dobrev (The Vampire Diaries) and Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical) in the process.
Unlike their daytime TV predecessors, these films are proving a hit with Netflix viewers, with their most recent efforts, Our Little Secret and Hot Frosty, topping the platform’s most-watched list. They provide the type of nonsensical, smooth-brained comic relief that many of us are gasping for at this time of year, so Netflix, thank you.
But with so much choice on offer and new titles added every year, it can be hard to decipher which are worth the hour-and-a-half spent watching them in the background while you do something of real important.
For the moments this month when you’re in the mood to watch something mindless instead of mindblowing, we’ve compiled a list of the platform’s most bonkers Christmas film offerings.
Love Hard (2021)
Why has a film that combines a catfish storyline with the Christmas holidays never been made before Love Hard? Well, nobody asked for it, and now they’ll never have to. After matching with hunk Tag on a dating app, dating columnist Natalie (Nina Dobrev) decides to surprise her long-distance lover for the Christmas holidays (bold move), only to discover that she’s been catfished by his nerdy childhood friend, Josh. The pair make an agreement: Natalie will pretend to be Josh’s girlfriend to impress his family, and in return, he’ll set her up with the real Tag. It puts a modern twist on the typical romcom tropes of following your heart and being your true self (gag), but it’s one of the genuinely sweeter picks from the platform’s festive catalogue.
Hot Frosty (2024)
Where catfishing happens in real life, a chiselled snowman (with a six-pack, obviously) coming to life does not, so it’s no surprise that everyone is talking about the feel-good ridiculousness of Hot Frosty. Sexy snowman Jack magically transforms to constantly shirtless human form to heal the broken heart of widow Kathy (played by Lacey Chabert, AKA Gretchen from Mean Girls). The pair fall in love, but wait! Even though he appears human, Jack is still a snowman and is at risk of melting (gutted), which could leave Kathy bereft and heartbroken once again. It’s absolute nonsense, but it’s great nonsense.
Falling For Christmas (2022)
From one Mean Girls cast member to another, 2022’s Falling For Christmas marked Lindsay Lohan’s return to screens in more than a decade. Once you look past the slapstick comedy, unforgivable green screen usage and a scene where she compares herself to “unclaimed luggage”, Falling For Christmas… still isn’t great. While it may not be picking up any awards for its screenplay, we can all agree that it’s nice to have Lohan back on our TVs again – she’s just recently starred in Our Little Secret, a new Netflix offering of similar ilk. In Falling For Christmas, Lohan plays Sierra, a spoiled heiress who falls for a humble inn owner (played by Glee’s Chord Overstreet) after he helps her regain her memory after a skiing accident, much to the dismay of her influencer fiancé.
The Holiday Calendar (2018)
Ah, yes, the classic Christmas tale of the psychic advent calendar. That’s the crux of The Holiday Calendar, in which struggling photographer Abby (Kat Graham, The Vampire Diaries) inherits an antique calendar from her grandfather, which miraculously starts pointing her in the direction of career success and (what she thinks to be) love. But what about her fellow photographer friend Josh, who has kept his romantic feelings towards her a secret for all these years? You’ll have to sit through 95 minutes worth of thick rom-com cheese to find out.
The Knight Before Christmas (2019)
What’s better than a sexy snowman? A 14th-century knight falling in love with Gabriella from High School Music – and at Christmas – of course! How does Sir Cole Christopher Fredrick Lyons from Norwich end up in Ohio, 700 years into the future? Who cares! All that matters is that he’s handsome and he says “M’lady”. He and Brooke (Vanessa Hudgens) meet when she hits him with her car (typical) and, after inviting him to recover at her guest home, they fall in love – which he discovers is the quest he’s been sent into the future to fulfil in the first place. It’s a sappy, adult fairytale that’ll be topped when Netflix matches another unlikely couple in their next Christmas offering. Bets on whether it’ll be a buff gingerbread man, reindeer or Christmas penguin as the token hunk next year?
