Scrooged (1988)

I've always been inordinately attached to the 1980s, even though I was only 13 by the time they finished. They're the years whose music I return to for comfort listening, the years which spark an instant wistful nostalgia. Sure, I didn't see many movies back then (I was too small and too easily terrified), but the film posters from the video shop have stuck with me even when I wholeheartedly wished they hadn't. 

Films in the 80s were a minefield to be navigated, because some tiny aspect would always linger far too long, tormenting me in the dead of night. As a consequence, there's plenty of highly-populist stuff from that period I still haven't seen. Gremlins, for instance, that's a good example. Or  E.T., because the second it stopped seeming mind-fryingly scary it suddenly became nauseatingly oversentimental. On the other hand, the so-called classic family films I have seen from the period? Ghostbusters was shockingly overrated, and while the first and third instalments of the Indiana Jones were serviceable enough, Temple of Doom remains one of the great cinematic embarrassments of our lifetime. 

Films I watched at Christmas in the 80s were Grease, the Sound of Music and endless James Bond repeats, safe and serviceable and reassuring in their firm position on each side of the gender divide. Nothing liable to scare the horses here, no sir, and the only incarnation of Ebenezer Scrooge onscreen would have been the Alistair Sim one.

Scrooged, on the other hand, is very much a re-telling for its own era, with all the flash and excess this implies. It's the story of ruthless TV network executive Frank Cross (Bill Murray), producer of such festive gems as The Night The Reindeer Died. This year, Cross' star attraction is a live-action version of the Dickens classic, featuring gymnast Mary Lou Retton as Tiny Tim.

Cross loves Christmas, because it's the one time of year when the entire nation comes together to sit down and watch TV in unison - this is important, given that his boss Preston Rhinelander (Robert Mitchum) is warning him not to neglect the cat and dog demographic. Christmas, for him, is bank. For those around him, though, it's a time for receiving cheap monogrammed towels and running the risk of a vicious tongue-lashing and/or unemployment.

We all know how it goes from here, as Cross is visited by three spirits - David Johansen's Ghost of Christmas Past, Carol Kane as a psychotically sparkly Ghost of Christmas Present and a Ghost of Christmas Future portrayed as nothing so much but a cowled TV screen. Does Frank learn to love Christmas, does he make out with his long-lost love and does his secretary's mute son learn to speak? Sorry, people; spoilers forbid.

The good

I'd feel so much more confident commenting on this one if I had any idea what director Richard Donner was trying to achieve. In the nicest possible way, Scrooged actually works quite well as a slightly hallucinatory character study of an overly-paid man and his nervous breakdown. Heck, if I was feeling particularly charitable I could suggest it might even be an allegory for the way the manic consumerism of the 80s gradually segued into the desperately earnest goodwill of the 90s. It's loud, it's bold and it has a certain dreamlike disjointedness that could sort of hold up under non-literal interpretation. If I was feeling charitable.

Oh, and if you like the sort of Danny Elfman soundtrack that sounds like the prizewinner in a Danny Elfman Soundtrack Soundalike contest, this may just be your lucky day.

The bad

Okay, so, disclaimer time: I watched Scrooged under the influence of some sort of vague achy fluey virus thing, and at time of writing it still hasn't gone away. Loud noises, bright colours, casual violence and jump shocks, therefore, don't currently feature on my list of favourite things. The film features all of these in abundance; in fact, it features them in a rather greater abundance than might reasonably be expected for a Christmas flick - it eclipses even darker genre examples such as Bad Santa and Death to Smoochy.

Unlike these two films, too, we're never certain as to quite where the heart of Scrooged might lie. Even at his moment of conversion, Frank Cross is still violently, near-rabidly aggressive; true, he's now been touched by the spirit of Christmas, but one gets the impression that all that's happened is that his negative energies have been directed elsewhere. Granted, his girlfriend Claire seems too dopey to notice much of anything at all, but in her position I'd unquestionably still be putting in a call to the local mental health services team before running for the border. With the possible exception of secretary Grace (Alfre Woodard), nobody comes out of this one looking anything other than crass, idiotic or both.

I could probably continue ranting, but what's the point? There's plenty of better films out there, so I'd rather spend my time and attention on them instead.

The verdict

Everything I ever managed to repress about the 1980s - If anybody wants me I'll be sulking over my old favourite double bill of Biggles: Adventures in Time and Innerspace. This should tell you everything about Scrooged that you could possibly need to know.