Scrooged

Director - Richard Donner (Superman, The Omen)
Starring - Bill "Fuckin" Murray (Ghostbusters), Karen Allen (Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark), and John Forsythe (The Deadly Tower)
Release Date - 1988
Genre - Comedy
Tagline - "Billy Murray is back amongst ghosts.  Only this time, it's three against one" and "The spirits will move you in odd and hysterical ways"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection)

Rating (out of 5):

     When I was little my grandma and uncle would watch this movie every holiday season.  I hate to admit this, but it scared the shit out of me.  Whenever they would pop this in the VCR I would avoid the living room like the plague.  I never did find the humor in this film like they did, instead I saw scarey zombies and ghosts.  This movie literally terrorized me unlike any horror movie I had ever seen, other than Pet Semetery.  As I got older and took to horror movies I decided to give this movie another chance.  I found it for $3 at Big Lots and had to grab it.  I waited patiently for the holiday season to approach so I could watch it.  After watching this movie I headed off to work and when I got there I wanted to talk about it with someone, however, no one at work had seen it and that kinda pissed me off.  After hearing that I had to come straight home to write about this film just in case there are people reading my blog that have not seen this great film.

     The film follows Frank Cross (Murray), president of a television company.  Cross is a bit of an asshole and does not care who he has to step on to get what he wants, that even means the love of his life.  As Christmas approaches he fires one of his employees and forces his assistant to work late nights.  That is until the re-animated corpse of his former boss arrives in his office to tell him he will be visited by three ghosts.  When cross wakes up he calls his former girlfriend, Claire (Allen), because he has no one else to turn to.  Cross' company is preparing to do a live rendition of A Christmas Carol and Claire arrives on set to check on Cross.  She tells him that whenever he needs to talk again to give her a call at where she works.  Later that day Cross is at dinner with his boss when he starts unraveling.  He leaves and catches a taxi, however, this is not your typical taxi.  The taxi driver is actually the ghost of Christmas past and takes Cross back to 1955, the time that his mother left.  The ghost then transports Cross to three more pivotal times in his life.  The first is his first Christmas with Claire, the second is their first anniversary and Christmas, and the third is when Cross chose his career over her and they split ways.  Soon after this, Cross is visited by the ghost of Christmas present.  She shows Cross what Christmas is like for his brother and his assistant when he is not around.  Cross also finds the corpse of one of the homeless men he met earlier in the film before he is sent back to his office.  Here he is greeted by the man he fired earlier toting a shotgun.  After a game of cat and mouse, Cross is visited by the third and final ghost, the ghost of Christmas future.  Here Cross is shown how his long hours in the office, and forcing his assistant to stay with him, has made her neglect her mute son and because of this he is committed.  He is also shown his death and how no one attended his cremation except his brother.  Cross is then thrown back with the former employee and shotgun.  Cross is so excited to be alive and hugs the shotgun wielding man and offers his job back.  Cross makes him go, with his shotgun, to the room controlling the live feed of A Christmas Carol to make sure they don't stop rolling.  Cross then interrupts the live show and gives a heart felt speach and confesses his love for Claire.

     When I finally watched this after all these years I laughed to the point I thought I was going to throw up.  In fact, it made eating cereal extremely difficult...and messy.  The acting is great, but with the budget and cast did you expect anything less?  The film is filled with memorable characters and each one brings along their own personality and that made this movie funny as hell.  Bobcat Goldthwait's character is hands down my favorite.  Every scene he was in had me laughing my fat ass off.  The special effects are great and I can honestly say that this movie has one of the best damn looking zombies I have ever seen and I like to think of myself as a zombie expert.  The ghosts, the frozen corpse, and Death all look great.  This movie could easily went the horror route.  The story is great even though it is just A Christmas Carol with a twist.  I honestly have no complaints about this movie except it is hard to watch outside of the holiday season.  That is the only reason I can not give it higher than a 4 is because it just doesn't have the same feeling any other time of the year.  I guess you can say it does it's job well at delivering a Christmas movie.  Overall, it is a sad thing when I hear people say that they haven't seen this piece of fried gold.  Please, if your one of these sad fucks that have yet to see it, then please go get it.