Last night my wife was in search of a Christmas movie, a quest that invariably leads her to ABC Family’s “25 Days of Christmas” and often leads me to a different part of the house. However, in this case I decided to stick around and see what the television executives had cooked up for the masses on the last Monday before Christmas. What I witnessed last night was a holiday film so terrible that it might actually qualify as a televised hate crime.
The film in question was Santa Baby: Christmas Maybe (also known as Santa Baby 2) and is the much anticipated follow up to 2006’s Santa Baby. For those of you who were fans of the first film, rest assured that this masterpiece is again helmed by Ron Underwood the man who directed such cinematic cornerstones as The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Jenny McCarthy reprises her role as Mary Class (subtle Ronnie, very subtle….) a successful attorney and the daughter of Santa Clause who finds herself taking over from her aging father in order to save Christmas. Hilarity & hijinks ensue as Mary must deal with sabotage and elf union demands (more sprinkles on the cookies.)
As if I even need to sweeten the deal, her love interest is played by Dean McDermott, Tori Speling’s husband and a man who was given 7th billing in the 2001 TV drama Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story. In all fairness, he does manage to bring surprising gravity to a scene where he interrogates a room full of elves with statements like, “Did anyone actually hear Santa Clause say Teri was in charge!?!”
The plot reaches a dramatic crescendo when a rouge elf absconds with Santa’s sleigh (recently equipped with military grade rockets) and has to be chased down by Santa on a snowmobile. The rouge elf then holds Santa’s magical toy bag hostage by utilizing an elaborate pulley system that keeps it suspended over a hole in the arctic ice. In a soul-crushing twist, the elf loses her grip on the rope and the magical toy bag meets with a frigid demise. Fortunately, it is revealed later that the real magical toy bag had been swapped for a decoy that contained only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
It has been a long time since I have viewed a movie so bad that you can actually see the cast and crew coming to terms with the ends of their careers. Even after laying waste to a cherished Judeo-Christian holiday and the possibility of the Dermott / Spelling household filing as “dual income”, the production team at ABC Family is looking toward the future with upcoming projects like Holiday in Handcuffs 2 and The Other Mall.
tsk, tsk ABC
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