THE KNIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS vs. THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS: A review of two baffling and delightful made-for-streaming Christmas movies
It’s December and there’s no dearth of holiday movies to stream. I have streamed exactly two and they were both wild. Let’s get into it.
The first one I watched was The Knight Before Christmas on Netflix. It is about an English knight who time travels from the 14th century to spend Christmas with Vanessa Hudgens in 2019 Ohio (I grew up in Ohio but had different experiences).
Anyway, this movie fucking slaps and makes no sense. The Knight’s name is Sir Cole. He’s pretty hot. He’s also a goober who speaks perfect modern English. He and Vanessa Hudgens have literally no difficulty communicating with each other despite existing centuries apart. She does have to explain Netflix to him, but he catches on pretty fast. At one point they go to a diner and he just knows how to read menus. It’s nuts.
It’s all a hell of a ride. After Sir Cole time travels to 2019, Vanessa Hudgens hits him with her car, feels bad about it, and invites him to live indefinitely at her house. I don’t agree with V-Hudge’s choices here, but it’s not my movie. Fortunately for her, Sir Cole is non-violent and mostly puppy-like in his boundless energy and curiosity about the future. They get along very well and are both extremely hot people—so good for them. From what I remember, the biggest issue in their burgeoning relationship is when Vanessa Hudgens lends Sir Cole her car (c’mon Vanessa) and he drives it onto a sidewalk and leaves it there. Even after this, she still deems him “perfect.” So no big issues there.
I guess the whole conceit of the movie is that Sir Cole needs to time travel to the future to complete his “quest.” I watched the movie and I’m still not sure what the quest was. I am guessing that it was to mack on Vanessa Hudgens. I don’t really know why that needed to be at Christmas time but it was.
Anyway, it all made my heart sing and I would love to watch it again.
Two days later, I watched The Spirit of Christmas on Hulu. This movie blew my fucking mind. It’s about a workaholic lawyer, Kate, with commitment issues. She gets a work assignment to sell a haunted inn before Christmas. She travels to the inn and soon finds out it’s haunted by the ghost of a man who comes alive every December 14-25. That is exactly when Kate needs to sell this mansion. She is fucked.
Also this ghost (who is now alive because it’s Christmas time) is named Daniel and he’s a fucking asshole who is not as hot as Sir Cole. He insists everyone get out of his inn so he can have “his privacy”—which is gross. Can ghosts masturbate? I don’t know and this movie didn’t shed any light on that subject.
Well, Kate is not about to leave Daniel alone in his masturbation mansion because she needs to sell the inn before Christmas. So now they are both staying in the inn and nobody's happy about it. They eventually get over their differences and try to figure out if they can break the curse that makes Daniel come alive at Christmas time. They become closer, and it is heartwarming and weird to watch them fall in love.
I don’t want to spoil anything else about these movies because they should be viewed by anyone and everyone who loves touching and kind Christmas movies that are nowhere near grounded in reality. I probably liked Knight Before Christmas more because it has a better title and a hotter main guy. Spirit of Christmas is still very good and very baffling and deserves attention for that.
In conclusion, I give Knight Before Christmas a 10/10 and Spirit of Christmas a 9/10 because the main guy is an a-hole and has a dumb haircut.
Happy Holidays, y’all!