Tybout encourages alternative Christmas cinema

For ABC Family, Christmas comes early every year — 25 days early, to be exact. For viewers,… For ABC Family, Christmas comes early every year — 25 days early, to be exact. For viewers, however, the holiday cheer wore off ages ago.

Though not as beloved a ritual as, say, decorating the tree or making cookies, ABC Family presents its “25 Days of Christmas” as an integral part of the holiday experience. The network would have you believe missing its hallowed countdown would be akin to forgetting to buy your grandmother a present.

Unfortunately, there are only so many times you can watch “The Santa Clause” before its charm begins to sour. And while ABC’s much-advertised original program — “The Dog Who Saved Christmas Vacation,” starring Paris Hilton — is doubtlessly destined for unprecedented critical acclaim, there are other holiday movies that more effectively employ themes of redemption — albeit without a hilarious talking poodle.

Below I present four alternative films to cap off your Christmas countdown — proof that holiday movies aren’t all feel-good fluff, and assurance that I will never become an executive at a major television network.

“Gremlins” (1984): Joe Dante’s black comedy has all the ingredients of a cult classic: cheeseball characters, an absurd setup — adorable, Furby-esque creatures that morph into malicious demons after being fed past midnight — and most of all, lots and lots of memorable violence. One famous scene involves both a blender and a microwave.

The genius of “Gremlins” is not just that it made Christmas into a gore-fest — that same year, “Silent Night, Deadly Night” ensured that nothing in cinema was sacred — but that it offered an alternative “classic” to which more cynical families could turn come the holidays. “Gremlins,” like “A Christmas Story” or the animated “Grinch,” has near-infinite replay value — for those who can stomach it.

“Millions” (2004): On a cheerier note, Danny Boyle’s (“127 Hours,” “Slumdog Millionaire”) underrated “Millions” is the perfect film to counterbalance visions of gremlins running a man down with a snowplow.

Set in England during the holiday season, the film follows a pure-of-heart young boy and his considerably more jaded older brother in their attempts to rid themselves of an ungodly sum of money found in a sack by the train tracks. The younger boy is obsessed with saints and charity, and conceives adorable means of spreading the cheer; the older brother has a distinctly capitalist mentality. Where the cash ultimately winds up is almost beside the point — the film’s whimsical, episodic storytelling lends itself more to nostalgic revisitation than suspense. In other words, it’s a natural choice for the holidays.

“Brazil” (1985): Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” is not a film to watch with your parents on Christmas Eve. In fact, it’s hardly suitable for any holiday. Nevertheless, I’m including the colorful, anti-totalitarian masterpiece in my list because it takes place during the Christmas season, and because, though perhaps a bit of a downer, it’s the perfect gift for a cinephile. It also, I should note, features a terrifying Santa Claus sequence to put “A Christmas Story” to shame.

“A Christmas Tale” (2008): You know you’re not in for a typical Christmas movie when the first lines include, “My son is dead.” Mortality plagues the family of “A Christmas Tale” like Ebenezer Scrooge’s three spirits. Nevertheless, “A Christmas Tale” — a dialogue-heavy, exceedingly French affair — affords all the warmth of a mainstream holiday film, with none of the artifice.

Centered around a family’s quest to find a bone-marrow donor for their cancer-stricken mother — and the mother’s own struggles with demanding the transplant of her kin — the film deftly unpacks the tensions that have left the Vuillard family in a semi-dysfunctional state since the death of one of its children. Yes, director Arnaud Desplechin could have shaved about an hour and a half from the 152-minute runtime, but bloated as it may be, “A Christmas Tale” is unrivaled in its vivid portrayal of the politics of family.