With everyone on lockdown right now thanks to COVID-19, we decided to stretch outside our comfort zone a bit and discuss a movie more relevant to current events. Crossing a couple of the obvious ones off the list, we finally landed on George A. Romero's 1973 cult classic THE CRAZIES ! Can our plucky band of survivors escape a town overrun by a deadly virus and also faceless military goons? Can top scientists create a vaccine before the president decides to nuke the entire town? Could there possi...
Mar 17, 2020•1 hr 7 min
Winter has finally arrived in our little pocket of the world, friends, and so on this episode we dive into the Rankin/Bass tale of Jack Frost ! There are many Jack Frosts in the world, and this is the only one that features steampunk horses, climate-induced poverty, and a knight of King Arthur's Round Table who has a summer cottage somewhere on the Eurasian Steppe. This is a very...strange cartoon. So strange, in fact, that Jack Frost clearly wasn't cool enough to carry this thing on his own, so...
Feb 25, 2020•43 min•Season 6Ep. 122
It's February, and by now you've probably accumulated a fair number of Christmas cards that you've either stashed or trashed. And that's what we want to talk about today, with "The Pick", the first of Seinfeld 's two holiday episodes. "The Pick" finds Elaine agonizing over a Christmas card that features some unfortunate nudity, among other subplots that have little-to-nothing at all to do with Christmas. ...Listen, we really just wanted to talk about Seinfeld this week, alright? Also this episod...
Feb 11, 2020•26 min•Season 6Ep. 121
Welcome to season six of Christmas Creeps! Niall Flanagan and Dwayne Moloney, cohosts of the Secret of the Sailor Madness podcast, join us once again to discuss the handmade charms of the Netflix original film Klaus ! The film tells the story of Jesper, a young postal worker sent to the farthest reaches of Scandinavia. With the help of a reclusive toymaker named Klaus, Jesper accidentally gives birth to the Yuletide legend of Santa Claus. The film was even nominated for an Academy Award for Best...
Jan 29, 2020•1 hr 10 min•Season 6Ep. 120
Merry Christmas! It's time once again for our annual "July at Christmas" episode, where we take a break from Christmas to discuss something equally near and dear to our hearts: Obnoxious jingoism! Also video games! Inspired by our discussion of Four Christmases , this year we turn our attention to one of our favorite sports documentaries. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters isn't just a film about competitive Donkey Kong. It examines what drives and obsesses men to lie, cheat and con their w...
Dec 25, 2019•1 hr 4 min•Season 5Ep. 119
Happy December to one and all! This week, we present to you a Stocking Stuffer we recorded back in August. J5 went digging around the Lost Media Wiki and turned up Cranberry Christmas ! Sponsored and produced by the Ocean Spray cranberry juice company, this animated special features songs and narration from the one and only Barry Manilow! To our knowledge it has aired only once, and as this podcast bears out, there is probably a very good reason why. Enjoy! Questions/Comments? Email us at XmasCr...
Dec 17, 2019•47 min•Season 5Ep. 118
Another Thanksgiving has come and gone, and that can only mean one thing... It's time for our third annual Shane Black Friday! Libby Cudmore joins us to help navigate all the bizarre twists and turns of Renny Harlin's 1996 action yarn The Long Kiss Goodnight . National treasure Geena Davis plays a recovering amnesiac who suddenly, violently discovers her former life as a trained assassin, and Samuel L. Jackson plays the low-rent detective helping her get to the bottom of things. There are explos...
Nov 29, 2019•1 hr 2 min•Season 5Ep. 117
This one has been a long time coming. Our celebration of all things Bob Clark—known around these parts as CLARKSGIVING—comes to an end with perhaps the greatest Christmas movie of them all: A CHRISTMAS STORY ! Our friends Booker and Jessie join us for a discussion of one of the true kings of holiday cinema. The adventures of Ralphie Parker and his quest for that elusive Red Ryder BB gun have become an American institution in the form of TV marathons, museums and, yes, a cash-in sequel or three. ...
Nov 19, 2019•1 hr 17 min•Season 5Ep. 116
Happy November, friends! It's time to pack up Home for the Horrordays for another year. But fret not, because we have one last bit of horror goodness up our sleeves. Ten years before A Christmas Story , Bob Clark directed a little horror movie called Black Christmas , which would inspire slasher cinema for decades to come. Halloween , My Bloody Valentine , Scream and countless others owe some sort of debt to Black Christmas . And with a brand new remake on the horizon, we thought it would be fun...
Nov 05, 2019•1 hr 13 min•Season 5Ep. 115
It's everyone's favorite time of year! No, it's not Christmas just yet. It's time to go Home for the HorrorDays! This week, we're revisiting the saga of the Caldwell family with Silent Night Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out ! Somehow, Ricky "Santa Claus Killer" Caldwell survived the last film, and what's he got to show for it? Oh nothing much, just his EXPOSED BRAIN IN A JAR WHERE HIS SKULL USED TO BE. No biggie. This film also features a blind psychic who can sense Ricky's thoughts, and somehow...
Oct 22, 2019•45 min•Season 5Ep. 114
It's finally here! We conclude Vaughn-a-thon this week with Vince Vaughn's other holiday offering: The $100 million comedy spectacle Fred Claus ! What happens when St. Nick's deadbeat brother Fred gets arrested for grifting money away from Salvation Army Santas? Nick bails him out on the condition that he come work for him at the North Pole. And then there are some shenanigans involving Kevin Spacey. Yes, it's all very unpleasant. Anywho, also in this week's episode, Joe breaks out some Fred Cla...
Sep 30, 2019•1 hr 15 min•Season 5Ep. 113
Welcome to Vaughn-a-thon! This month we're highlighting the two holiday features produced by and starring Vince Vaughn. We kick things off with Four Christmases, which we assumed would be the lesser of two evils. We assumed wrong. From the sheer volume of A-list stars with nothing to do, to the film's weirdly antagonistic tone, to the way it forces regressive notions about family upon a couple with more modern sensibilities, Four Christmases is a dire experience all the way around! Also in this ...
Sep 10, 2019•1 hr 30 min•Season 5Ep. 112
Summer is winding down, and since we've been in the superhero mood lately, we thought it would be fun to look at a film from earlier this summer. Shazam! not only takes place around the holidays, but makes particularly good use of it in service of its themes of family and togetherness. It's also a pretty damn fun movie, with a positive streak a mile wide. Why would a studio produce a movie set at Christmas, only to turn around and release it in April? Why would a wizard tell anyone they weren't ...
Aug 27, 2019•1 hr 6 min•Season 5Ep. 111
Happy August, everybody! Have you spotted any signs of Christmas Creep out and about? It'll be here before you know it! Anywho, on this week's show, Joe & Johnny-5 take a look at "Christmas with the Joker", the first of two holiday episodes produced for Batman: The Animated Series ! Batman and Robin's quiet Christmas Eve is interrupted by The Joker, who's kidnapped Commissioner Gordon and set up all sorts of holiday havoc. Where did "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells" come from? What did Batman th...
Aug 06, 2019•40 min•Season 5Ep. 110
Every once in a while you hit a brick wall, and your only options are to give up or to power straight through it. That's the situation we found ourselves in this week, as we finally subjected ourselves to the astoundingly brain-dead children's comedy SANTA WITH MUSCLES . Hulk Hogan basically plays himself as a do-gooder fitness guru who gets conked on the head just hard enough to believe he's Santa Claus while defending a beleaguered orphanage from a wacky mad scientist played by Ed Begley, Jr. ...
Jul 16, 2019•1 hr 4 min•Season 5Ep. 109
It's six months til Christmas, the 4th of July is right around the corner, so what better time to discuss a Jaws movie?! Jaws: The Revenge , to be specific, the movie that IMDb's users have declared the 27th worst movie ever made. It's also the one Jaws movie that actually takes place around the holidays, so like it or not, here we come! Also in this episode, the guys take a stab at writing their own Jaws sequel, Joe and Bradford actually learn something about foreign culture from this movie, an...
Jun 25, 2019•1 hr•Season 5Ep. 107
With a brand new X-Men film currently in theaters, Joe & J-5 take it upon themselves to discuss "Have Yourself a Morlock Little X-Mas," the Christmas episode from season 4 of X-Men: The Animated Series . The Morlocks have lured the X-Men into their lair in the hopes of delivering an X-Mas miracle. Can Jubilee, Wolverine and Storm save a young mutant's life and get back home in time for Gambit's X-Mas dinner? In 22 minutes, you'd better believe it! Also in this episode, Joe waxes on about Dar...
Jun 11, 2019•36 min•Season 5Ep. 106
We're wrapping up Ani-May this week with one of the finest holiday films we've ever featured! Satoshi Kon's 2003 holiday opus Tokyo Godfathers is a fairy tale about redemption, miracle babies, and all the good stuff you would hope a Christmas movie would be about, all wrapped in the guise of a quest narrative that's slightly comedic and slightly melodramatic, but it all works out in the end. Joining us this week are Niall Flanagan and Dwayne Moloney of the Secret of the Sailor Madness podcast. N...
May 29, 2019•1 hr 33 min•Season 5Ep. 105
We're back with another Stocking Stuffer, this week tackling "Christmas at Tiffany's", a Christmas episode from stalwart anime Lupin the Third 's second series. Lupin & Co. spend the holiday in New York City when they're offered the chance to rob the world famous Tiffany's for fun and profit. Will the heist go off without a hitch? Or will the gang find themselves behind bars for Christmas? We break it all down this week! There's holiday heists, there's lightsabers, there's even a cameo from ...
May 14, 2019•36 min•Season 5Ep. 104
Welcome to Ani-May, everybody! Bradford is taking the reins this month and programming the next few episodes. Kicking things off, we're dipping into the Netflix anime series Aggretsuko , and its season-capping holiday special "We Wish You a Metal Christmas". It's a little bit The Office, a little bit Dethklok, and 1000x more adorable than that description might suggest. Will this month's first anime be the one that melts Joe's icy gaijin heart? Or will Bradford's anime goodwill tour have to sold...
May 07, 2019•42 min•Season 5Ep. 103
Join us this week as we discuss the direct-to-video Looney Tunes film Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas . In this shameless rehash of "A Christmas Carol", Daffy Duck is an evil department store owner visited by three spirits to teach him the True Meaning of Christmas! Or at least, that's what the last ten minutes is about. The rest is your usual Looney Tunes shenanigans executed on a shoestring budget. Also in this episode, J-5 remembers the plot of "A Christmas Carol" through cultural osmo...
Apr 30, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Season 5Ep. 102
Can you believe it's been four years and we haven't discussed a single Rankin/Bass special yet? (That live-action remake of The Year Without a Santa Claus doesn't count. It'll never count. Fight me.) Anyway, this week we're diving deeeeeeeep into the Rankin/Bass catalog to discuss the 1981 special The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold ! It's about leprechauns trying to stop a banshee from stealing their gold before Christmas morning. Why leprechauns? Why Christmas? Why anything? Later, we move on to d...
Apr 10, 2019•44 min•Season 5Ep. 101
Happy Redboxing Day, everybody! Last year's holiday hits are finally available to rent, so this week we're digging into one Joe has been looking forward to for quite some time: the Scottish high school zombie musical Anna and the Apocalypse ! The trailers describe it as " Shaun of the Dead meets La La Land " and you would be surprised to find out which half of that equation fares better. Oh, and also there's a bunch of Christmas stuff in the movie too for some reason. Anywho, come join Joe &...
Mar 26, 2019•1 hr 11 min•Season 5Ep. 100
Now, I know what you're thinking. "The Christmas podcast that does swears is gonna do a Bible movie?!?" Let me state right up front that there are absolutely ways to make religious movies with the artistry to back up the message. And then there are ways to make religious movies that exclusively preach to the choir. Guess which category The Star falls into... We spend a lot of time discussing what makes this goofy little donkey film so uninspired. But fair warning: We also spend a lot of that tim...
Mar 12, 2019•1 hr 7 min•Season 5Ep. 99
The office Christmas party is such a cliche at this point that every workplace comedy inevitably has to make that episode. I mean, there's even a whole movie built around the idea. (We reviewed it once; it's terrible.) This week, the guys take a look at the Christmas special from the original UK version of The Office. Is David Brent a sympathetic figure? How easy is it to separate the Brent persona from Ricky Gervais himself? Does this special undermine the tone of the rest of the series? These ...
Feb 19, 2019•1 hr 8 min•Season 5Ep. 98
If you've listened to our show for any length of time, you'll know that we don't plan things like this. The fact that this week's film is eerily similar to the last film we covered is 100% accidental. Anyway, this week we're taking our third trip into the Air Bud Cinematic Universe with Santa Paws 2 , a film whose plot bears a striking resemblance to The Christmas Chronicles , and which fundamentally skews our understanding of Buddies canon, the Winslowverse, and life as we know it. Also it's a ...
Feb 05, 2019•1 hr 9 min•Season 5Ep. 97
AND WE'RE BACK! Join us as we kick off SEASON FIVE of Christmas Creeps with our new January tradition: Netflix originals! Last year we got things started with the drunken sasquatch escapades of Pottersville . This year, we hitch a ride on Santa's sleigh to discuss The Christmas Chronicles, starring Kurt Russell as the world's coolest Santa/stepdad/rockstar/car thief. Also in this episode we get into found footage movies, our favorite cinematic Santas, and how this is the Chris Columbus movie to ...
Jan 22, 2019•1 hr 12 min•Season 5Ep. 96
New Year's Eve is St. Sylvester's Day, which is all the excuse we need to watch another Sylvester Stallone movie here on the podcast! This week, Joe & J5 kick back, enjoy some Christmas Tree flavored crisps, and examine the whole "Is Die Hard a Christmas movie" debate through the lens of Stallone's 1986 action vehicle Cobra . Why Cobra , you ask? Because it just happens to take place around the holidays, and is exactly the movie people are thinking of when they say Die Hard isn't a Christmas...
Dec 31, 2018•1 hr 17 min•Season 4Ep. 95
Merry Christmas, one and all! We finally made it to the big day, and it's time for a break. We celebrate July at Christmas here on Christmas Creeps, and this year we're discussing Team America: World Police ! 2004 was a crazy time, partly because we used to think Trey Parker and Matt Stone's puppet comedy was actually a scathing political satire, and not just an angry screed at celebrities they don't like. Look, it was a simpler time, as horrifying as that is to imagine... Also on this episode, ...
Dec 25, 2018•1 hr 31 min•Season 4Ep. 94
We're back to kick off the holidays in style! This week, we're bringing you a Stocking Stuffer on Johnny-5's favorite TV show: Futurama! Join us as Joe, J5 and Karyn discuss season 2's "Xmas Story" as well as the pronunciation of "Xmas", why a parrot sounds so much like a monkey, and how Santa became an avatar for evil. Questions/Comments? Email us at XmasCreeps@gmail.com Tweet us @ChristmasCreeps Visit us on the web at ChristmasCreeps.com ! Intro : Happy Christmas, You Guys! ( Simon Panrucker )...
Dec 18, 2018•31 min•Season 4Ep. 93
