There's a weird thing that happens when you transition into adulthood. The
can still be fun to revisit, but every now and then you realize that a
lot of
. This happens with all sorts of films, but strangely enough, the things that we find unsettling now often didn't bother us at all when we were children.
The reverse is also true, as there are definitely some things that will have creeped you out when you were 6 that seem ridiculous now. I remember the live-action Inspector Gadget movie scaring me so much I had to hide behind a pillow, whereas in retrospect it's a slapstick movie without much threat or many scary scenes. Either way, a villain with a claw for a hand or a man with a helicopter in his head was far too much for my brain to handle back then.
So when it comes time to revisit your favorite Christmas classics, it can be an uneven affair. Films like It's A Wonderful Life, Gremlins, and
(yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie) are always going to go down well, but some movies can take a darker turn when you view them as an adult.
One Twitter user asked the question "what is the most stone-cold brutal, horrific Christmas film ever made?" before offering her own answer: The Santa Clause.
You may remember this movie as the one in which Tim Allen accidentally kills Santa, then has to take over his duties to save Christmas, but things apparently get even darker than that premise suggests, according to this fan theory.
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Hannah starts off recapping the immediate horror of Santa falling off the roof, dying on screen, and then Scott becoming the new Santa after wearing the outfit. But the weirdest thing is how the North Pole reacts once they learn what has happened.
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Hanna goes on to explain that in the first movie, the elf Judy says she has spent 1200 years perfecting her cocoa recipe. In the movie's sequel, The Santa Clause 2, she's nowhere to be seen and replaced with another cocoa-maker, never to be mentioned again.
Bernard, a huge part of the first two movies (yes there is a whole trilogy), disappears in The Santa Clause 3, with Curtis now taking on the role of the head elf, with no mention of the disappearance. But there's an even creepier level to this that she digs into...
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Hannah points out that when Santa dies at the beginning of the first film, only a few hours pass before Scott gets to the North Pole, where there is no sign of the previous Mrs. Claus.
And in the third film, we are introduced to 'the Hall of Snow Globes', which holds one globe for each previous Santa. There are 50-60 globes in there, meaning that up to 60 wives who are unaccounted for. On top of this, the third film shows that these Santas can have children, meaning there are likely some children missing too. So where are they?
Hannah has a (horrific) idea:
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There we go - if there's a creepier fan theory about a Christmas film out there, I'd like to hear it. Even if it might ruin some beloved festive entertainment for me.
