There are black comedies and then there is BAD SANTA, a movie so unrelentingly dark and unremittingly foul-minded that the distinction “black comedy” doesn't seem strong enough. It begs its own categorization, something like bleak comedy, where the humor doesn't just poke fun at greed, hatred, and human cruelty, it affirms them as the only reasonable emotions a rational human being can have in this insane world. BAD SANTA is vulgar, heinous, objectionable, and entirely lovable. This movie puts the “ho” in "Ho ho ho!"

Billy Bob Thorton plays Willie, a safecracking scumbag, who runs a yearly Christmas scam with his little person buddy Marcus (Tony Cox). The pair heads to an unsuspecting mall, where they undercut longtime employees by working for peanuts. Willie plays Santa, Marcus is his elf; after closing on Christmas Eve, they break back into the store and rob the safe.

The problem is that each year Willie grows more unreliable and, when we first meet him, he is retching in an alley, puking up another day's meals and another night's booze. When we see him again, he's bitterly fielding children's present requests and openly peeing himself and his Santa suit. Thorton's gleefully misanthropic Santa is certainly the first in cinematic history who expels more bodily fluids than presents from a sack.

Of course, Thorton's performance could be wasted in a movie with a weaker supporting cast or a more timid director. BAD SANTA features unforgettable supporting turns from Cox ("You need many years of therapy"), Bernie Mac as a mall security guard ("I could stick you up my ass, small fry!"), Lauren Graham as a barmaid with what might be called a "Saint Nick-nymphomania ("*$&# me Santa! *$&# me Santa!") and the late John Ritter as the nervous mall manager ("Did one of you fornicate with a heavy-set woman?"). Director Terry Zwigoff also gets a remarkable performance from Brett Kelly, a kid who befriends Santa out of desperation caused by a wretched, lonely home life. Kids in Christmas movies tend to be offensively cute, and Kelly, with a pot belly and goofy orange afro, is refreshingly free of dimples and lisps.

BAD SANTA does have a sweet message and a sort-of happy ending (happy as it can get for a movie whose climax ends in a hail of gunfire). But it doesn't try to redeem Willie and it never forces him to do anything we don't believe he wouldn't do. He gets to keep his hilarious edge even when he does warm up to the kid and his Kringle-kraving girlfriend. It seems backwards, but refusing to make him more likable makes the character more likable. Anyone who can so cheerfully "fornicate" women in public, curse out children with mouthfuls of salad drooling everywhere, and steal cars from VIP parking stands without concern of reprisals is all right in my book.

IF YOU LIKED BAD SANTA, CHECK OUT: THE ICE HARVEST (2005), another bleak Christmas flick starring (or co-starring in this case) Billy Bob Thorton. This one’s closer to film noir than black comedy, but it has some great moments.

THE BAD
GREASE (1978)
Starring John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John
Directed by Randal Kleiser
Rated PG, 110 minutes
Available on VHS & DVD

"Grease is the word/Is the word/Is the word/Have you heard?"

I had not, possibly because I did not want to hear it. This song, written by Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees — and I am not a Bee Gees basher, see my review of SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER for proof of that — is one of the worst in movies. It is inherently moronic; it is the theme song to a film about teenage life in the beboppin' 1950s, yet it is set to a disco beat. And have you looked at the words (at the words, at the words) to this song?

Grease is the word
It's got groove, it's got meaning
Grease is the time, is the place, is the motion
Grease is the way we are feeling

First of all, as far as I can discern, there is only one factual statement in that lyric. Yes, grease is a word. Does it have groove? Not by any dictionary definition, no. Does it have meaning? Yes, but clearly not one that Frankie Valli (who gets to sing this turd-poop of a song) intends. And grease is clearly not a time, a place, or a motion (a motion?!?). When grease is the way I am feeling, I know it's time to see my gastroenterologist again.

GREASE is one of the movies that haunted my childhood, along with the loathsome DIRTY DANCING; one of the movies which Lil' Matt Singer was forced on playdates to endure repeatedly, one of the movies Slightly Larger Matt Singer was forced to listen to for years in high school theater. Desperation for acceptance and affection from teenage girls forced me to feign an appreciation for GREASE for years. Finally I can announce to the heavens that it is most certainly not the one that I want.

I've been revisiting these movies, partially out of my general masochistic need to watch terrible movies, but mostly to confirm my childhood instincts that GREASE was icky. Childhood impressions can certainly be wrong; I used to think G.I. JOE: THE MOVIE was the greatest possible expression of the cinematic form and adult viewings have certainly revised that opinion. Not the case with GREASE.

Much like its theme song, I find GREASE deeply flawed on the most basic levels. Look at the people that are playing these teenagers! Doesn't anyone notice their sagging chins and receding hairlines? One of the T-Birds looks as old as the gym teacher. These fogies make the cast of 90210 look like the cast of ROMPER ROOM. John Travolta was 24 when he played leader greaser Danny Zuko. Olivia Newton-John was 30 when she played the virginal Sandra Olsson (her character's last name was changed from the Broadway version to explain her Australian accent, making the song "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee" a lot less clever). Stockard Channing as Rizzo? 34! She could be playing Rizzo's mother at that age. These "kids" are supposed to be seniors in high school, roughly 17 or 18 years old. The average age of the six top billed "teens" is a whopping 29 years old. I guess they got left back a lot.

Everything is backwards about this movie. Look at the DVD cover! Look at the names over the heads! Travolta's on the LEFT, people!

There are a couple of pleasant songs, but none up to snuff with any of the great movie musicals (or with the best music from the era its portraying), and none of the choreography before the big finale is particularly arresting. I often think Travolta is better than his reputation as an over-actor (he certainly isn't any more hammy than Al Pacino is nowadays, yet when Pacino does it in something like TWO FOR THE MONEY he gets praised for his "intensity"). But he is not up to mustard, at least fancy brown mustard, here. I don't buy the romance between Travolta and Newton-John and I don't care about Kenickie, Sonny, Rizzo or the rest. Plenty of other movies capture this time period more realistically and/or compellingly; AMERICAN GRAFFITI springs to mind first.

Have you heard? GREASE is the word, for a movie I do not like.

INSTEAD OF GREASE, CHECK OUT: STAYING ALIVE (1983), because if I’m going to watch a bad John Travolta movie, I’d like to enjoy myself while I’m doing it. They don’t get any better/worse than STAYING ALIVE.

THE UGLY
POINT OF TERROR (1971)
Starring Peter Carpenter, Dyanne Thorne
Directed by Alex Nicol
Rated R, 88 minutes.
Available on DVD

It's probably not easy to make a good movie. If it was, there would be a lot more good movies. By that logic, it has to be pretty difficult to make a truly awful movie. There are loads of boring mediocrities and cinematic lapses in judgment, but few real embarrassments out there. POINT OF TERROR is so bad it feels like an accomplishment; I find it hard to believe you can make a movie this laughably bad on so many levels by accident.

Peter Carpenter stars as Tony Trelos, a sleazy nightclub singer who holds down a steady gig at The Lobster House. Carpenter also co-wrote the original story POINT OF TERROR is based on and produced the film, so clearly a great deal of his personal viewpoint made their way onto the screen. And those views appear to be restricted to the realm of "I AM AWESOME!"

Despite his lumpy face and thinning hair, Tony is portrayed as an irresistible ladies man who lays one after another of the movie's flaxen haired females (their interchangeable hairdos, quickness to sleep with Tony, and lack of discernible personalities makes them really difficult to tell apart). Carpenter is frequently stripped to the waist, even when he's not performing icky, unerotic sex scenes with co-stars who seem downright nauseated feigning arousal. In one charming scene, Carpenter addresses one lady right as he comes out of the shower, with the camera placed right behind his wet buttocks. What feels like eons go by as the camera unflinchingly records every crevice and nuance of this man's rump. Peter, please, there are children here. And even if there aren't, nobody wants to see that. This movie is as sexy as a public service announcement about syphilis.

If that heinous display isn't the point of terror, I don't know what is, particularly because there isn't anything else remotely terrifying about the picture (it certainly doesn't have a point either). Trelos' singing career isn't going too well, possibly because his repertoire consists of exactly one song, which itself consists of about two versus and one chorus which he repeats over and over again, at least a dozen times, until Tony walks off stage as the song fades out. It's funny, you don't often hear fade outs in live performance. That must be what makes Tony such a rare talent.

Tony's career gets a real kick in the behind, if you'll excuse the pun, when he meets Andrea (Dyanne Thorne) on the beach. She turns out to be the wife of an invalid who also happens to be a record company executive. Andrea vows to help Tony's career provided he sleep with her. That's cool with Tony because he's a slut and he'll sleep with anything that's breathing (and some things that aren’t, if they’re cute and blonde, and in a bikini), so the whole career help is basically just icing on the sex cake.

The remainder of POINT OF TERROR follows Tony and Andrea's rocky relationship, along with his reliably poor behavior around women. It's hard to pick the chap's finest moment: in one scene he shoves his tongue down Andrea's throat mere seconds after she informs him of her poor invalid husband; in another, he tells his pregnant ex-girlfriend to get an abortion because he's in love with another woman.

Though, as you can see, Tony's a class guy, he's not very likable. Neither is Andrea, who uses and kills her husband, and then uses and tries to kill Tony — the only time I liked her was during her wrestling match when she kicked Tony in the groin and it looked like it really hurt. Give him one for me Andrea. Hell, give him three or four for me.

IF YOU LIKED POINT OF TERROR, CHECK OUT: COBRA (1986), which shows that a bigger budget, bigger stars, bigger effects, do nothing to stem the ugliness of narcissism.