Movies

This is supposed to be the season of goodwill, eggnog, and the kind of joy you’re only ever forced to feel in December. But what do we actually get? Sleigh bells drowned out by sirens, cinnamon-scented pandemonium—yes, Virginia, it’s time for movies that crank the holiday insanity to eleven. If Christmas is a circus, why settle for gentle elephants when you could have rabid reindeer? My Christmas list, this year, is for those who like their tinsel twisted: Gremlins, Violent Night, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and, yes, Terrifier 3. Fasten your seatbelt with a candy cane.

Frank Herbert’s “Dune”—the shimmering mirage that has sent both readers and filmmakers staggering deliriously across the cinematic wastelands—is the sort of Everest that seems to breed not triumph but splendid, gasping misadventure. The mythos is so overstuffed, so cryptic and unyielding, that every fresh assault on its slopes promises a new brand of madness: what you get, more often than not, is altitude sickness in Dolby Surround.