The Recasting Couch: Ep. 77 Bad Santa

The Recasting Couch Movie Podcast

This week we recast Bad Santa, which….wasn’t as bad as I was expecting it to be. This foul-mouthed little chucklehead of a movie somehow hit on a lot of right notes, but also missed drastically on others. To be honest, neither of us were looking forward to this. Bad Santa has been done to death, but it’s literally the only contemporary Christmas movie available on the streaming services. We had the same problem last year when we recast The Santa Clause, although that is way better of a Christmas movie than Bad Santa. Even just the name of this movie bugs me. It’s just stating the obvious, and it feels like no real thought or creativity was used in coming up with it, and that’s kind of what the tone of the movie is. It just exists. There aren’t any highs or lows, it just sits in the pocket and is weird and vulgar for 90 minutes.

The movie stars Billy Bob Thornton (as himself), a brilliant performance by Tony Cox, a woefully miscast Lauren Graham (though no fault of hers), and a breakout role for Brett Kelly as The Kid. There’s just something really off putting about this movie, and I guess that was done on purpose? If I had to describe Bad Santa in one word, it would be sticky. Like when you go to pick something up and you can already see all the hair and dirt sticking to it, and you are just disgusted right off the bat. Yet somehow, I ended up enjoying this movie more than I expected to. That might say more about me than it does about the movie, to be honest.

We want to hear what you have to say, because we were pretty split about this movie. Go on twitter and yell at us (@recastingpod). This is the very last call for mailbag questions, so email us at [e-mail] if there’s anything you’ve been dying to hear our take on. Also, be sure to leave us a rating on whatever podcasting service you prefer. Ratings, as well as telling friends about the show is the absolute best way of helping us grow, or perhaps more accurately, infect more listeners.

Link to IMDB

Link to Amazon