A Christmas Horror Story
Four-part anthology film hosted by William Shatner as a DJ relating Xmas tales involving the residents of the strange town of Bailey Downs. The last episode involves a fight to the death between Santa Claus and Krampus with a twist ending.
Oh, there are also zombie elves. Foul-mouthed zombie elves.
Rare Exports, 2010 Finnish movie with Santa Claus as an ancient god entombed in a burial mound Rare Exports (2010) - IMDb
Nm, wrong thread.
When The Great Rupert first came out people wondered how they trained the squirrel to act like that. (For those that haven’t seen it, the squirrel in action looked extremely not real.)
When it comes to “unconventional,” I think this one qualifies:
When King Kong came out in 1933, women were reportedly fainting in the aisles because of the “realistic” photography.
I spotted It Happened on 5th Avenue on TCM. My wife liked it so now it’s on our Christmas movie list and sometimes we even watch the movies on the list.
Holiday Affair starring Robert Mitchum, Janet Leigh, Wendell Corey and child actor Gordon Gebert is not very well known. Probably not underrated by much though. It’s also on our Christmas movie list because we know Gordon.
Those are two great ones! I happened to come across Arthur Christmas one day quite a while ago. It was really cute and funny. The character Grandsanta is a riot!
The DVD of which includes Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and the original Rare Exports short as bonus features.
Bo & Luke Duke change their names and have become truckers ( 
):
Die Hard
One I’ve recommended before is A Midnight Clear. Not a feel-good film. It’s about a squad of soldiers in WWII who encounter a German squad. Ethan Hawke, Kevin Dillon, Gary Sinise, John C. McGinley. An excellent cast and a good story.
Another that gets little attention is the 1982 version of A Child’s Christmas in Wales, starring Denholm Elliott. A charming retelling of the Dylan Thomas story.
And lastly, there is Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory. NOT the Patty Duke remake, but the original Studio 57 production starring Geraldine Page that won an Emmy. Almost impossible to find for purchase (other than in a grainy B&W knockoff), but you can see it on YouTube in the original color. Narrated by Capote.
Based on fact.
Actually, it was based on the novel of the same name by William Wharton. No idea what he based his novel on, but it would seem that a link to the WWI event is tenuous at best.
JT (1969) This was shown for years, but is largely forgotten.
Trivia note: The writer, Jane Wagner, has been Lily Tomlin’s partner/wife for many years.
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus based on the book by L Frank Baum.
I was going to add The Bishop’s Wife – terentii beat me to it. Years ago it was shown every year during the Christmas season. It was remade some years ago as The Preacher’s Wife, starring Denzel Washington; I haven’t seen the remake, but I’ll try to catch the Cary Grant version this year.
I had totally forgotten Bell, Book and Candle was a Christmas movie. Another one to try to catch this year.
A TV movie (of sorts) that was shown on PBS every year when I was a child was Amahl and the Night Visitors. My mother loved it and insisted we all watch it.