On Friday nights, IndieWire After Darkish takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema within the streaming age.
For December 2024, we’re celebrating the tip of the yr with a stocking stuffed with Unusual Vacation TV Specials and Seasonal Midnight Films.
First, learn the BAIT: a extraordinary choose from any time in movie or TV. Then, attempt the BITE: a breakdown of the film or episode’s ending, impression, and another spoilers you’d need.
The Bait: A Seasonal Celebration with a Midnight TV Miracle
Think about it’s Christmas time, two million years sooner or later.
Mr. Sludgy (a speaking, semi-robotic snowman) has you and several other different bug-eyed kids cuddled up in entrance of a roaring hearth. Nestled into his armchair, he’s able to let you know — and the human youngsters watching at dwelling! — the story of “The Most Horrible X-Mas Ever.” It’s a petrifying story of fascist alien invaders and violently jolly demi-gods… which little doubt baffled actual dad and mom when it aired on Nickelodeon in December 2002.
TV specials don’t all the time qualify as midnight motion pictures, however the holidays could make the small display screen extra tempting to style followers. If you mix legends of the North Pole with the storytelling guidelines of one other universe, you’ve successfully compelled a crossover occasion. Even when that’s carried out with child viewers in thoughts, the outcomes are likely to skew extra mature and favor these with a powerful style for fringe. In that manner, “Worst X-Mas Ever” is a wild misnomer.
Created by Jhonen Vasquez, “Invader Zim” was all the time one thing of a tonal miracle in kids’s leisure. Too grownup for even the darkest corners of Cartoon Community, however not fairly the unbridled chaos then taking place at Grownup Swim, this gone-too-soon gem was in the midst of manufacturing on a second season at Nickelodeon earlier than it acquired unplugged.
A weird Christmas particular — involving a basic Zim scheme and a malfunctioning Santa swimsuit — abruptly turned the final episode of the present to premiere on TV. A number of unreleased Season 2 episodes arrived in a while DVD (and there was that Netflix revival in 2019!), however the ridiculous stinger to this wintery chapter was the cult favourite’s solely coda for a few years.
Vacation specials normally counsel longevity, however “The Most Horrible X-Mas Ever” feels so oddly becoming as a Season 1/collection finale hybrid that you simply virtually couldn’t plan it higher. Nothing significantly objectionable occurs within the episode (definitely not when in comparison with, say, the organ harvesting installment), however the surreal and cynical festivities are emblematic of what made “Invader Zim” so great it appears virtually doomed looking back.
Struggling to know human tradition as all the time, Zim can’t determine find out how to become profitable in the course of the holidays. A legion of Santa performers amassing donations offers the pint-sized alien the intense concept to change into the person in crimson. And shortly — following within the cinematic footsteps of giants like Jack Skellington, The Grinch, and Artwork the Clown (yikes!) — Zim disguises himself in an artificially clever costume and steals Christmas.
He’s acquired Gir (his mint-green robotic/faux canine/sidekick/fan favourite) dressed as an additional cuddly elf by his aspect. And for some time, all appears nicely. Then, per “Invader Zim” custom, our hapless anti-hero takes issues manner too far and all types of candy-coated hell breaks free.
On this universe, humanity worships Santa as if he as an omnipotent interplanetary dictator. A handful of traces even counsel that he’s near an precise Christ determine (which, within the spirit of finales, what a excessive notice to finish on!). After Zim broadcasts his arrival because the “actual” Santa, the globe exalts him as their cherry-nosed savior and deal with his go to like a Second Coming.
Only some residents query so-called Zim “Santa” (Zanta?!) when he informs them that he’ll be taking on the planet… and, after a number of pointless steps involving not one however two teleporters, killing each human on Earth. Sudden technical difficulties with Zim’s swimsuit ought to be spectacle sufficient, however the arrival of his archnemeses Dib and Dib’s sister Gaz push the more and more robot-heavy motion saga into full-on midnight territory.
Animation students have picked aside this present’s historical past as a novel case examine from an evolving time in youngsters’ leisure. Positive, the reported rigidity between “Invader Zim” creatives and Nickelodeon execs retains the present attention-grabbing in that countercultural curiosity sense. However watching this timeless episode, you get the impression that it actually hangs on due to its near-magical instinct and scene-by-scene adaptability.
Watching a talented entertainer reconcile opposing parts launched into their story’s actuality by vacation lore might be splendidly rewarding. (Is Santa actual within the “Bob’s Burgers” universe? How would Pee-Wee Herman carry Christmas to the “Playhouse”?) Good outcomes push boundaries throughout the tales we already know, however the very best outcomes do this whereas reinforcing what makes these characters so nice that they deserve to satisfy Santa.
Co-written by Vasquez and Eric Truehart, “The Most Horrible X-Mas Ever” is a powerful collection’ entry level, an inexpensive sufficient finale when it needed to be, and worthy of an annual rewatch. It takes a particular form of zipper-teethed alien to make dialogue this goofy present flecks of real menace — a problem made even more durable when stated alien is sticking his face out from inside a much bigger, squishier Santa face! And but, Zim saying “TO THE JINGLE JAIL WITH THE NONBELIEVER!” hits virtually as onerous as this episode’s unique Christmas carol.
Should you’re not singing it alongside but, you may be in a half hour. Now, “Bow down, bow down earlier than the ability of Santa… or be crushed, be crushed by his jolly boots of doom.”
“Invader Zim” is now streaming on Paramount+.
The Chunk: … And to All a Very Merry Easter Platypus!
Revisiting any media you adored in childhood might be an emotional minefield, however I hardly ever meet a fellow “Invader Zim” child who doesn’t appear earnestly excited every time this present comes up. That’s one thing you possibly can attribute partly to how nicely it has aged: an inspiring testomony to inventive imaginative and prescient and present that know what they’re regardless of the season.
Acutely self-aware however however unapologetic, Vasquez steers his surreal and cynical midnight treasure simply to the purpose of mainstream acceptability right here. The episode leaves Season 1’s dramatic rigidity if not unscathed, not less than with the fantastic warfare wound that’s the wild finish to Zim’s “X-Mas” affair. Between the Easter Platypus (an iconic anti-capitalist center finger!) and the Darth Santa doomsday wraparound (wait, Mr. Sludgy the snowman lives in a protecting dome… like a snow globe?!), the script is packed entrance to finish with intelligent written surprises. That’s supported by visual-only narrative arcs and gags, clearly delivered to life alongside the storyboarding course of, that gift-wrap extra causes to revisit.
Did you see that elementary college trainer get so enthusiastic about Christmas her coronary heart actually exploded? And will you inform that Professor Membrane had the identical voice (“I’ve by no means trusted that jolly fats man!”) at the same time as a 4-year-old obsessive about Uranium 238? Additionally, are you aware how or why the nation ever ended up considering an escaped zoo animal was Santa? Or if that one man who was so upset when he came upon it wasn’t is… OK?
You’d miss many of those puzzling moments as a child, however when appreciated as an grownup, the complexity offers away an admirably intense vibe of defiance from this inventive crew. Refusing to get boxed in — even on the holidays — “Invader Zim” is proof that regardless of the supposed age group, some tales must be naughty in addition to good.
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