In 2021, director Kevin Lewis guided Nicolas Cage through a monstrous variation on Chuck E. Cheese in WILLY’S WONDERLAND. Now he’s back turning a beloved holiday to the dark side with CHRISTMAS AT THE KRINGLES, which he discusses with us here.
Scripted by Zack Imbrogno and now in theaters from Briarcliff Releasing, CHRISTMAS WITH THE KRINGLES stars Ron Livingston and Rachel Bilson as Mark and Julie Severson, new arrivals in a suburban neighborhood where their neighbors, Nick and Carol Kringle (Thomas Lennon and Arden Myrin) celebrate Yuletide year-round. Their house is packed with holiday lights and decorations, and the Kringles are intent on indoctrinating the Seversons into their lifestyle. Soon, Mark needs the help of “Drunk Santa” (Rob Riggle), a rogue Christmas warrior, to rescue Julie and their son Bobby (Jack Jewkes) from the Kringles’ clutches. (See our interview with Riggle and Myrin here.)
You’ve done a few serious scary movies since WILLY’S WONDERLAND, so what led you to get back to a satirical horror film that takes aim at a childhood favorite?
I’d wanted to do something that was in the WILLY’S vein, and I always nicknamed this WILLY’S 2.0. It had the DNA of what I loved about WILLY’S, and I wanted to get back to something like that and deconstruct Christmas [laughs].
What are your personal feelings about Christmas, and what about it did you want to deconstruct with this movie?
I loved Christmas growing up. I remember getting the Kenner STAR WARS action figures, and that was the best Christmas ever. I’ve got kids, and they love Christmas—they’re waiting to bring Elf on the Shelf out—and then there’s my wife watching the Hallmark Christmas movies and having us get pajamas on and schlepping us an hour away to a photographer. Then there’s things like putting the angel on the tree, getting that ladder up and always almost falling and breaking my neck. So there were things that I had to put in this movie, exorcising those Christmas demons, you know?
Was this your original idea, or did the script come to you as a project already written?
It was already written by Zack Imbrogno, and he did a great job, and it came to me. I had it for four years, and I always wanted to make it. I saw that WILLY’S vibe in it, and I wanted to bring that kind of bonkers energy to it.
You have a solid cast, and everyone seems very well-suited to their parts. What was the casting process like?
Fantastic. When I read the script, Ron Livingston was the first guy I wanted for Mark, and when he said yes, that was the best Christmas gift ever. That happened on WILLY’S with Nick [Cage], same thing: I wanted Nick, and he said yes. And then Rob wanting to do the Drunk Santa part, and meeting Rachel on her podcast a year ago, on her Halloween special, and now she’s in the movie, and she’s fantastic. And then, of course, Arden and Thomas and David Wain and Donald Faison—what a great cast.
Lennon has a lot of lines—including the Bin Laden one, which is my favorite—that seem like they might have come out of improvisation. Was there a lot of improv on set?
One hundred percent. The whole plan was, we knew we were going to go with the narrative and the beats, but then it was like, once we did that, we could go off the beaten path a little bit. So, yeah, a ton of improv. Every take was different, and it was hard to cut, because I’d love stuff in another one, and I was like, “OK, what makes me laugh or what’s going to make the audience laugh?” And then I’d get maybe too much into it, and have to go back to the narrative and story. But with that Bin Laden joke, the Captain Phillips line, I just had to have them.
It was interesting because in post, I was like, “I’m not going to die on a hill for a line.” I had to be ruthless in the cut. You know, Stephen King says, “Kill your babies,” but then I get into it and I’m like, “Oh my God, I love this.” And I wish I could use five takes of the same scene, and I can’t; I’ve got to pick the one. But it was so much fun. Every day shooting this movie with these actors, I was just on cloud nine.
CHRISTMAS AT THE KRINGLES is more humorous in the beginning and then becomes more serious in its scares toward the end. How did you approach that tonal transition?
I knew that there was a point in the movie where you’re in the inner sanctum, and that’s when things start changing. And I wanted the camera to be its own character in the movie. So we did those whoosh-swift pans and push-ins and the characters talking to the lens, which added a little more comedic and whimsical tone. But in the second half, it gets a little darker, a little twistier, so I did more locked-off shots where everything’s static in the frame. That changes the vibe of what you’re watching.
The production design is pretty dense. In the opening scene, it feels like a Christmas variation on the house in HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES.
Yeah, Charlie [Lagola] was great. We and Brandon Cox, the DP, always talked about Christmas lights everywhere. We wanted it to be Christmas-fied, Kringle-fied, 24-7. So a couple of weeks before shooting, they and the production department went out and got nutcrackers and all this amazing stuff at an estate sale. The whole goal was trying to fill the frame with as much Christmas tokens and lights and other things as we could, just to make it a busy frame.
When we started down this path, producer Andrew Ortenberg said, “I want to make this a true Christmas movie,” because there are so many Christmas movies that don’t really have that much Christmas stuff in them. And I was like, “Buddy, we’re going to do it. We’re going to make a full-on Christmas movie [laughs].”
Speaking of the producers, I have to ask: This is one of those films that has lots of executive producers. So were there around 20 people throwing in their two cents? How did that process work?
Well, it was great working with the Briarcliff team—Andrew and Tom Ortenberg and Jordan Dykstra. They were the main producers on this movie who shepherded it with me and got it to production. And then with the executive producers, it all went well. You know, there was one line, it was the Gimp line, and the actor was going to do it under their breath, and one of the executive producers was like, “No, he should really say that.” So I was always open to listening to people’s ideas at the end of the day. And everybody got the vibe of this movie from the start; they just wanted it to be fun and enjoy it and have a good time. And I hope it shows on screen.
Are there any past Christmas horror films that are favorites of yours?
Well, BLACK CHRISTMAS is cool, right? That’s a great movie. And Christmas films in general, like CHRISTMAS VACATION. We’ve got Beverly D’Angelo in the movie—
I was going to ask, was that a homage?
Oh, yeah. I love the VACATION movies. The first one is one of my favorite comedies of all time, so having Beverly say yes to Mama K was awesome. You know, I wanted to make a John Hughes movie on crack!
How about some of the more controversial ones, like SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT, etc.?
Oh, I love those. Those are great. But we’ve got kids in this movie, so I couldn’t go TERRIFIER 3 with it. When I talked to the actors, they wanted to know about the tone, and I said this was more like BEETLEJUICE horror. It’s more comic-book horror, not body horror or slasher horror. I just wanted to make it fun, and I feel we did that.
What’s interesting is that there was all the controversy when SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT came out, and even over Phoebe Cates’ Santa Claus monologue in GREMLINS. But more recently, TERRIFIER 3 and the SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT remake haven’t attracted that kind of protest. Do you think people have just become more accepting of Christmas being subverted in horror films?
Yeah, I think we’re desensitized. There’s a lot of stuff that has come out lately that would have really turned heads back in the day. People can still get up in arms with things, but it’s like, you don’t have to watch, you know? I love GREMLINS, and I think it’s fun to take something that people cherish and kind of deconstruct it and turn it on its head and have fun with it. Yet I also feel that our movie still has the magic of Christmas. It’s got that kind of heart that Christmas movies bring.
Was there any thought about releasing it around Christmastime instead of now, at Halloween?
Well, it’s in both genres, right? It’s a horror movie and it’s a Christmas movie, and it’s a comedy. And I think now is a good time. It’s right there with Halloween, and then after Halloween, places like Lowe’s and Home Depot already have the Christmas stuff up. So I feel like it’s a great time to go out with this film.
