Here’s the bad joke of Hollywood Christmas movies. They tend to begin, and end, with a blast of old-school Yuletide cheer. But that’s just a tease. In between, most of them make a point of straying about as far from the Christmas spirit as possible. Instead, they swap in the new American spirit: vulgar, violent, full of fake fun, celebrating their own crassness. To trace the genesis of the anti-Christmas Christmas movie (“Jingle All the Way,” “Violent Night”), you would probably have to go back to a couple of movies that are thought of as classics (though not by me): “A Christmas Story” and “Home Alone,” both of them glasses of eggnog spiked with misanthropy.

That said, I’m not sure that a Hollywood movie has ever kicked off the season with less true Christmas spirit than “Red One.” Sure, J.K. Simmons plays Santa Claus (who gets abducted), and Simmons is winning in his crinkly old wise innocence. Dwayne Johnson, as Santa’s bodyguard (who wants to retire because he’s having a crisis of faith), is his outsize amiable self. The odd thing about the movie is that while it’s a little bit tongue-in-cheek, it’s not really a comedy. Directed with charmless energy by Jake Kasdan, “Red One” is at once an action movie; a kidnap-rescue thriller in which the doors to supply closets in toy stores are mystic portals; and an exercise in Christmas world-building, as if that’s the thing that’s been missing from Christmas.

At the beginning, Simmons’ Santa is seated on his throne, greeting a line of children in a shopping mall, a location he finds to be the most soulful place on earth (which shows you how far we’ve come from “Jingle All the Way” — even Santa now digs the capitalism of it all!). The hot toy of the season, the one kids keep asking him for, is a video game called Vampire Assassin 4. We’re supposed to chuckle at how un-Christmas-sounding that is. But “Red One” could almost be the movie version of Vampire Assassin 4. It’s that busy and bumptious, that overstuffed with cheesy digital effects, that generically derivative a piece of violent kitsch.

The film’s first not-quite-trying-to-be-funny “joke” is that Santa Claus’s whole enterprise is run like a U.S. military operation. Santa’s code name is Red One. Johnson’s Cal works for ELF ­— which stands for Enforcement Logistical Fortification, and means that Cal darts around like a secret-service agent, barking orders into his wrist walkie-talkie. CF drones, Sno-Cats, a cargo plane: the film is light on tinsel but heavy on equipment. And the dialogue is tech-bombastic enough to sound like something out of a Dan Aykroyd comedy from 1986.

It is also — of course — a buddy movie. No, not Santa and his bodyguard. (Once Santa is kidnapped, which happens early on, he’s mostly out of the picture.) The buddies here, who start off hating each other, are Cal, who’s been tasked with hunting down Santa’s whereabouts, and Jack (Chris Evans), a degenerate sports gambler and derelict divorced dad who is also some sort of super-hacker. Disreputable powers from all over the globe hire him, through encrypted communications, to uncover the hidden location of people and things, which he does with effortless dash.

It was Jack’s handiwork that revealed Santa’s precise location in the North Pole (under a dome, it’s sort of like the Christmas-store version of the Pentagon). And that’s what allowed Santa to be kidnapped by Grýla, an ancient witch played by the always-welcome Kiernan Shipka, who ever since “Mad Men” I’ve thought (and still think) is going to be a major star — and this movie, in its blunderbuss way, shows why. Grýla is a standard nuance-free glowering nemesis, like something out of a “National Treasure” sequel. Yet the way Shipka plays her, there’s a tingle to her anger. Her evil dream? To punish everyone on Santa’s naughty list.

We meet Santa’s reindeer, who are interchangeable oversize digital creations, referred to as “girls.” Why would the reindeer be so tall? And why would they all be female? This is the sort of “whatever” conceit that dots “Red One.” Cal and Jack start off in Aruba, just because. On the beach, Cal, amusingly, changes size during a fight, and the two have to fend off an attack by ferocious snowmen. But that’s just one pit stop. They wind up in Germany in a medieval “Star Wars” cantina trying to save themselves from Santa’s estranged brother, the giant goat-man troll Krampus (Kristofer Hivju), at which point you’re either onboard or (in my case) starting to check your watch.

The villains are shape-shifters, but the key thing about “Red One” is that the whole movie is a shape-shifter: arduous action jape, low-kitsch Christmas fairy tale, buddy movie, family-reconciliation movie — every quadrant and demo must be served. At the movies, Christmas isn’t a holiday anymore, it’s a concept to be retro-fitted. Do you hear those sleigh bells jingling? Come on, it’s lovely weather for an over-the-top-of-the-North-Pole, through-the-supply-closet-portal, cargo-plane ride together with you.

The kindest thing that can be said about Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 is that it’s unpredictable. There is little in it to prepare you for a climactic twist which is, in equal measure, audacious and ridiculous. While well-intentioned, it’s staged so clumsily that it fails to evoke the required empathy. But I will say — I did not see it coming.

Otherwise, we are back in familiar territory. The Bhool Bhulaiyaa franchise started with the classic 1993 Malayalam film Manichitrathazhu, which was remade in Hindi in 2007. Both versions delivered a skillful cocktail of laughs and scares without true paranormal activity. In each, the real culprit causing the leading lady to turn into Manjulika, the unhinged spirit of a royal dancer, was eventually identified as dissociative identity disorder.

But when director Anees Bazmee took over the reins with the 2022 reboot, the horror became real. Black magic, spirits, jump scares, ominous backgrounds and, of course, Shreya Ghoshal’s magical rendition of the song “Ami Je Tomar” were all part of the mix, as well as a cheerful lowbrow humor. My favorite bit was Rajpal Yadav’s Chhote Pandit and Sanjay Mishra’s Bade Pandit mistaking Manjulika for the latter’s wife, Panditayeen, and asking her to make daal (lentils), only to get slapped hard by the ghost.

In the third installment, Bazmee retains the tropes of the first two Hindi films: a sprawling palatial mansion in which one room has been locked for years because it’s believed that a specter resides there; a royal family hiding secrets; the mysterious dancing Manjulika. The popular title track returns, along with “Ami Je Tomar.” And, of course, there are the atmospherics — long empty corridors, darkened skies, spooky sounds and enough CG crows to populate a sequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. 

Once again, Kartik Aaryan plays Ruhaan (a.k.a. Rooh Baba), a fraudulent ghostbuster who makes money by exploiting people’s fear of the supernatural. He is summoned to a castle somewhere in West Bengal where, oddly, the locals seem to recognize him. And there begins a tale that includes punar janam (reincarnation); a poor raja desperate to sell his palace; several characters speaking in terrible Bengali accents; sibling rivalry; and the oversized shadow of Manjulika, no longer pining for her murdered lover.   

Among the picture’s highlights is the return of Vidya Balan, whose terrific performance as Avni, an archaeologist who believes that she is Manjulika, was key to the success of the 2007 movie. Her dance, with disheveled hair, frantic eyes and red vermillion spread across her forehead, was truly chilling. This time she plays Mallika, a restoration expert who may or may not be Manjulika, and her performance is pitched to match the overall hamminess of the film.

In fact, Bazmee has not one but two trump cards here. Madhuri Dixit also enters the franchise as Mandira, a potential buyer for the mansion who is clearly hiding something. At one point, Balan and Dixit have a face-off in which they are ready to strangle each other. At another, they have a dance-off in the palace. The clash of two of Hindi cinema’s finest actors should be riveting.

But the screenplay, written by Aakash Kaushik, is so disjointed that it’s difficult for characters to make an impact. Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 does not follow any internal logic, playing as a slapdash assortment of jokes, scares, exposition, songs and set pieces strung together in the hope that it will add up to a coherent and compelling narrative. Mandira and Mallika trade barbs or giggle together maniacally, seemingly at random, or it’s all revealed to be a dream. Dixit is billed as a special appearance, which perhaps explains why the part is so underwritten that I started focusing on her expansive collection of saris and the size of her jewelry — Mandira loves dressing up.

I also wondered what the late Saroj Khan might have done with an opportunity like the dance duel. While Dixit and Balan are superb in the Chinni Prakash-choreographed sequence, there’s little about it as memorable as the dance-off between Dixit and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in Devdas.

Mostly, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 lurches along. Two romantic songs are bunged in, perhaps to give Triptii Dimri something to do; otherwise, she is mostly tasked with looking lovely. Vijay Raaz and Rajesh Sharma, both actors with solid comic chops, are relegated to the ornate background — though I did smile when Raaz, as the poor raja, says he’s willing to take on the ghost in the palace but not live another day in poverty.  

Aaryan is front and center, and he does it all: being charming and funny, romancing and dancing, defeating the spooks. I like that the actor is willing to poke holes in the trend of hyper-masculine Bollywood heroes. Ruhaan scares easily and, just like in the second film, when things get too daunting, he tries to run away. But the copious energy he invests is sabotaged by the flat writing. The jokes just aren’t funny enough — though there is one killer line about Shehzada, which was one of Aaryan’s major flops — and the scares aren’t terrifying enough.

Perhaps it’s time to give Manjulika a rest. After all, there’s only so far you can take a vengeful ghost and two terrific songs.

An incredible roller coaster of a film, I can easily imagine Bill Hader’s Stefon character from Saturday Night Live describing Emilia Pérez: “It’s got drug kingpins, drag queens, courtroom drama, characters returning from the dead, a Bonnie and Clyde–level kidnapping, but it’s also a family drama, a story of female empowerment, an exploration of family dynamics, of violence and redemption. Oh, and did I also mention it’s mostly in Spanish and it’s also a musical adjacent piece of spoken-word poetry with some strong operatic vibes!”

I kid you not.

In other words, Emilia Pérez is fabulously unlike any film you’ve ever seen. It’s a LOT. And it’s definitely not for everybody. But for me, it’s one of the most compelling, refreshing, and original pieces of cinema I’ve seen.

At a Santa Barbara International Film Festival Cinema Society screening on October 26, French Writer/Director Jacques Audiard — yes, he’s French and the film is in Spanish because, as he explained, the story demanded it — the original idea for the film came from a book called Écoute [Listen], with a character who is a drug kingpin who wants to transition to become a woman. But the development of the character into one of three key women in the film — played by Karla Sofía Gascón (Manitas Del Monte and Emilia Pérez), Zoe Saldaña (Rita Mora Castro, Manitas’s lawyer), and Selena Gomez (Jessi Del Monte, Manitas’s wife) — ultimately evolved into the creation of a telenovela-style fantasy version of Mexico with an over-the-top dose of operatic drama to contrast with the intimate emotions the three main characters experience. The stars collectively (with co-star Adriana Paz, who has a pivotal but much smaller role) and deservedly won Best Actress at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

The deceptively campy style of the plot doesn’t diminish the seriousness of what these women go through, but the film definitely walks a tightrope in terms of tone, which is what makes their performances so impressive.

Without giving too much of this delicious and outrageous fever dream away, let me say that through song, dance and bold visuals, Emilia Pérez tells the story of some remarkable women trying to pursue happiness in their own ways, in some pretty wild circumstances. And Emilia Pérez is absolutely one of the most original pieces of film you’ll see this year. Don’t miss it.

Zoe Saldaña, who will be honored at SBIFF with the American Riviera Award on February 7, gives a particularly fabulous performance as the most grounded character in the film. I’m looking forward to hearing what she has to say about working on this groundbreaking film, currently playing at the Riviera Theatre and coming to Netflix on November 13. View the trailer here and see the SBIFF interview with writer/director Jacques Audiard and composers Camille and Clément Ducol here.