Scottish Film Events: December 2022
It's Christmas time, there's no need to be afraid, apart from at Cameo's Holiday Horror-a-thon. Plus basically all of your Christmas favourites get a showing in Scottish cinemas this December, from It's a Wonderful Life to Eyes Wide Shut
I hope you like Christmas films, because there’s not much else to feast your eyes on this month. All the old favourites are being dusted off but there are also a few little-seen Christmas movies among the stalwarts.
Glasgow Film Theatre go heavy on the classics. You know the ones: there’s a pair of heart-soaring cry-fests featuring angels – It's A Wonderful Life (9-24 Dec) and The Bishop's Wife (16-24 Dec) – the glorious musical Meet Me in St. Louis (16-21 Dec) and The Muppet Christmas Carol (18-23 Dec), a film whose brilliance isn’t compromised by this new release adding extra whimsy in the form of the previously cut ballad When Love is Gone.
There are some more leftfield Xmas choices among these classics though, like Batman Returns (17-21) and Die Hard (16 Dec), and we’re chuffed to see recent Skinny faves like Tangerine (22 Dec) Carol (13&15 Dec) and Little Women (23-27 Dec) now firmly part of GFT’s Christmas canon. And if you like your Christmas movies on the dreamy side, there are two corkers in GFT’s lineup: Ingmar Bergman’s epic Fanny and Alexander (18-21 Dec) and the nightmarish Eyes Wide Shut (16-18 Dec) by Stanley Kubrick.
Little Women
Dundee Contemporary Arts have the first two Home Alone films (17 Dec) – if you hadn’t realised they were carbon copies of one another, it should be pretty obvious in this double-bill format. The ubiquitous Die Hard (17-18 Dec), The Bishop's Wife (19-20 Dec), It's a Wonderful Life (18-24 Dec), and The Muppet Christmas Carol (22-24 Dec) are also on the menu.
Queen’s Park in Glasgow are putting on some Christmas films too, but fear not, they aren't asking you to watch movies alfresco in December. They're taking to the Briggait with family faves like Elf (16 Dec), The Grinch (17 Dec) and The Nightmare Before Christmas (18 Dec). Best of all, these screenings are free.
Cameo in Edinburgh has a fun and slightly more eclectic selection that features Edward Scissorhands (12 Dec) and Gremlins (19 Dec), with Phantom Thread (31 Dec) thrown in as a Hogmanay treat for good measure. And if it’s a properly dark Christmas you’re after, Cameo have you covered with their Holiday Horror-a-thon (10 Dec), featuring a trio of 80s films in which psychotic Santas run amok: Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), Christmas Evil (1980) and Deadly Games (1989).