The Santa Clause Gets An Honest Trailer

The Honest Trailer for The Santa Clause will make you see your favorite kids' holiday movie in an entirely different light. The deeper look at the Tim Allen favorite asks viewers to imagine a film "that asks children to imagine, what if Santa was real, and what if he was a legally binding curse inflicted on whoever stole the pants off Santa's dead body." 

The trailer first brings people back to the Christmas of '90s past, where everyone and their mother pumped out "a half-baked Christmas movie that you think is a classic because you were a kid when it came out and didn't know any better." It then introduces the movie's characters, all of whom, it points out, are jerks. This especially includes Allen's Scott Calvin, who takes over Santa's job with his own "jerk flair." 

"Experience a film all about the magic of Christmas that sucks all the magic out of Christmas," the trailer says. "Where Santa isn't a man but a job title, Santa dies so often that the rules of succession are printed on the business card, and Santa's physique isn't a choice, but a virus that twists the host's body into a Santa-shaped mass from which there is no escape." As the trailer points out, the only belief the movie really instill is the belief that "therapy is for losers."  

The trailer then goes in on the film's version of Santa's Workshop, which has its own "paramilitary squad" in the form of The E.L.F.S., as well as "eternal child brides trained to service Santa's every need," and the "cruel task master" Bernard (David Krumholtz), whose main job seems to be keeping child workers on task and blackmailing new Santas into giving up their lives or ruining Christmas for everyone. "There is no way this place has a union," the trailer says.

"So revisit this '90s throwback that makes everyone's fantasies come true," the trailer concludes. "From kids' fantasies that Santa is real to parents' fantasies that their children will respect them to the studio's fantasies that this movie deserved a trilogy and Tim Allen's fantasy that he wouldn't immediately crack in a police interrogation. Unlike, you know, what actually happened– look it up."