Dark Christmas film theories from dead Cameron Diaz to psychopath Buddy the Elf

Christmas films are one of the best parts of the season, and we often watch the same classics every year – Home Alone, It’s a Wonderful Life, Elf and many more.

But watching the classics over and over again has resulted in some people over-thinking the plots, imagining dark and ghostly back-stories to characters and bleak themes about death and loss.

Or maybe they are actually correct and the rest of us just completely missed the horrifying message the Christmas film’s directors were trying to tell us.

Either way, let’s look at some of the wildest and most convincing fan theories regarding Christmas movies.

Howard Langston is mentally ill in Jingle All The Way

Get the news you want straight to your inbox. Sign up for a Mirror newsletter here .

In Jingle All The Way, Howard Langston (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is desperate to find the Turbo-Man, which has been deemed the toy of the year, for his son’s Christmas present.

A Reddit user theorised that Howard gets so stressed, he ends up having a nervous breakdown and starts hallucinating.

One of his visions is Myron Larabee (played by Sinbad) who doesn’t actually exist in real life.

“Myron also hardly interacts with the outside world. He’s clearly a figment of Howard’s increasingly disturbed imagination,” they wrote.

“Indeed, in the final scene Schwarzenegger only THINKS he’s blasting around on a jetpack: in reality he’s actually the one chasing after his own son Jamie for the Turboman toy.

“Why Rita Wilson’s character is okay with this unhinged behaviour at the end though is beyond me…”

Elf is a religious allegory/ Buddy is a psychopath

A very popular theory about Will Ferrell’s Buddy the Elf is that he is not as innocent as he proclaims to be.

He creeps up on Jovie in the shower while she’s singing, when she’s understandably freaked out he claims he didn’t know she was naked in there.

But earlier on in the film, he can be seen showering naked, so he obviously knows it’s a thing.

The theory goes on to point out Buddy “brutally injures multiple children on their way home from school” in the snowball fight.

He “uses his obsession with syrup to get horribly s**t-faced on the job”, and “uses his so-called innocence to verbally abuse a man,” they add, referring to his altercation with Peter Dinklage’s character, Miles.

Another theory about the film is that it’s meant to be an allegory for loss of faith.

Four ‘horsemen’ appear at the start of the film, and Buddy passes through ‘seven levels’ of the Candy Cane Forest.

This might be a hint that he is now in heaven having broken through the ‘seven seals’ as written in the bible.

As Buddy loses his faith in Christmas, Santa’s sleigh falls to the earth.

A Reddit user says as Christmas’s biggest believer, Buddy finally ditching his beliefs could represent the last human losing faith in god.

“When you think about it further, after Santa’s sleigh plummeted to the ground, The Four Central Park Rangers (The Four Horsemen) appear out of nowhere and chase Santa in a rage,” they wrote.

“It takes a while, but – with the help of Buddy’s love – belief in Santa (the Spirit of Christmas) is restored once again, thus saving Christmas (and, quite possibly, saving Earth from the Apocalypse).

“Why, yes, I DO like to overthink things…” they added.

Mary’s wish in It’s a Wonderful Life dooms George

In 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life, Mary and George both make a wish at the start of the film.

George says his wish is to explore the world and build things – but as he says it out loud, it likely won’t count.

Mary refuses to say her wish out loud, but it’s implied it’s something to do with George, and we learn throughout the plot that she is keen for him to stay in Bedford Falls and marry her.

As the film continues, Mary’s wish might actually be coming true but in the most inconvenient ways possible.

George’s father dies, which means he must stay to get his affairs in order, then he gets a good job offer, then he cannot enlist in the army, and then there’s a stock market crash – all of which keeps him back home with Mary.

Could this mean her wish was actually coming true, but in a way that leaves George totally doomed?

Home Alone’s Kevin McAllister is Jigsaw

Some fans on Reddit are convinced Home Alone is Jigsaw’s villain origin story, and Kevin McAllister grows up to be the cruel murderer.

In 1990’s Home Alone, Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) accidentally abandoned by his family when they go on holiday and, left by himself in the house, he is forced to devise ways to fend off lurking burglars.

Meanwhile, in 2004 film Saw, Jigsaw is diagnosed with terminal cancer and decides to kidnap and trap people in sick games which often result in their grisly demise.

Kevin is proven to enjoy inflicting pain on the burglars, laughing while they writhe in agony – and Jigsaw also loves torturing people.

The traps Kevin sets out are based on moments from his childhood and carefully planned, while Jigsaw’s puzzles are also based on specific ills he believes his victims have committed.

Kevin is terrified of the furnace in Home Alone, and imagines it coming to life – and this might have inspired Jigsaw’s plot to burn someone alive in Saw II.

Jigsaw communicates with his victims via a screen in the room they are trapped in, while Kevin uses recordings of a gangster film to scare off intruders.

Kevin records his uncle in the shower in Home Alone 2, while Jigsaw watches a live feed of his victims while they suffer.

And Kevin develops an obsession with his next-door neighbour Marley, who is rumoured to a serial killer known as the South Bend Shovel Slayer.

However, Jigsaw’s real name is revealed to be John Kramer – though Kevin could have changed his name.

Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz are dead in The Holiday

We all love watching romcom The Holiday, starring Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Cameron Diaz, at this time of year.

However one fan of the film, which came out 15 years ago, has shared an incredibly chilling take on the Christmas flick that might completely change how you see it.

A writer named Dana Schwartz wrote on EW.com that perhaps Amanda and Iris are dead, or in a limbo between life and death.

Iris is completely heartbroken at the start when she learns her colleague Jasper (Rufus Sewell) is marrying another woman, and so briefly turns on her gas stove and breathes in the fumes – before her computer pings and she snaps out of it, asking ‘What am I doing?’ and opening the window for fresh air.

Meanwhile, Amanda is breaking up with her boyfriend in LA at the same time, and notes she is struggling to breathe.

Dana suggested that as both women are teetering on the edge of death seconds before they decide to swap lives – maybe they did indeed die, and the rest of the film takes place in the afterlife, with the characters given another chance to realise their full potential.

She wrote: “What if these two women, thousands of miles and several time zones away, shuffled off their mortal coils at the same time, (Winslet’s suicide attempt was in the evening, Diaz’s terrible breakup ostensibly in the morning: considering one is in London and one is in California, these could be simultaneous) and their souls became entangled, presumably due to their complementing themes?

“Both Iris and Amanda have unfinished emotional business to resolve, and so the fates have ordained that they get a bit of time, a holiday, if you will, to sort themselves out before they’re able to move on.”

What do you think about these fan theories? Let us know in the comments.