The Five Greatest Evil Santas Ever

He knows when you've been sleeping,
he knows when you're awake,
he knows when you've been bad or good
so be good for goodness' sake
- Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (Coots/Gillespie, 1934)

Few legendary childhood figures are as subliminally unsettling as jolly old Saint Nick, the song-worthy peeping tom, because none of his mythological peers hold quite the same creepy, omniscient behavioural sway over their believers as Santa Claus does. The Easter Bunny will drop chocolate no matter what, and whether you were nice to your sibling this year has almost no bearing on the Tooth Fairy's weird thing about collecting your teeth.

But Santa — well, misbehave, and Santa will outright wreck your shit, or at least your day. While it's highly unlikely that any child outside of the most energetic young mining enthusiast would be given a lump of coal at Christmas these days, the mere threat of not making off with some sweet festive swag (and that you are being watched by an obese bearded man at all times) can be motivation enough to at least keep a kid in line for a few months of the year.

That's why it's always rewarding to see Father Christmas himself taking a dip in the scumbag pool and bringing himself down to our filth-ridden, carbon-stained level. Thankfully, movies and television have provided us with plenty of examples in which to revel when Santa broke bad, so, as we move through the last two weeks before the big day — when, what, Jesus graduated, or whatever? — let's take some time to reflect on the finer moments from some of the worst representatives to don the red coat.

robot santa, futurama

As far as ironically gigantic naughty lists are concerned, it's hard to discount Futurama's merciless killbot Santa Claus, voiced by apparent character model John Goodman (and, later, by Bender voice artist John DiMaggio). Even looking past the fact that he judges everyone as a delinquent and, by the 31st century, the coal-lump behavioural incentive has graduated to the threat of first-degree murder, Santa is a total douchebag to his Neptunian elves, essentially starving them and forcing them to live in indentured servitude under terrible conditions in the armpit of the solar system.

But it's not all bad news; in his first appearance, the second-season episode Xmas Story, Santa Claus is basically a walking mechanical metaphor for Die Hard — there's a lot of death and destruction and people/machines using rocket launchers with murderous intent, but ultimately it is only through reckless violence that the adventure then brings everyone closer together, reminding us all of the true spirit of Christmas — or Xmas, rather.

willie t. stokes, bad santa

Professional thief, alcoholic and sex addict Willie T. Stokes is the very antithesis of everything Santa Claus should be, and largely thanks to Billy Bob Thornton's as-usual brilliantly nuts portrayal, he endures as a delightfully hedonistic tribute to the Man In Red. Aided (and antagonised) by the ever-sassy Tony Cox as diminutive heist assistant Marcus, Willie steals, drinks, screws and fumbles his way through an increasingly dangerous set of circumstances largely brought on himself through his own carelessness and inability to watch his potty mouth around minors. Saint Nick would be rolling in his heart attack-induced grave.

Willie is not totally without redemption, though — he acts as something as a less-than-ideal mentor to bullied kid Thurman, which gives the film a largely glib but occasionally poignant subplot in which the tormented criminal genuinely warms to Thurman and helps him overcome his demons. 

That's, uh… that's about it for redeeming qualities, though. The rest of the time he's an incorrigible bastard, and all the more improbably loveable for it. Wait, have you still not seen Bad Santa? That movie is 11 years old. You might want to get on that.

ronald jones jr, silent night

Ronald Jones Jr (Rick Skene), a festively dressed mass murderer if ever there was one, makes the list for being genuinely terrifying, not least of all because, "according to Wikipedia", the 2012 film — which is also a partial remake of a 1984 slasher flick called Silent Night, Deadly Night — has loose basis in a real-life massacre, when 45-year-old US man Bruce Jeffrey Pardo slew nine people via gunshot and arson, while dressed in a Santa suit, back in 2008. Since no well of human depravity is too deep for cinema to tap, Silent Night jacks the intensity up to "flamethrowers" and sets Jones on a vengeance-driven rampage against a small town's citizens and Sheriff Malcolm McDowell.

The film itself is a pretty average death spree not short on horror cliches and desperate actors, but if you've ever wanted to see Santa Claus deal with those he deems not worthy of the nice list by tossing them into a woodchipper or electrocuting them with Christmas lights, then this might be a good, or even terribly inappropriate, movie to pop on as the family gather round the table for a hearty Yuletide lunch. 

composite santa, robot chicken

Uhh, if you need a reason other than the fact that Robot Chicken's half-man, half-snowman, gun-wielding crime against nature, Composite Santa, is voiced by Christian Slater, you mean? Well, he's first introduced in A Very Dragon Ball Christmas, in which he takes on Goku and, yeah, loses, but impressively holds his own for way longer than most people would, and is in fairness only taken down because his stupid snow side melts under the heat of one of Goku's passing fireballs.

Even without his elemental handicap, general human Santa on Robot Chicken is pretty bad-ass in his own right, no stranger to shooting fireballs of his own (as he does towards the end of the Dragon Ball-themed Christmas special), as well as handling firearms, engaging in lethal espionage, swearing like a sailor, laying the smack down on corporate shills and running drugs.

kris kringle, miracle on 34th street

OK, hear me out on this. I know that, at first glance, the gentle old man known as Kris Kringle in 1947 and 1994's holiday classics seems like an ideal portrayal of the kindly ancient soul who grants children's wishes and shits rainbows but do not buy into it, all right? Kris Kringle is a total douchebag to the entire world, and nobody ever brings it up.

In case you've never seen it, Miracle On 34th Street's piece de resistance is a scene in which Kringle must convince a judge that he is really Santa Claus, after spending the whole movie up to that point basically proving that he is. In both cases, throughout the movie, everyone is totally sceptical that Kringle is Santa Claus — not because they think the actual Santa is off feeding soup to homeless orphans in Cambodia, but because (spoiler, children) Santa is not real. Only Santa is real, but if he was actually out dropping presents under Christmas trees, then wouldn't the kids' parents know that? Where do they think those extra gifts marked "FROM: SANTA" are coming from on Christmas morning?

Unless... he's not delivering presents around the world via airborne deer every year at all. If the parents don't know that he exists, and he literally has to convince everybody in a court of law that he is the one and only Kris Kringle, then he is simply spending his time staying busy abusing mall Santas and screwing around sitting in on Macy's Parades before annually making off with literal bags full of children's letters expressing their love for him when he has done sweet fuck all to deserve the praise. Try and tell me now that he's not a complete dick.

Merry almost-Christmas, everyone.