I finally got 'Scrooged' (and I liked it)

Bill Murray in Scrooged

Although I am an enormous Bill Murray fan I had never warmed up to Scrooged.

The first time I saw it I downright disliked it. And when I recently compiled my list of the top 10 Murray movie performances, I never gave it serious consideration.

Murray has played jerks before but his character in Scrooged is his most aggressively obnoxious. I also thought the movie was a little too bombastic. It was more abrasive to me than funny.

But this weekend I decided to revisit the film, since it was streaming on Netflix, and because I found it hard to believe I could not appreciate a hit Murray movie made during his '80s prime.

I am happy to say that on second viewing, I loved Scrooged. I was able to enjoy its nastiness and its jarring tonal changes. It was a movie I studiously avoided as a child (I remember being petrified of the trailer back in 1988). And yet now I think it may just become a holiday staple for me.

Why the about face? I suppose I was in the mood for a more macabre Christmas movie, which Scrooged most certainly is. Even though it's directed by Richard Donner (Lethal Weapon, Superman: The Movie), it has all the hallmarks of a classic Tim Burton film. The musical score is provided by Burton regular Danny Elfman, the set design is classic horror comedy and the shot selection is also positively Burton-esque.

This scene would have terrified me as a child

The movie came out at an interesting time for Murray. After the blockbuster success of Ghostbusters, he was the biggest comedy star in movies save for Eddie Murphy. And yet he decided to relocate to France for essentially a four-year sabbatical after it was released. He made one small, very funny, cameo in the 1986 film Little Shop of Horrors. But other than that, Murray was AWOL at the height of his career as an A-lister.

Scrooged was his triumphant return to the big time, and the combination of Murray opposite ghosts in a reboot of a classic holiday story was the perfect recipe for a surefire hit. Still, Scrooged was not a success on the level of Ghostbusters, whose sequel he would star in the following year, and a lot of critics were far from kind to it. Despite it's warm and funny finale it's a deeply cynical movie and it gets its sarcastic heart from infamously cantankerous former SNL writer Michael O'Donaghue.

I guess also can appreciate its charms more now in light of the cheesy holiday movies that have come in its wake. Yeah, I'm looking at you Love, Actually. I don't go for these treacly romantic movies where people do improbably adorable things by the fire. I'd rather watch something with a little edge to it, maybe something that's even a little crass.

That Scrooged certainly is, with its very savage parodies of 1980s television and a Murray performance that is loose, wild and for better or worse very committed. If you're not a Murray fan, steer clear of this one. And if you'd rather hear about angels getting their wings this time of year this isn't the movie for you.

But as more of Bad Santa/Christmas Vacation kind of guy, it put me in a happy mood. It actually does a really nice job of modernizing the whole Ebenezer Scrooge tale, and for Murray fans, it's a more personal movie than you might think. His real life brothers play three roles in the film. And the rest of supporting cast, including the always underrated Alfre Woodard, help keep the movie from ever being maudlin.

Stay tuned, my definitive favorite holiday movies list is on its way.