The holiday film starring Bill Murray has become a major video hit 36 ​​years after its release

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens was first published in 1843. It was an instant success, quickly and deeply entering the British consciousness. The story went viral, and other enterprising authors soon jumped on Dickens’s bandwagon; already in 1844 “A Christmas Carol” has been covered at least three times. After Dickens himself finished writing “David Copperfield” in 1853, he began reading an abridged version of his tale. He then began reading the story live, paying audiences every year for the next 17 years.

The story of A Christmas Carol is about a rich miser named Ebenezer Scrooge who… Wait, what am I doing? You know the story of Christmas. It is one of the most famous, enduring and recurring stories in the history of Western literature.

In 1901, relatively new cinema led to the creation of A Christmas Carol with Scrooge, or Marley’s Ghost. This film is now lost to time, but it opened the door to many film and television adaptations of Carol, which now number in the hundreds. There were so many reinterpretations of “Christmas Carol” that it is even difficult to measure which of them are the most known to the mass public. Many of these are now on repeat in families around the world at Christmas, and you, dear reader, probably have a favorite version. What is it? The one with the Muppets that almost included a puppet version of Dickens himself? One with George K. Scott? Alastair Sim? Albert Finney? Scrooge McDuck? This 2019 A Christmas Carol Horror Miniseries/TV Movie?

In 1988, director Richard Donner slyly updated A Christmas Carol for the yuppie era, reimagining Scrooge as an egotistical Reaganite TV executive named Frank Cross. Frank, played by Bill Murray, is indeed visited by three ghosts to show him that his evil, rapacious ways are futile, lighting the way for fools to a dusty death, but all in the context of the late 20th century. Titled “Scrooged,” the film is currently tearing up the Prime Video charts, entering the streamer’s top 10 ( per FlixPatrol).

Danny Elfman’s haunting score suggests that Scrooge was originally conceived as a horror film. Murray’s presence may have pushed the film in a more comedic direction, though the visuals are still dark and disturbing. Indeed, Scrooge feels very much like a movie that wants to scare you.

In Donner’s version, the Ghost of Christmas Past (David Johansson) is a fast-talking taxi driver from New Jersey who takes Frank back to his own unhappy childhood. On the other hand, the Ghost of Christmas Present (Carol Kane) is a glittering sylph with a penchant for punching faces with closed fists, while the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is a 10-foot-tall blanket-wearing monster that harbors tortured souls under his clothes. Marley’s ghost is also reimagined as a suave, sunglasses-wearing corpse played by John Forsyth. Belle is now Claire, played by Karen Allen. There is also a Bob Cratchit type character played by Alfre Woodard and a Tiny Tim style character played by Nicholas Phillips. Bob Goldthwaite even makes an appearance as a jilted employee seeking revenge on Frank.

Murray’s Scrooge is a great character update. Instead of being a stingy grunt, Frank Cross is a fast-talking, anger-driven boardroom demon. He uses sarcasm to cut his victims and has no remorse. This is the meanest version of Scrooge to date.

In a metaphysical twist, Frank Cross is visited by three ghosts on the same night that his TV station broadcasts A Christmas Carol live, so there’s a strange media commentary lurking in the background. The ultra-rich may have heard the story of Ebenezer Scrooge a hundred times, but they are still too mean, cruel and stingy to realize that Scrooge is their avatar. Frank only makes amends when he is faced with his own mortality and his own recognition of the damage he has caused.

Watching Scrooged, you happily begin to imagine some of the real-life oligarchs of the 2020s experiencing similar redemption. There’s probably a reason why “Scrooged” is so populareven after 36 years.