I grew up in Canada, and I’d wager the experience – at least as far as pop culture goes – was probably pretty similar to growing up in the States. Yet, there were some minor, strange differences. Here, we have a regulatory body called the Crtc (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission), which ensures that about 30% of the content that’s broadcast on TV qualifies as “Canadian Content.” Thus, whenever you turn on the TV, one of our Canadian channels is bound to show something Canadian, including movies. While holiday classics like A Christmas Story and Black Christmas counted as Canadian Content (God Bless Bob Clark) we could reliably see around the holidays, more adventurous TV stations would show something outside the box. One such station was the adult-oriented Showcase (not to be confused with Showtime), which would program an utterly mental movie called The Silent Partner every Christmas Eve.

If you’re not Canadian,...