Christmas is a time of comfort, joy, and cocoa by the tree.
But if you're in the right kind of mood, it's also a time for killer Santas, demonic elves,
and other seasonal frights.
If you want to curl up by the fire for a monstrous movie marathon, here are the best and worst
films out there for your yuletide slay.
Black Christmas is the twisted godmother of holiday horror films.
The plot is a familiar one, with a mysterious killer picking off victims in a sorority house
around Christmas.
But more than four decades after its release, this wintery slasher still wins over viewers
with its haunting holiday tone.
The film features terrifying murder sequences, compelling performances, and one of the most
unsettling phone calls in horror movie history - all set against a cozy Christmas backdrop.
"Just like having a wart removed!”
“Oh my god."
Nearly a decade later, director Bob Clark did a complete turnaround with a very different
holiday classic - the slightly-less violent A Christmas Story.
Now that's a double feature.
"You'll shoot your eye out, you’ll shoot your eye out!
Hahaha!”
It's no surprise that Black Christmas got the extreme remake treatment.
But louder, gorier, and darker doesn't necessarily equal better.
Released in 2006, this second incarnation attempted to flesh out exactly what was behind
the brutal murders at the sorority house, and while the answer to that mystery is satisfyingly
bizarre, it does pull time away from the victims and their stories.
Aside from spelling out the killer's origins, the remake attempts to distinguish itself
through increasingly disgusting murder sequences.
But it's all just soulless violence, with little charm or fun to be found.
For all its effort to grow its mythology and serve up twisted kill scenes, the end result
is both too much, and not enough.
There are plenty of Christmas movies that explore the mythology of Santa Claus, each
one hoping to add something to the legend.
Few films really succeed at this.
One exception is Rare Exports, a Finnish film that offers a fascinating, creepy new take
on Father Christmas.
Perhaps the best thing about the film is the way it plays with the tropes of Christmas
movies.
There's a struggling family, a boy searching for a reason to believe in magic, and some
wonderful supernatural happenings, all twisted into a frightening fantasy tale.
It's a film that both celebrates and subverts Christmas, shattering the illusions its characters
have about the holiday as the dark truth about Santa Claus is unearthed.
For at least one Christmas Eve, you'll be thinking about Saint Nick very differently.
You probably don't want to let that guy in your house.
Silent Night, Deadly Night is a campy slasher classic with one of the best posters in horror
history.
But its sequel is mostly a dull retread of the first film, and is about as much fun as
a lump of coal.
Thanks to a flimsy framing device, the movie spends a huge chunk of its runtime on flashbacks.
As a result, a whole lot of footage from the first movie is reused.
By the time the film gets around to new material, you're bored enough to turn it off.
You may as well stick with the original.
Or press pause on the horror movies, and go spend time with your family.
"Why would I want to do that?"
If you're looking for the creepiest film about a killer Santa, then seek out Christmas Evil.
It's the story of a man whose perception of Saint Nick was forever warped by a childhood
incident.
leaving him feeling responsible for keeping the spirit of Christmas alive himself.
That warped vision ultimately makes him want to be Santa, keeping tabs on local children
- which, despite Santa's example, is an insanely scary thing to do.
It all leads up to a murder spree that plays out in a way that's much less campy than you
might expect.
Forget the reason for the season - this is just a bona fide horror film, with a desire
to truly scare that makes it an underseen gem.
"Your name goes in the bad boys and girls book.
And i’ll bring you something... horrible."
Jack Frost is not, by traditional standards, a good movie.
It's the story of a serial killer whose DNA merges with snow after the truck taking him
to be executed crashes into some toxic goo.
He then takes the form of a sentient, shapeshifting snowman, who terrorizes a small town with
his crappy visual effects.
Despite failing with both critics and audiences, Jack Frost has stuck around since its 1997
release, seeming blissfully unaware of just how bad it is.
Do you want a holiday movie with a bit of spooky flair that won't scar the kids for
life?
Then watch Gremlins.
Joe Dante's classic about a boy and his strange pet Christmas present has been a source of
imaginative fun for thirty years.
Every '80s kid knows you can't feed a mogwai after midnight - even if Gremlins 2 admits
that rule doesn't really make sense.
“Well wait a minute, what about this?
What if they’re eating in an airplane, and they cross a time zone?
I mean, it’s always midnight somewhere.”
Santa's Slay might be a bad movie, but it's hard to watch without having a good time.
Famously starring professional wrestler Bill Goldberg, the film goes all-in on its premise
of a murderous Santa.
And this is no mere imitator - this is the real deal Kris Kringle, coming straight out
of the depths of Hell.
Santa's sleigh is pulled by demonic reindeer, and he keeps things brutally on-brand, taking
out all of his victims in a seasonally appropriate way.
This villainous Saint Nicholas isn't just a Santa gone mad - he's a Santa born bad.
It's so stupid that it's awesome - but it's still really, really stupid.
The internet's favorite Christmas monster has a movie well worth watching.
Krampus starts as the story of a dysfunctional family coming together for a tense holiday
reunion, with one side being uptight, and the other being a little gun-crazy.
When one of the kids loses the Christmas spirit and shreds his letter to Santa, things quickly
take a chilling turn.
A blizzard sets in and the power goes out, leaving the family waiting for a visit not
from Santa, but rather his dark shadow.
Well made and delightfully feisty, Krampus is a creature feature for all seasons, a work
of horror comedy that just works on every level.
Enough murderous Santas - how about a killer elf?
Most of this horror unfolds at a department store, where a group of teenagers and an ex-cop
Santa impersonator are spending the night.
It turns out they aren't alone, because a strange elf creature is also roaming around,
raising hell.
"They have magical powers, they can’t be hurt or killed.
They eat anything.
They’re a perfect soldier."
That sounds like an okay premise, but Elves gets so much stranger.
The Dan Haggerty-starring movie is so bad, with a story so bonkers, that it's actually
kind of good.
What do Santa's little helpers have in common with a secret Nazi plot?
It's way more than you'd expect.
You'll have to see it to believe it - but you just might wish you hadn't.