Twelve Nights of Christmas Horror Movies, Part One

 

Last month I wrote about Thanksgiving horror movies to watch instead of spreading the Coronavirus to your family, so it seemed like a Christmas horror movie post was the next thing to do. (Although I should note that there is at least one Hanukkah horror movie out there).

It turns out there are a lot more Christmas horror movies than there are for any other non-Halloween holiday. Something about late December gives audiences an appetite for horror, I guess. There was sizable haul of Christmas horror movies in the 70's and 80's (you can read about some of them below), but the 90’s and 2000’s weren’t big decades for Christmas horror movies. Christmas horror returned from the commercial graveyard in the 2010’s, and given how horrific the 2020's have started off, I don't see this trend slowing down soon.

I'm not going to include the most obvious choice, Gremlins (1984), nor some recent favorites like Rare Exports (2010) and Krampus (2015). Nothing against any of those movies. They're all great! But I thought I'd scour my streaming services to bring you some lesser-known Christmas horror movies to watch while you're spending the holidays at home with people in your household. At least I hope you're not attending gatherings with people outside your household this Christmas! The horror!

Black Christmas (1974) (Shudder), and (2019) (HBO)

I saw the 1974 version several years ago and remember it as a decent proto-slasher and one of the few non-2001 films I’ve seen that stars Kier Dullea.

The 2019 version starts off as a decent remake that brings up issues of white supremacy, patriarchy, and rape culture on a college campus and never quite develops these threads, although the idea that patriarchy is a form of intergenerational black magic is interesting enough. And there’s a cat, so that’s always a plus.

Christmas Evil (1980) (Shudder)

A man who loves his job at a toy factory is disrespected by family, friends, and everybody else, and so he dresses up like Santa and goes on a murder spree (and also delivers toys). Somehow this movie makes this bonkers premise… kinda boring, maybe because it starts out as a slow moving gritty 70’s drama and never quite decides what direction it’s going in from there. Shudder describes the ending as “jaw-dropping,” which I suppose is one way to describe it.

Blood Beat (1983) (Shudder)

A family gathers in rural Wisconsin for Christmas, and some sort of Samurai poltergeist or reincarnated spirit (or something?) terrorizes them. Despite all this, a lot of the movie is … kinda boring. I almost turned it off, but once the bizarre ghost Samurai stuff started up, I stuck with it out of morbid curiosity. Also, there’s a cool 80’s synth score. The sound effects were described by my closed captions as “mystical boinging” and “eerie whooshing.” (There’s at least one scene of what you might call “mystical boinking” –-don’t ask). Overall it feels like there’s some sort of deeper mythology or message, but the film lacks the budget and acting talent to pull it off. Worst of all, this movie takes itself way too seriously in the way that the best 80’s slashers don’t.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 (1987) (Shudder)

I couldn’t remember if I had seen the first one. Luckily the extensive use of stock footage from the first movie meant that it didn’t matter much if I remembered the first one (seriously, almost half the movie is footage from part one). Ricky’s parents were killed by a wandering criminal dressed as Santa, which seriously messed up him and his brother. His brother was the focus of part one, but this time it’s Ricky’s time to shine as he’s interviewed in a psychiatric hospital. The structure of the plot with all the flashbacks is surprisingly complex, and I suppose there’s something about childhood trauma. But most of all I was pleased that this one delivers the 80’s silliness I was missing from the other 80’s entries on this list, including some memorable one-liners (“Oh, it’s garbage day!”). Unfortunately you also get 80’s movies’ attitudes about sexual assault and homophobia.

Deadly Games (1989) (Shudder)

I watched this one as part of Joe Bob Saves Christmas on Shudder (he also did Christmas Evil, but unfortunately I watched it before the Joe Bob episode came out). Deadly Games is one of a few English titles for a French film called 36.15 code Père Noël (Joe Bob explained that 36.15 was a code in the early French precursor to the internet called Minitel equivalent to 411/request for information). A wealthy young boy is home at his mansion with his Grandpa waiting for Santa (aka Père Noël) who had talked to on the Minitel (extra points for recognizing the horror potential of the internet in 1989!). 

An unhinged mall Père Noël connects with the boy, learns that the boy is home, and decides to do a bit of Christmas Eve home invasion for unknown unhinged ends. The boy is a self-styled Rambo, who tries to protect his home, Grandpa, and dog from the Père Noël. If this sounds a bit like Home Alone, you’re not alone, as the director once threatened to sue (I’m no legal expert, but I doubt it would have held up. Despite the kid-protecting-his-home similarity, this is a much more sinister outing).

Jack Frost (1997) (Amazon)

I first saw this classic of the Christmas horror genre in the VHS era during a bad movie night with friends (a hallowed tradition). Other than some vague recollections of gratuitous snowman violence, I didn’t remember it well, so I figured I’d see how it holds up. Answer? Not bad, or rather bad, but in a mostly good way. 

A serial killer transformed by experimental chemicals into a living, killing snowman terrorizes a small town. It’s so cheesy and over-the-top that its most questionable choices don’t seem so bad until you stop to think about them (although there is one scene in a bathtub that’s just… No.). The snowman has some cheesy lines like, “I’m the world’s largest pissed off snow cone.” You can also tell the whole thing was filmed with no real snow, which adds to the charm. I give this bonus points for being one of the few Christmas horror movies of the 90’s, for being amusingly confused with the 1998 Michael Keaton film of the same title, and for containing the throwaway line “when I want philosophy I’ll turn on Oprah.”

Red Christmas (2016) (Shudder, Amazon)

This Australian production starring Dee Wallace (ET, Cujo) is an odd mix of family holiday drama, social commentary (I think?), and horror tropes (the people of color are murdered first… Ugh). But there are some delightfully gory kills (somewhere toward the domain of early Peter Jackson). A mysterious cloaked stranger wrapped in bandages arrives at a remote house in rural Australia as a family celebrates Christmas. It turns out this stranger is not such a stranger. If you’ve ever wanted to think about abortion in the form of a home invasion slasher… well, this is the movie for you. There are some moral complexities here (Who can really judge another person’s choice? How do decisions impact people’s lives?), but it can be hard to see where the movie’s going with it. The message seems to be pro-choice overall, but it’s muddled. More on that in this review.

Christmas with Cookie (2016) (Amazon)

I’m not sure who the intended audience for this one is, but “people who think Tromaville movies are too slick and high budget” might fit. But like Tromaville, this movie is fun precisely because it doesn’t take itself seriously. Cookie the mutant elf lives on the moon in the year 3978 and tells a story that involves Mad Max-style Santa and Mrs. Claus (Mrs. Claus has a German accent), a couple that doesn’t get what they want for Christmas and enacts a millennia-long revenge plot on Santa, aliens of the probing variety, aliens of the planet destroying variety, an abominable snowman, plenty of over-the-top blood spatters (the credits list a “blood spatter specialist” and the blood spatters are very special), and more. Just describing all this puts a smile on my face. If you love cheeky bad movies that know they’re bad, you might agree with me that this is the most fun movie on this list.


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Okay, so that's eight or nine movies already. I might have more than twelve once I get to Part Two. I don't know how many movies you watch in a night, and besides, it was just a fun title. And maybe some extra horror at the end of this extra horrific year is fitting.

Anyway, look for Part Two coming soon!