It’s basically the creepiest Christmas short ever made.

Modern horror films don’t get much more genuinely unnerving than what’s on display in the so-called “home movies” seen in both Sinister and last year’s Sinister 2. The tapes document the chilling murders of entire families, and what makes them so disturbing is that they feel so very real. They’re all permanently etched into my brain, and I sometimes wish they’d leave.

Writers Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill got pretty creative with the 16mm snuff tapes in Sinister 2 – who could ever forget the one involving rats? – and they even infused a little holiday spirit into the sequel with a home movie titled “Christmas Morning.” The video starts off rather festive with a family celebrating Christmas morning by their beautiful tree, but then, well, the Ciaran Foy-directed footage takes a turn for the… sinister.

Christmas lights binding their hands and wrapped around their mouths, the family members are all buried up to their necks in the freezing snow outside their home, and though they initially appear to be dead, it’s revealed at the very end of the tape that they’re frozen solid but very much still alive to endure the pain: the mother’s eyes move, and cold breath exits her mouth.

Holiday horror is rarely this disturbing. And we applaud any movie that disturbs us.