Editorials
Holiday Horror Streaming Picks for Hulu, Amazon and Netflix
With December finally here, it’s time to load up on the holiday horror. It’s the time to celebrate yuletide terror, killer Santa’s, and spilling massive amounts of blood in the snow. So I scoured Hulu, Amazon, and Netflix for your streaming horror watchlists to help you have a scary little Christmas. What I’ve discovered is that Hulu opts for surprising offerings, Amazon nails it on quantity, and Netflix really likes anthologies. There’s a surprising lack of a lot of definitive classics across the streaming platforms, though you can count on Amazon to offer micro-budget films like A Cadaver Christmas, or Krampus cash-ins like Krampus Unleashed. Luckily there’s enough selection to load up this holiday season, and here’s your guide on what to watch this holiday season:
HULU
P2
Angela Bridges (Rachel Nichols) learns a harsh lesson of the importance of letting go of work and spending time with family over the holidays when she’s locked in the office garage by a psychopath on Christmas Eve. Written by Alexandre Aja (High Tension) and Franck Khalfoun (2012’s Maniac), who also directed, this is one holiday horror movie that deserves more love than it’s gotten over the years. I concede that it’s not necessarily the most memorable of plots; however, Kahlfoun and Aja have an uncanny knack for delivering tension and uncomfortable moments. Wes Bentley nails his character as the somewhat sympathetic psychopath obsessed with his prey. This one is also scheduled to leave Hulu at the end of the month, so jump on this.
ATM
Both the title and plot should indicate what kind of mindless B-movie this is, and that’s not always a bad thing. This Christmas time set thriller sees a stockbroker, David, taking his crush Emily and another co-worker, Corey, home from the office Christmas party. Corey forces David to stop by an ATM booth, where the trio gets trapped inside while a killer in a parka lurks outside, murdering anyone nearby. Yeah, it’s about as silly as it sounds. Which means it’s the perfect thriller to watch with a group of friends and spiked eggnog. The cast is surprisingly strong, like Alice Eve as Emily, despite a core of characters that make the dumbest choices. ATM isn’t the greatest holiday horror film by any stretch, but in the right setting it can be an entertaining watch.
New Year’s Evil
Originally released on December 26, 1980, this New Year’s Eve set slasher follows a Los Angeles radio DJ that receives a phone call from a killer who calls in to state they’ll be killing someone every time the clock rings in the New Year in a different time zone. A bit more sleazy and schlocky in tone, this slasher does take the Hitchcockian bomb theory approach in that you see who the killer is early on, setting up some great cat and mouse tension. It also offers a ton by way of gore and punk rock. Plus, with Christmas hogging the spotlight, New Year’s doesn’t get near as much love.
AMAZON
Jack Frost
What if Jack Frost wasn’t the personification of ice, sleet, and freezing winter, but a serial killer on his way to his execution that crashes into genetic material, causing him to mutate and fuse with the surrounding snow? Intentional low-budget cheese-fest, Jack Frost opts for borderline offensive humor (I’m looking at you, sexual assault by carrot scene), silly humor, and over the top kills by a murderous snowman. Because of that, it’s the perfect antithesis to the holiday spirit. Really, though, it’s the definitive holiday horror film that has to be seen at least once to be believed. The special effects mostly fall in line with the small budget, but they do spend most of it on the gruesome, great transformation sequence of Jack Frost from human to snowman. If you’re team Jack Frost, Amazon also offers the non-Christmas follow up, Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman.
All Through the House
A throwback to ‘80s slasher featuring a deranged Santa-masked killer, this micro-budget slasher should tick off a lot of boxes on the yuletide terror watch list. It’s not the most original, nor perfect, but it totally delivers on the gore. Slashing, slicing, dicing, and buckets of blood, this Santa delivers. All Through the House also nails the nods to other slasher classics, like Black Christmas or Deep Red. It may be low budget, but it doesn’t skimp on the practical effects. At least not with the copious amount of blood flow. If the concept of Santa getting brutal with his kills appeals to you, this should make your must list. This Santa loves hedge clippers and violence, to give you an idea.
Silent Night
Technically, this is only available on Amazon video through a Tribeca Shortlist subscription, but they offer a 7-day free trial, so there’s your loophole. This killer Santa slasher is a very loose remake of definitive holiday horror classic Silent Night, Deadly Night and features a horror worthy cast featuring Malcom McDowell, Jaime King (2009’s My Bloody Valentine, Sin City), and Donal Logue (Blade, Zodiac). McDowell plays the scene chewing Sheriff on the trails of the serial killing Santa on Christmas Eve, and Logue is the cynyical jerk Santa turned red herring. The movie doesn’t stick its landing, but it does make excellent use of a wood chipper, its killer Santa, and a ton of blood. The cast makes this loose remake a lot more fun that it probably could have been otherwise.
NETFLIX
A Christmas Horror Story
A holiday-themed anthology that intertwines its stories via a radio DJ played by William Shatner, produced by the people behind the Ginger Snaps trilogy. As with nearly all anthologies, not all segments work, but for the most part this Christmas horror movie works. The segment featuring the changeling that’s swapped with a child during a family Christmas tree outing is surprisingly creepy, and the segment featuring Santa versus zombie elves is a lot of fun. Of course, having someone like Shatner tie the tales all together probably tells you all you need to know about this one.
Gremlins
What else is left to say about Joe Dante’s classic, holiday and otherwise? It’s one of the absolute best, and thanks to Dante and practical effects, still holds up decades later. It’s a great gateway horror film for kids, making this the perfect family horror film for the holidays. Phoebe Cates’ Kate has a disturbingly dark background with Christmas, while Gizmo’s so adorable that kids won’t even notice the adult moments. For those that want their spiked eggnog and their cookies, Gremlins is the perfect pairing.
Holidays
This anthology covers a wide range of holidays, but it’s the last two segments that make this applicable to this list. Scott Stewart’s (Legion, Dark Skies) approach to Christmas sees Seth Green’s Pete contend with a deadly holiday gift of virtual glasses. The real highlight, though, is Adam Egypt Mortimer’s helming of New Year’s Eve, written by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer (Starry Eyes). Serial killer Reggie has the tables turned when he picks up an awkward girl for a New Year’s date on a dating website. Lorenza Izzo nails her awkward turned ruthless character, making this uneven anthology end on a strong note.
XX
The first segment in this female-helmed horror anthology, adapted from a Jack Ketchum story by Jovanka Vuckovic, is set during Christmas time. A young boy, Danny, peers inside a man’s gift box while riding home on a train and what he sees causes him to stop eating. It’s unsettling, psychological, and delivers some jarring visuals. Not only is it arguably the strongest segment of the film, it’s also appropriately holiday themed for the season.
What’s on your Holiday watch list this season?
Auteur Filmmaking is a term that gets thrown around a lot these days in reference to big name directors like Quentin Tarantino and even Wes Anderson, but the truth is that film is a collective medium, and no one person can be responsible for every single aspect of a particular production. However, the smaller a film’s budget, the bigger the individual impact of every creative decision behind it – and the easier it becomes to identify a genuine auteur.
This isn’t necessarily a judgement of value, as blockbuster filmmaking comes with its own challenges and a good movie remains a miracle regardless of how big the crew is, but I’ve always been more interested in soulful b-movies produced by handfuls of passionate artists than blockbusters backed by creative armies.
That’s why I love exploring low-budget franchises that never left the hands of their original creators, as you really get to know the artists involved with these flicks and can accompany their evolution over a period of time. With that in mind, I’d like to invite readers to join me in this multi-part series as we look into a vampire saga helmed by one of the most fascinating auteurs of the 1990s. Naturally, I’m referring to Ted Nicolaou’s criminally underrated Subspecies!
The Birth of an Unlikely Horror Franchise
A proud graduate of the University of Texas’ Film program, Nicolaou got his start in the industry as a sound technician working on Tobe Hooper’s original Texas Chain Saw Massacre. From there, the filmmaker would go on to work for notorious indie producer Charles Band, the founder of both Empire Pictures and Full Moon Productions. According to Nicolaou, Band would usually contact him with an offer to direct a feature after more prominent filmmakers, such as the late, great Stuart Gordon, had already refused, meaning that his projects tended to have lower budgets and more inexperienced crew members.
The plans for Subspecies began almost immediately after the fall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, with screenwriter David Pabian turning in an initial draft of the film after a Romanian producer contacted Band and explained that Romanian tax incentives could cover the cost of film production there so long as Full Moon took care of the post-production process. Since Stuart Gordon was unwilling to travel to Romania, Ted Nicolaou ended up taking over the picture.
However, while the financial incentives meant that this Romanian-American co-production could look and feel much more expensive than it really was, with Nicolaou scouting for locations in advance and selecting real castle ruins to be featured in the movie, the director was soon faced with an incredibly difficult shooting process. In interviews, Nicolaou would later describe the experience as something of a nightmare, with language barriers and the generalized distrust of capitalist outsiders sabotaging many of the team’s plans for the film.
In fact, the script, which had already been altered by Band, ultimately had portions of it rewritten by both Jack Canson and Nicolaou himself in an attempt to adapt the story to their unique limitations.
Radu Is One of Horror’s Greatest Underrated Villains
In the finished film, which was released directly to video in 1991, we follow a pair of American anthropology students, Michelle (Laura Mae Tate) and Lillian (Michelle McBride), as they reunite with their Romanian colleague Mara (Irina Movila) in her native land. The group intends to study the folklore surrounding the secluded town of Prejmer, but their research is cut short by the return of Radu Vladislas (Anders Hove) – the evil son of a vampire king (Angus Scrimm) who had previously established a truce with the region’s human residents. It’s now up to Radu’s human-loving half-brother Stefan (Michael Watson) to protect the girls from a fate worse than death as the power-hungry vampire seeks to control a magical artifact known as the Bloodstone.
Right off the bat, you may have noticed that the film’s premise sounds decidedly old-fashioned when compared to other vampire movies from around the same time. While the 1990s saw the rise of cool-looking bloodsuckers with badass elements borrowed from Westerns, as well as the sexy aristocrats of Anne Rice’s stories, Subspecies has a lot more in common with Nosferatu and the Hammer Horror series than any of its contemporaries.
This is both a blessing and a curse, as the film falls victim to overly familiar genre tropes while also standing out as a rare example of a ’90s vampire flick that isn’t afraid to flex its muscles as a Creature Feature. In fact, I’d argue that the presence of age-old clichés is a small price to pay when confronted with one of the most compelling vampire antagonists in all of cinema.
Named after Vlad the Impaler’s real-life brother, Anders Hove’s Radu is such a fascinating character and the main reason why Subspecies is still worth watching 35 years later. From his animalistic mannerisms to the joy he feels in simply existing as a chaotic creature of the night, and that’s not even mentioning the iconic makeup that almost certainly inspired the undead from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Radu is a hypnotic presence harkening back to a time when audiences didn’t mind purely evil villains that couldn’t be redeemed through tragic backstories or sex appeal.
Gothic Atmosphere on an Indie Budget
Of course, the film’s Romanian setting and authentic art direction do a lot of the heavy lifting whenever Radu isn’t around. From the masked festivals of the village to the visually interesting selection of local extras, Subspecies’ multicultural elements help it to stand out when compared to similar flicks from the ’90s.
That being said, Nicolaou’s unique eye for special effects and exciting action sequences – as well as Vlad Paunescu’s excellent cinematography – make the movie a delight for fans of expressionist cinema and old-timey gothic horror. While the crew is obviously dealing with limited resources, many of the flick’s blemishes (such as the odd stop-motion demons that serve Radu) end up feeling more like charming idiosyncrasies than actual flaws.
I’d argue that the only real issue here is pacing, as there are long stretches of film where the protagonists are simply bumbling around without realizing what’s really going on around them. Thankfully, the gorgeous visuals and surprisingly effective soundtrack usually make up for this. Besides, how can you dislike a movie where shotgun shells are loaded with rosary beads and our lead vampires duke it out in a dramatic swordfight that would feel out of place during the golden age of Hollywood?
Your overall enjoyment of Subspecies will mostly depend on whether or not you find low-budget corner-cutting and janky practical effects charming rather than distracting, but I know I’ll keep coming back to this Full Moon feature again and again in the future.
That being said, while this first movie is worth revisiting by its own merits as the birth of an indie horror icon, I’d like to invite you to join us as we look into the cult sequel Bloodstone: Subspecies II soon.
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