Editorials
10 Underrated Christmas Horror Movies!
Ah, December’s yuletide rat race. As mothers bake gingerbread rooftops and fathers slaughter prickly Douglas Firs for living room decorations, joy spreads like a holly-jolly infection. How gross. My festive spirit stays true to horror’s cold grasp; an obsessive focus that’s devoured 94 Christmas horror films as of this posted date. Possessed ugly sweaters, sequels to atrocious “Elf On A Shelf” horror films that blatantly rip off Blumhouse’s Truth Or Dare, killer snowmen, killer reindeer, killer cookies – only visions of madness dance through my head.
*Takes one long, contemplative drag from a halfway ashed cigarette while gazing hard into the distance.*
Putting my wealth of “knowledge” to positive use, I’ve reached deep into my sack of goodies and pulled out the oddest, least discussed, “see these right now” Christmas horror tiles for your late seasonal viewing. If you *have* caught any of these, you’re my kind of people. If not, multiple streaming platforms – Shudder, Amazon Prime, Hulu – offer ways to remedy festive malaise. Oh, and before you go all “BUT WHERE’S KRAMPUS AND ANNA AND THE APOCALYPSE AND [INSERT XMAS HORROR MOVIES FANS TALK ABOUT MORE FREQUENTLY], I’ve listed them below. Too many sites already did that job already – let’s get even weirder.
Honorable, More Widely Promoted Mentions: Anna And The Apocalypse, Rare Exports, Krampus, Silent Night, Deadly Night, Better Watch Out, Santa’s Slay, Silent Night, Deadly Night 2.
Santa Jaws
Santa Jaws might remind of the same SYFY/Asylum collaborations not worth more than a title gimmick, but save your hasty judgments. Low budgets and Christmas themes bring to life a “nerdy” child’s comic book creation (magical pen backstory) – SANTA JAWS! Her eyes glow like Rudolph’s nose, a candy cane horn skewers victims, colored strands of Xmas lights double as lassos, and a Santa hat covers the beast’s dorsal fin. As Bloody Disgusting’s own Chris Coffel already mused, it’s not the most technically proficient shark attack film in terms of CGI deaths. Good thing the cast’s deep-end dive into tonal absurdity sells Santa Jaws as the pun-a-minute entertainer that deserves a few glasses of eggnog (or just bourbon to save those calories). Give this one a stream on SYFY’s website!
Deadly Games
Thanks to Fantastic Fest, I caught René Manzor’s Deadly Games (1989) – aka Game Over, aka 36.15 code Père Noël – earlier this year and all my wildest Christmas horror dreams came true. Thomas (Alain Lalanne) is a wee Rambo-in-training/technology guru who must evade an unstable Santa Claus (Patrick Floersheim) inside his family’s mansion. Thomas spreads on facial camouflage, sets multiple traps à la Home Alone (which came *after*), and evokes adolescent adventure inside massive rooms filled by with his mother’s department store take-homes (toybox goodies from French retailer Printemps). Not to mention how Floersheim’s desire to “play” sets an uncomfortable tone that balances playground hide-and-seek with assumed death.
There’s no current North American release as of yet, but I could see Deadly Games ending up on Shudder (better decades late than never). It’s also touring Alamo Drafthouses and arthouse theaters alike, so keep an eye out. Impossibly fun, loaded with trickster turns, and everything that screams genre entertainment through a holiday lens.
The Day of the Beast
When you have a chance to plug Álex de la Iglesia, you plug Álex de la Iglesia. In this case, his cult Christmas horror tale The Day of the Beast. It’s the end of the world as we know it, unless three unlikely “wise” men can prevent a religious apocalypse. The priest who must sin every chance he gets, the record store metalhead obsessed with black hymns, and the Italian celebrity occultist. Much like Iglesia’s future films, El Día De La Bestia is a blend of morbid humor and genre manipulations such as satanic goat forms. Bonus points for deconstructing Christmas’ religious background in the process.
Dead End
An open-road psychological horror film that traps Ray Wise and Lin Shaye on a time-loop stretch of unending backwoods highway? Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa write/direct this sensationally underrated masterclass in character acting from two veterans who chew Christmas frustrations like succulent chunks of roast beast. Dead End is far more intriguing than its brief premise. Tensions, paranoia, and insanity fog car windows as souls are claimed one by one. Excuse my brevity, but it’s better knowing less about this one – trust the process of Shaye and Wise here.
Blood Beat
Fabrice A. Zaphiratos’ Blood Beat is quintessential 80s after-dark absurdity from start to finish. “A woman who lives in deer-hunting country in rural Wisconsin is possessed by the spirit of a Japanese samurai warrior.” THAT’S THE REAL SYNOPSIS. Is it any surprise this was a Vinegar Syndrome re-release? Even better, Zaphiratos delivers a slasher pastiche of bloody deaths and oddly sensual bedroom interludes all during a family’s Christmas getaway. Glowing samurai ghost forms and all. Why do I have to say any more? Blood Beat, beers, and buddies. Crank up your merriest memories this year midnight movie style.
Silent Night, Bloody Night
Theodore Gershuny’s Silent Night, Bloody Night predates Bob Clark’s Black Christmas by two years, but despite noticeable similarities, Clark’s classic never screams copycat outrage. These two deadly lullabies play tremendously well together, both evoking the horrors of home invasions around the holidays. Gershuny goes a more “Hammer Horror” route with his relator’s nightmare, a small-town home with a nasty repeating history. Quite the slow burn, boiled and overheated until sleepy rustic isolation leads to a most disturbing enacting of posed threats that prove themselves true. Not to be confused with Silent Night, Deadly Night, that’s for certain.
La Nuit Du Réveillon (Silent Night, Bloody Night)
Search Amazon Prime for Silent Night, Bloody Night and this French made-for-TV hostage flick appears after Theodore Gershuny’s 70s broiler of the same (translated) name. Don’t be fooled – these titles couldn’t be more different. La Nuit Du Réveillon exposes corporate scumminess and infidelity during an intruder’s impromptu gift-giving game. A dinner amongst friends sabotaged by an armed Santa Claus who dares to reveal everyone’s nastiest secrets. Energy, tension, and an entertaining take on more generic plotted fare make this import worth the stream.
The Children
Who Could Kill A Child? begs the unanswerable question that Tom Shankland’s The Children answers. Movies like Krampus gobble children, but what plays out in this wonderland rage-virus tragedy is one of the season’s most gruesome treats. Sons and daughters smile impishly as they attack their parents. It’s not even enough to ask if you could kill a child – could you kill your *own* child? Unspeakably dark, situationally depraved, and massively f#*ked up on levels that Christmas horror rarely ever reach – this adolescent manipulation on weaponized innocence is anything but child’s play.
Sheitan (Satan)
Admittedly the least Christmassy of the bunch, Kim Chapiron’s Sheitan runs on the enigmatic, xenophobic, backwoods-devil-worshipping power of Vincent Cassel. Clubbers end up accompanying potential hookups back to a farmhouse maintained by Cassel’s wackjob, Joseph. Things get predictably odd, thoughts of sexual conquest morph into hopes for survival, and Cassel’s performance deeply discomforts as Christmas Eve passes. Deliciously mad escapism dreadfulness for the holiday season you can only expect from France. Improper, artistic, and stark raving mad.
Silent Night
Why don’t more Christmas horror fans talk about Steven C. Miller’s Silent Night? My gut balked at considering 2012’s loose Silent Night, Deadly Night remake “underrated,” but I’ve recommended it to far more first-time watchers than anticipated. Alongside Black Christmas (2006), it’s one of the few recent larger-budget Xmas slashers that rolls deep into festive kills, rich coats of gore, and psycho Santa depravity (comparatively, of course). That wood chipper kill? The whole sequence, really? Miller knows how to deck the halls in practical goop. Malcolm McDowell, flamethrowers, and a cynically bleak view on Christmas are just added benefits.
A Christmas Horror Story
A Christmas Horror Story crossroads two of my favorite scary subgenres: Christmas horror and anthology collections. William Shatner plays radio DJ “Dangerous” Dan, the film’s wraparound storyteller who narrates the chaos that plagues Bailey Downs each winter. Stories range from schoolyard investigators documenting their trespassers’ investigation, a Christmas tree outing gone wrong, and even – wait for it – zombie elves! Truthfully, this might contain my favorite cinematic ode to Krampus’ style with Rob Archer’s frostbitten horned warrior. Not every segment tracks as well as the anthology’s peak content, but what works does so at the top of Christmas horror lists. Decapitated undead elves, alcohol-soaked Shatner, a Krampus vs. Santa throwdown worth pay-per-view numbers – A Christmas Horror Story is one of my favorite underseen December stocking stuffers.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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