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15 Fun Christmas Horror Titles You Can Stream Right Now

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If you’re looking to get into the holiday spirit with festive, Christmas-themed horror, there’s an overwhelming number of holiday horror titles to wade through. To make it easier, we’ve rounded up some of the best holiday horror offerings available to stream right now on Hulu, Shudder, Amazon Prime Video, Tubi, and even Crackle.

Sorry Netflix, you need to step up your game.

Without further ado, here are 15 great holiday horror picks at your fingertips!


Anna and the Apocalypse – Hulu, Amazon Prime Video

A high school-set Christmas musical collides with the zombie comedy in a surprising mashup. What should be a recipe for disaster instead becomes an infectious and affecting holiday coming of age tale that isn’t afraid to go bleak when it needs to. It helps that the cast is so charming and the tunes utterly catchy.


Better Watch Out – Shudder

For those that like their holiday horror full of pitch-black humor and one nasty mean streak, this is for you. A babysitting job in the quiet suburbs turns into a harrowing night for the babysitter when her ward’s house is under siege by intruders. There’s far more than meets the eye in this twist on home invasion horror, and it’s vicious. A bone-chilling villain and one brutal kill that riffs on a family holiday favorite makes this a memorable and crowd-pleasing pick.


Black Christmas – Prime Video, Shudder, Tubi, Vudu

There’s no excuse to miss this holiday staple over the holiday season; it’s available on four different streaming platforms. A precursor and pioneer for the slasher craze that followed a few years later, this atmospheric gem sees a sorority stalked and hunted by a stranger over the Christmas break. While Olivia Hussey’s Jess is a final girl for the ages, Margot Kidder threatens to upstage her at every turn with her performance as lively sorority sister Barb.


The Children – Tubi

An isolated family and friend gathering over Christmas winds up pitting children against parents when a gruesome virus breaks out. Children have a penchant for creepiness in horror, and The Children ranks high among the killer kid subgenre. If you think the holiday setting means tamer kills, you’d be wrong; these children are malicious little killers.


Dead End – Tubi

Ray Wise and Lin Shaye lead in this road trip horror movie set on Christmas Eve. When Ray Wise’s Frank opts to take a scenic route on the long drive over to Frank’s in-laws, things go awry quickly. But never quite how you’d expect. Essentially a small chamber piece, mostly set within the confines of the car, Dead End is an intelligent horror film with a great cast and unpredictable twists. There’s plenty of humor to help alleviate the tension, too.


Deadly Games – Shudder

Thanks to Shudder, a long-hidden gem finally surfaces to become a new holiday favorite. Released in France a year ahead of Home Alone, with a similar setup, the plot follows the resourceful Thomas as he’s left to protect and thwart an unwanted and dangerous home intruder on Christmas Eve. The stakes are far higher and more shocking than anything Kevin McAllister had to overcome.


Maniac Cop 2 – Tubi, Vudu

Yeah, yeah, so Christmas is about as important to the plot as St. Patrick’s Day was to the original, but this sequel is set around the holiday and makes excellent use of the décor and iconography. Plus, it’s just a damn fun sequel worth watching. This time undead Officer Cordell teams up with a serial killer. A lot of peoples’ holidays are ruined in the process.


Night of the Comet – Vudu

Everything about this horror-comedy screams Christmas, from the setting to the décor to a major character dressing up as Santa to surprise our favorite sisters from the Valley. Besides, any excuse to watch our favorite Valley girls take on zombies, mad scientists, and ruthless survivors is a worthy one.


The Nightmare Before Christmas – Disney+

If you’re looking to bring in the little ones on your holiday horror viewings, this is the perfect fit. Tim Burton’s gothic aesthetic unleashes a slew of monsters when the citizens of Halloween Town attempt to take over Christmas. Chaos and mayhem ensue.


P2 – Tubi

This horror-thriller will make you think twice about devoting too much of your life to work. Rachel Nichols’s Angela is a corporate workaholic, the last to leave the office on Christmas Eve. That makes it the perfect time for a psychopath to hold her hostage in the parking garage. This one’s intense, effective, and pretty savage.


Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale – Hulu, Prime Video

A holiday horror story that hearkens back to Santa’s darker roots, this Norwegian fantasy horror follows Pietari, a boy whose belief in Santa is the very thing that will save everyone when an archaeological dig unearths the real thing. Too bad the real thing is the stuff of nightmares.


Sint – Hulu

St. Nicholas is an evil, undead bishop who murders children whenever there’s a full moon on December 5. If it sounds outlandish, well, it’s supposed to be. It’s from Dick Maas, the mind behind Amsterdamned. A rip-roaring raucous time, full of gore and glee. In other words, don’t take this one seriously; it’s the perfect popcorn horror flick for the holidays.


Santa’s Slay – Vudu

Once upon a time, the demon Santa made a bet with an angel and lost. As a result, he was forced to become a benevolent holiday giver of toys and happiness. When the bet runs its course, Santa eagerly returns to his evil ways. Played by Bill Goldberg, Santa gets downright naughty this Christmas. It’s a B-movie romp full of over-the-top humor, and the opening scene aptly sums up the zany horror that follows.


Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 – Shudder, Tubi, Vudu

“It’s garbage day!” You can skip the first one and get straight to its sequel; it spends an inordinately lengthy amount of time recapping the events of Part 1 anyway. The real reason to tune in to this one, of course, is for Ricky Caldwell (Eric Freeman), this film’s killer Santa. Freeman’s performance is camp gold.


Wind Chill – Crackle

When honoring the old holiday tradition of telling ghost stories, Wind Chill is a worthy option. A pair of college students opt to share a ride home for the holidays over Christmas break, but the car breaks down on a deserted stretch of road. They’re haunted and preyed upon by the ghosts of those who have died there. The isolation, weather conditions, and psychological horrors make this ghost story stand out among the usual holiday horror offerings.

Horror journalist, RT Top Critic, and Critics Choice Association member. Has appeared on PBS series' Monstrum, served on the SXSW Midnighter shorts jury, and moderated horror panels for WonderCon, SeriesFest, and Popcorn Frights Film Fest.

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Editorials

Taking a Closer Look at the ‘Christmas Carol’ Ghosts of Ti West’s ‘Ebenezer’

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The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.

Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.

That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.

Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’

The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’

Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’

Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”

And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.

Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.

Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.

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