Editorials
15 Fun Christmas Horror Titles You Can Stream Right Now
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.
“Elevated Horror.” Of all the combinations in the English language, that one is the most insufferable.
It represents almost a decade of scary movies that, for the most part, took themselves too seriously. Horror responds to the moment, so its “why so serious” lean makes sense as we scuttle through the “worst of times” equation of Charles Dickens’ famous opening lines. But there’s still an opening and a need for a lighter approach; one that not only has fun with its audience but takes the piss out of a genre that is seemingly letting its newfound “respectability” go to its head.
Wes Craven believed devotees see horror films to let out their fears one primal scream at a time. At their core, these movies are roller coasters; they bring us as close to the edge as possible before pulling us back into a safety net of reality. The need for a bigger and badder coaster increases during times when the size of that net decreases.
There’s a thrill that comes from imagining being in a foot race with a madman, or outthinking the hordes of zombies on the other side of the door, plus the scavenger humans coming behind them. There’s even a rush that comes from imagining how one might deal with possession to see good triumph over evil in the end. It’s all about building tension and releasing it through catharsis. That cathartic release usually sounds like screams followed by laughter, which signals relief. Genre heavy hitters over the past 10 years offered very little of that respite when the credits rolled. Films like Hereditary, The Witch, Talk to Me, and even Smile (pick one) keep that tension going after the screen fades to black.
Hereditary
As the genre became obsessed with creating trauma metaphors, that lack of release made sense. Anyone with even a small sample size of traumatic experiences knows those emotions don’t magically resolve themselves in an allotted run time. But how much trauma can one take? Especially when there’s a mess going on outside that few of us can escape from. Movies offer that off-ramp, no matter how short.
Everything can’t be, nor should it be, “elevated.” Audiences need thoughtful explorations of life’s ills via monsters as much as they need murdering masked maniacs with kitchen knives. And no, it doesn’t have to go any deeper than that. Sometimes, a knife is just a knife, and it’s still worth our time and respect. As weird as it sounds, that simplicity is comforting not in spite of the trauma but because of it.
The worst of times should manifest more than just anguish. People need to laugh just as much as they need to think seriously about this moment in time. Even the Scream franchise forgot the meta rock upon which it built its church when the latest foray sacrificed the subtle comedy for serious drama. Scary Movie returned at the perfect moment. It provides the necessary laughs, but it’s not a cure-all.
This isn’t a call for Scary Movie imitators but a return to a mainstream landscape where Killer Klowns from Outer Space sat with The Serpent and the Rainbow, nestled neatly with the latest Nightmare on Elm Street, which took nothing away from The Vanishing.
They Live
Even They Live, John Carpenter’s horror sci-fi satire sandwich, kept its tongue firmly in cheek while discussing serious ideas still relevant in 2026. Yes, a film about aliens taking over the world through subliminal messaging only visible through coded sunglasses is, in fact, a tad silly. Carpenter understood that mainstream horror can’t become so self-important that it never looks itself in the mirror and laughs at that inherent silliness.
The thing is, horror historically excels at poking fun at itself. Most of the Scream franchise, The Cabin in the Woods, or The Blackening show adoration without kowtowing. They recognize tropes and trappings but invert them for an audience already in on the joke, but one that also finds solace in said conventions. This keeps the genre on its toes; once something gets parodied, it’s usually time to evolve. That breeds new ideas and fresh filmmakers, which not only strengthen the genre’s collective voice but also amplify it.
Get Out, as “elevated” as some critics want us to believe it is, is a cathartic, populist scary movie that spoke to an untapped audience rather than speaking down to them. Backrooms is one of the biggest horror hits in years, partially because it’s fine-tuned for modern-day teenagers instead of their parents. Movies like these tell everyone the genre is open for business; open for innovation and, yeah, open for new ways in which people can lovingly poke fun at with a wink and a nudge.
Horror needs dread as much as it needs laughter.
Catharsis is just as important as tension, and pulpy populism has the same merit as more high-brow material. Respectability shouldn’t come at the expense of an experience akin to walking through a haunted house. At a time when joy seems in short supply, horror should look to its past to map out its future, and make things just a tad brighter for audiences.
Backrooms
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