Editorials
5 Holiday Horror Movies Featuring Killer Elves [12 Days of Creepmas]
Why does Santa get to have all the killer fun? On the 5th day of Creepmas, we’re saluting Santa’s greatest helper, but with a horror twist. These four movies, and one TV series, highlight how the not-so-human holiday fixture sometimes prefers to spread holiday fear to a lethal degree. There’s something magical about pint-sized supernatural creatures, even more so when they get the spotlight over Old St. Nick. Appearances are deceiving; these elves mean murder.
The 12 Days of Creepmas continues on Bloody Disgusting, this time with 5 killer elves!
Keep track of the 12 Days of Creepmas here.
Elves (1989)
This goofy ‘80s creature feature follows a Demonic Christmas elf summoned during an Anti-Christmas pagan ritual, unwittingly. Throw in a Nazi plot where they wish to create a mixed race of Aryans and evil Christmas elves, and you have one of the strangest horror movies ever. It’s not exactly a good movie, but it’s so baffling in plot that it’s hard to be bored. The evil elf is one mean little demon, as evidenced by the little monster piercing a sleazy store Santa’s sack. Yes, that one.
A Christmas Horror Story
This horror anthology set on Christmas Eve connects five seasonally themed tales of terror via a radio DJ (William Shatner). High school students investigating a holiday suicide, a son behaving strangely after the family obtains their Christmas tree, another family being terrorized by Krampus, and a wraparound that sees Santa Claus attempting to fend off rabid, zombie elves that are threatening to overrun the North Pole. Not only does this engaging wraparound link all of the segments, but there’s a surprising twist to this story that changes everything you thought you knew about these monstrous elves.
Elves (2021)
This short, six-episode binge-watch is the equivalent of a Marvel movie in terms of length. It sees a family journey to a remote island for their Christmas holiday, at which point they immediately break all the rules and run afoul of the locals. When the teen daughter steals and befriends an injured baby elf, it causes a power shift that puts everyone’s lives in danger. An easy, breezy holiday horror watch that favors dark fairy tale origins.
There’s Something in the Barn
Director Magnus Martens delivers holiday gateway horror that pits an unwitting American family against an army of pissed off elves. It follows an American family who fulfills their dream of returning to their roots after inheriting a remote cabin in the mountains of Norway. There’s just one caveat: there’s an old elf that lives in their barn and, Gremlins-style, requires specific rules to be followed. Naturally, only the youngest believes in elves, resulting in an accidental grudge match that sparks a violent, bloody bid for survival. The horror-comedy puts an emphasis on the comedy, with a splash of holiday cheer for good measure.
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
A holiday horror story that hearkens back to Santa’s darker roots, this Finnish 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. Filthy elves galore, reindeer, gingerbread, and one monstrous version of Santa bring the yuletide fun and chaos. Rare Exports puts precedence on the elves when it comes to Santa’s reign of terror; the mythical patron of Christmas is relegated to looming threat while his naked helpers do the dirty work of rounding up naughty children. If you’re looking for a charming holiday horror movie that goes big on holiday motifs and iconography, albeit in a twisted way, this pick is for you.
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.
You must be logged in to post a comment.