Five twisted Christmas horror movies to see before you die
As the old song goes, ‘It’s the most wonderful time of the year!’ Even Andy Williams can’t stop bloodthirsty directors, though, as the genre of Christmas horror has turned the season of goodwill and cheer into one of terror and death.
The truth about Christmas-themed scary movies is that most of them are terrible. They’re mostly cheap, uninspired attempts to cash in on the holiday with little more thought put into them beyond ‘What if Santa, but evil?’ However, there are some exceptions to this rule.
These five festive frighteners are all good horror movies that just so happen to be set at Christmas. They make use of their seasonal themes really well without ever scrimping on scares. Gremlins very nearly made this list, but seeing as how everybody already knows that one, and it isn’t really a horror, it will have to serve as an honourable mention instead. Sorry, Gizmo.
The truth is Christmas is a holiday so deeply entrenched in the sickly sweet nature of humanity that sometimes it’s worthwhile taking a peek at the darkest part of our subconscious, too. A deep dive into those murky waters, more often than not, provides a welcome respite from the jolly red man.
Five horror movies perfect for Christmas:
Black Christmas (Bob Clark, 1974)
The original Christmas slasher and still one of the best, Bob Clark’s Black Christmas was a game-changer. It takes a group of sorority girls and puts them in the crosshairs of a mysterious killer, who stalks them down the phone before picking them off one by one. If this sounds like a familiar premise, it’s basically the beginning of Scream but for an entire movie.
Though not the first slasher movie, Black Christmas did have an influence on the titans of the genre that were to follow, like John Carpenter’s Halloween. Michael Myers bears more than a passing resemblance to the killer in this movie, and Carpenter even consulted Clark on how to make a film about a silent, psychotic fiend. The Christmas season is used to great effect here, as Clark balances the joy associated with the time of year with the horrors of the murders and places his characters into typically festive scenes like parties and carol services. Though it did spawn a series of remakes, one in 2006 and one in 2019, the original is the only one worth unwrapping from under the tree.
Krampus (Michael Dougherty, 2015)
In mountainous regions of Central Europe, Krampus is a holiday figure who serves as the opposite of Santa Claus. A hideous horned beast, he punishes naughty children at Christmas time, often by beating them with birch rods. Naturally, somebody got a hold of this idea and turned it into a movie. Several movies, in fact, but the most famous is a black comedy from 2015 directed by Trick ‘r Treat’s Michael Dougherty.
In this film, which stars Toni Collete, Adam Scott, and Gideon Emery as the voice of the creature, a family must put aside their differences and battle Krampus in the build-up to Christmas. It was a sleeper hit at the box office, outdrawing Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur in some markets, and helped bring the myth to a wider audience. There are better creature features out there, and not everything about it works – it could be a lot scarier if we’re being honest – Krampus is still really fun and doesn’t fall into the same traps as other Christmas-themed comedy horrors like the abysmal Santa’s Slay. The prequel graphic novel, Krampus: Shadow of Saint Nicholas, is also a good time.
Better Watch Out (Chris Peckover, 2016)
From Australian director Chris Peckover comes Better Watch Out, a movie you should absolutely not watch if you want to get any sleep at all on Christmas Eve. Olivia DeJonge, who would go on to portray Priscilla Presley in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, stars as Ashley, a young girl babysitting 12-year-old Luke (A Wrinkle in Time’s Levi Miller) during the holidays. When somebody throws a brick through their window, warning them not to leave the house, it becomes clear that everybody is in grave danger.
Better Watch Out takes all the scariest parts of a home invasion story and magnifies them through the safety one should feel during Christmas. Its young protagonists are supposed to be looking forward to a day of celebration but instead find themselves fighting for their lives against an unknown enemy. DeJonge and Miller give great performances for actors so young, and there is a shocking twist midway through that completely reframes the entire movie. This narrative swerve elevates Better Watch Out beyond your average teen horror and puts its audience on the edge of their seats throughout. It will confront you with some really disturbing ideas – not very Christmassy, but highly affecting.
Inside (Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, 2007)
Also known as À l’intérieur, French slasher Inside is the directorial debut of filmmaking partners Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, who would go on to make the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie Leatherface. But please, don’t hold that against them. Alysson Paradis plays Sarah, a pregnant widow on the verge of giving birth. When a mysterious and unnamed woman (Béatrice Dalle) appears at her door on Christmas Eve, the arrival of her baby becomes the last thing on Sarah’s mind.
Inside is wickedly twisted and intense from start to finish. Paradis plays a mentally bruised Sarah brilliantly, her situation almost acting as a manifestation of the stress and grief brought upon by the recent death of her husband. As for Dalle, she brings a banal terror to the ‘La Femme’. There’s nothing explicitly dangerous about her, but she is utterly chilling every time she appears on screen. Parallels between the birth of Jesus and Sarah’s unborn baby also put a new spin on the nativity tale. Maury and Bustillo’s genius is only made clearer by the English-language remake of Inside from 2016, in which they were not involved. That version has none of the subtlety of the original and suffers greatly for it.
The Day of the Beast (Álex de la Iglesia, 1995)
El día de la bestia, to use its original name, is a Spanish movie from prolific horror director Álex de la Iglesia. It stars Álex Angulo (who viewers may recognise as the doctor from Pan’s Labyrinth) as a priest who goes on a sinning spree. He teams up with a devil-worshipping fan of heavy metal music (Santiago Segura) and reveals the reasoning behind his unusual actions; he is trying to stop the birth of an antichrist currently scheduled for Christmas Eve.
Described as a ‘satanic comedy’, The Day of the Beast is completely wild. Throwing all religious convention to the wind, scenes of a priest and Satanist teaming up to run around Madrid and fight goat men will have you scratching your head and laughing uproariously. Not Christmassy in the modern sense, the film draws on the original religious meanings of the festival, which is a refreshing change of pace in a genre oversaturated by elves, plastic trees, and endless amounts of shopping. An utterly nutty experience that catapulted de la Iglesia to new career heights, The Day of the Beast is an absolute riot and fun for the whole family. Alright, maybe not the whole family. Just the ones over 18. And without heart conditions.
