It might seem a little alien now, given the unending capitalist positivity of modern Christmas, but the yuletide season was historically a spooky time of year for the Northern hemisphere—filled with ghosts, demons, and scary stories told by the fireside. Which means it’s perfectly festive to watch a horror film or five, if you like.
This history makes sense if you think about it; Christmas is just days away from the shortest, coldest day of the year, a time our ancestors associated with death and the fear that this time the sun really might not come back, plunging us all into an icy, hungry apocalypse. There’s a reason Charles Dickens filled his A Christmas Carol with ghosts, after all: telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve was a well-established tradition by the Victorian era, and one my friends and I have been trying to bring back since college, even if we were gathered around a Skype call instead of a fireplace.
Here are 10 of the best Christmas horror movies to help you indulge in some festive terror during the long dark this year. Hope to see you on the other side.
A Christmas Carol (1938)
I blame the Muppets for the fact that no one thinks of A Christmas Carol as a horror movie anymore, but you can’t have a Christmas horror film list without including at least one version of it. I think the original, 1938 version is probably actually the scariest (peep that Ghost of Christmas future), so make sure you give it a watch in the run up to the big day this year.
Krampus the Christmas Devil
No not that Krampus movie. This is another, lower budget one. In Krampus the Christmas Devil we watch a cop realize the man who abducted him in childhood was actually Krampus, and that the demon is back, going after naughty children in his town. When his daughter’s behavior puts her in the Krampus’s crosshairs, it becomes a race against time to stop the monster before he gets his claws on her.
A Christmas Horror Story
A Christmas Horror Story is a classic horror anthology film, Christmas style. It features four interconnected stories woven together by a DJ’s Christmas broadcast, in which he warns his listeners about the strange events going on in their small town. With teenagers breaking into a haunted school, that used to be a convent where nuns abused pregnant teenagers, Krampus stalking a family through the woods, a grove of pines used for Christmas trees that’s full of evil fairies, and zombie elves attacking Santa, there’s a lot going on here.
Gremlins
Another movie you can’t have a Christmas horror list without, Gremlins is cute, hilarious, and scary—and manages to combine a critique of Western capitalism on screen with a hyper capitalist marketing campaign centered around toys and merchandise featuring the movie’s adorable little monsters. When Billy is given a cute and fuzzy little Mogwai—Cantonese for “demon”—by his father for Christmas, he can’t ensure everyone around him follows the rules for safe Mogwai keeping, spawning a pack of wicked little monsters who menace the town.
The Children
A Christmas holiday from hell sees the pre-teen children of an extended family group infected with a strange virus that turns them malicious and homicidal. While the parents and teenage daughter fight back, they’re picked off one by one by the little monsters, leading to a heartbreaking decision and an ending left open to interpretation. I’m led to believe this is a great metaphor for the experience of actually having small children at Christmas, so it may be either cathartic or upsetting, depending on whether or not you’re a parent; though be warned, there is also pet death in it (I’ve never seen a horror movie where the death of a pet made it better, but ymmv, I guess? There’s got to be a reason they keep doing it).
A Creepshow Holiday Special: Shapeshifters Anonymous
Kind of a spiritual successor to the Tales of the Crypt Christmas episode (not a film, but you should also watch that one), A Creepshow Holiday Special: Shapeshifters Anonymous features a shape shifter support group, an alternative biblical history, and a bunch of were-creatures doing battle against an evil Santa. It’s great, even if it was, as I suspect, inspired entirely by the obvious Santa Claws pun.
Silent Night, Deadly Night
The original Santa slasher, Silent Night, Deadly Night was deeply controversial and actually banned for a bit because it portrayed historical Catholic orphanages as the houses of horror they actually were, and we all know criticizing hegemonic power goes over badly with the people who benefit from it. Silent Night, Deadly Night is a classic slasher with a festive twist; with a killer fixated on and dressed up as Santa Claus, it’s the kind of movie you watch with some drinks and a group of friends for the shared experience rather than for any kind of artistry. Still, it’s enjoyable, and sometimes that’s exactly what you want.
Black Christmas (2019)
All three versions of Black Christmas are worth watching in their own way, but the 2019 remake is the best of them. A sorority slasher that interrogates rape culture on campuses and toxic masculinity, Sophia Takal’s film features a clever supernatural plotline involving secret societies and frat houses, and has a deeply satisfying, vengeful, and cathartic ending. I absolutely love this version of Black Christmas. Special shout out to the toxic masculinity spreading black goo for just being a weird, awesome thing to have included.
A Ghost Story for Christmas
A Ghost Story for Christmas is actually a series of short television films the BBC put out for several Christmases in a row back in the ‘70s, and then revived with some modern additions in 2021. I’ve included the whole series as one entry because otherwise we’d just have a whole list made up of them and that seems unhelpful. Most of these atmospheric, spooky pieces are adapted from M. R. James stories—and, as he was king of the Christmas ghost story (inviting selected guests to his annual Christmas Eve story telling every year), that feels particularly appropriate for capturing the true spirit of Christmas horror.
Anna and the Apocalypse
My absolute favorite, Anna and the Apocalypse is a musical coming of age story set during the beginning of a zombie outbreak at a Scottish school just before Christmas—and if that’s not one of the best things you’ve ever heard, I can’t help you. It won’t scare you, but it will utterly emotionally devastate you, and isn’t dealing with your own feelings the one true horror we’re all putting off going to therapy to avoid? Bonus points for the scene in which the teens fight zombies with giant, decorative candy canes. It looks exactly as satisfying to bash a zombie with one as you’ve always imagined.
(featured image: Loew’s Inc / Warner Bros. / TriStar Pictures / Universal Pictures)
