So Halloween has come and gone and now a lot of people are gearing up for the final holiday of the year, almost giving the impression that some people would rather skip right over Thanksgiving and go right to Christmas. But in the meantime we’re bound to see more than just the happy, kind of sappy Christmas movies we’re used to and might actually get to enjoy the Christmas horror movies that seem to fly in the face of the joy of the holiday season. Seriously, horror isn’t really what a lot of people think about when they think about Christmas, unless you count the horror of going out on Black Friday and trying to fight the mob for that one last present that’s on your list. It’s a bit surprising that a horror movie hasn’t been made on that subject yet, especially since it would be easy for a lot of people to relate to.
Anyway, here are the five best Christmas horror movies that people tend to enjoy.
5. Silent Night, Deadly Night
According to Jason Bailey of Vulture the TV spot for this movie actually caused a great deal of concern not so much because of the mayhem it represented during the holiday season, but because it had the audacity to come on the air during a Green Bay Packer game. I mean come on, the NERVE. There’s likely more to this story than that, but the whole idea of someone having such a severely traumatic experience and then having to relive even a piece of it seems like a giant red flag that no one in the movie knew about until it was too late. Billy, who should have likely stayed as far away from anything Santa-related, was just ticking Yuletide-time bomb.
4. Black Christmas
What’s funny about this movie is that the newest version shows the sorority girls getting tough and ready to deal with the male aggressor that’s targeting them one by one and it’s supposed to be empowering. Fair enough, but it’s been done before since even back in the 70s the girls decided to finally stand up and do something about it since no one else seemed to be. The current era seems to like to invoke the idea that women are finally standing up for themselves in movies, but for some reason doesn’t stop to realize that there were pioneers that there doing this long before some of those that are taking a stand were even born.
3. The Nightmare Before Christmas
Tim Burton must have some weird nightmares, but that’s why his movies tends to be so great since they produce such great results. You might not want to call this movie a horror but it at least needs to be filed under the category even if it’s in its own section such as ‘family horror’ which sounds kind of odd. But honestly and truly two holidays that never seem destined to coincide, or didn’t until this movie, are Halloween and Christmas. They’re as close to being polar opposites as possible, but somehow they worked so beautifully together in this movie that it was hard not to be impressed. Easter and Halloween, that might not have worked.
2. Gremlins
Sure, bring home a pet for your kid that you know nothing about. What could go wrong, right? Shaking your head at this idea and this movie is pretty easy since it was a succession of bad ideas that continued to roll along even when it was obvious that Gizmo should have stayed where he was. But what came next, after getting him wet, was just the beginning. To think that pretty much any creature that comes out of Gizmo is going to be evil makes one wonder what it would take to produce an actual ‘good’ Mogwai when getting Gizmo wet. Is that even possible? So far the jury’s out and won’t be decided until someone takes an interest in finding out. Jennifer M. Wood of Mental Floss has shared a few facts about this movie you might not have known.
1. Krampus
The dark shadow of Santa Claus has had a few movies made in his name, one even that seems to be a showdown between this demon and jolly old Saint Nick. This movie however is all about punishment since the ending, spoilers, is about what you might expect in a realistic world where humans are ill-equipped to deal with anything that sits outside of their known scope. Of course when a deranged gingerbread man, a demonic jack in the box, and various other toys start trying to cause trouble, it’s time to remind them that Christmas is the time for hope and miracles, no matter how unlikely they are to happen when the deck is this stacked.
Christmas and horror don’t normally go together when you ask the average person, but given how many movies we’ve seen that would argue with this it seems that people tend to enjoy it all the same.
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