Christmas means a great many things to a great many people. It can be the season for romantic comedies, a beautiful time of togetherness, a capitalist nightmare, a rough time, or it might mean nothing at all. It can also be the perfect time to process any and all of those feelings through the wonderful world of horror.
As with any genre, you have stone-cold, unassailable classics like Gremlins on one end of the spectrum and utter dreck on the other (no need to name names here, but you've probably seen one or two). Since the century flipped from 20th to 21st, there have been a ton of entries in the field of holiday horror, so we're looking at the best of the bunch.
Lists like these usually take the entirety of the subgenre into account, but with so many good flicks coming out in the 21st century, it seems like the perfect time to dust off a classic Christmas carol and use it as a way to talk about recent Christmas creepiness.
Oh, and if you're one of those people who gets worked up about whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie (it is), I'm using a pretty open definition here. Is it set at Christmas? Does Christmas play a major part in the plot? Do we get to see holiday decorations used in a less-than-festive way? If there are more yeses than nos, it's on the list!
12 Bangers Banging
The holidays can be a tricky time filled with complicated feelings and strained relationships. Some folks like to recharge their batteries with musicals while others prefer horror or coming of age stories. Well, how about a movie that has it all, like 2017's Anna and the Apocalypse?!
This high school musical about the zombie apocalypse in a small Scottish town grabs you with banger musical numbers about unrequited love and following your dreams before exploring how teens would deal with the undead. The film mixes quality zombie gore gags with heartfelt moments and even some truly funny moments — like when the kids are trying to figure out which celebrities might have been turned.
Director John McPhail deserves extra presents for managing all of these different elements and offering viewers excellent examples of each genre at play. It's like a fruit cake with all kinds of stuff mixed in, but, you know, tasty.
An 11-Year-Old Adventuring
The U.S. might excel at creating holiday horrors, but clearly the rest of the world has plenty to offer in that field. The incredible Rare Exports hails from Finland where director Jalmari Helander drew from his homeland to craft a coming of age story about a young boy who begins to realize that the nearby corporate mining operation released a mysterious man that looks an awful lot like Santa Claus. What starts out as every kid's dream turns into a nightmare as he comes to realize what's really going on.
With similar vibes to 80s Kids In Peril movies like The Gate and Death Valley, Rare Exports treats the holidays, horror, natural beauty, and coming-of-age themes as ornaments to decorate a tree that must be seen.
10 Elves A-ttacking
The world is jam-packed with interesting myths and legends. In Norway, there's an entire universe of creatures with various abilities, likes and dislikes. The 2023 film There's Something In The Barn shines a light on the barn elf, though these particular imps have a Mogwai's hatred of luminescence. A U.S. family learns all this after relocating to the chilly nation and running afoul of the moody creatures living on their property.
If you can get past some wobbly American accents and Martin Starr playing the corniest dad this side of Father Knows Best, then there's plenty of good fun to be had here as the family fights back against the elves ... who are kind of like drunken murder Minions. For a while, the flick seemed like it might be a fun all-ages experience, but there are copious F-bombs and some of the scenes later on get pretty bloody. All that considered, Barn is an odd movie for an indeterminate audience, but like an ugly sweater, it has its charms.
9 Ladies Lasting
The 2019 version of Black Christmas from director Sophia Takal took a lot of flack for two major reasons, one could be considered relatively reasonable while the other is just the opposite. First, it's not really a remake. Sure, it features sorority women being hunted down around the holidays and a few nods to the Bob Clark original from 1974, but this is very much its own thing and maybe should have been titled as such.
The other knock was that it's too “woke.” Horror has always been a genre that allows artists to work through their feelings about real world events by way of monsters, murder, mayhem and the macabre. Black Christmas is not a subtle attack on misogyny, rape culture and gender dynamics. Takal puts all of that right on front street, which makes some folks uncomfortable or angry. It's also about surviving trauma in both the past and present as these young women find themselves targeted by mysterious forces on campus. Lead by a stellar Imogen Poots performance, the film is also a solid slasher that does shy away from some of the gorier bits, but that was a purposeful choice made in an attempt to get as many eyes on the film in theaters as possible.
8 Satans A-Startling
Have you ever seen that episode of Twilight Zone called "The Howling Man" where a guy stumbles across a captured man in an old castle that may or may not be Satan? Well, if that idea has always captured your imagination, then check out Josh Lobo's 2019 film I Trapped The Devil. In it, Matt (A.J. Bowen) and his wife Karene (Susan Burke) travel to the remote cabin inhabited by his brother Steve (Scott Poythress) because they're concerned for his well-being.
Things are far more dire than they could ever imagine, though, as Steve tries to convince them that he has confined a being of pure evil responsible for all the world's ills in the basement. Absolutely drenched in Christmas lights throughout most of its runtime, I Trapped The Devil might have a small cast, but everyone brings their gifts to the party, offering deeply compelling and complex characters struggling not only with their pasts, but with a scenario that offers two very scary prospects: either Steve has lost his tether on reality…or he's right.
7 Santas A-Slaying
Recently we've been gifted two very different killer Santa movies. There was the rampaging robot Santa flick Christmas Bloody Christmas, which unfortunately featured one of the worst lead characters of all time, hence it only getting name checked here. And then there was the delightful Violent Night from director Tommy Wirkola.
While less of a horror movie and more of a blood-drenched action film with David Harbour's Santa in the lead, this flick finds our hero trying to save a girl trapped in a house with mercenaries trying to get information from her war-profiteering family. Even with the over-the-top performances, gore and characters played by the likes of Beverly D'Angelo and John Leguizamo, Violent Night will also leave you feeling the holiday spirit in a way that might surprise you.
6 Creatures A-Stirring
Anthologies can be tricky regardless of the season with different segments hitting at different levels, but Rebekah and Dave McKendry offer a knockout with 2018's All The Creatures Were Stirring. Featuring a small army of notable horror actors including JocelinDonahue, Katie Parker, Brea Grant and Graham Skipper, this film is built around a Christmas Eve blind date at a black box theater where the off-kilter performances on stage transform into the quick hit stories.
From there we're treated to a Secret Santa from hell, a parking lot encounter with life-changing consequences, roadkill's revenge, a Christmas Eve party with problems from beyond, and a brilliant twist to make the framing sequence just as compelling as the rest of the film. Altogether, Creatures offers a smorgasbord of holiday delights.
5 Sinister Saints
This will come as no surprise, but Dick Maas, the man who brought us the killer elevator movie Lift, went all-out in making his dastardly Saint Nicholas — or Sinterklaas — film Sint (or Saint or Saint Nick). The 2010 Dutch film posits a world in which ol' Nick was less a saint and more of a warlord who was killed, along with his gang, by fire. When a full moon hits on his special day, Dec. 5, the killer klaas wreaks havoc. Luckily a hapless college student and an alcoholic cop whose family was killed by Sinterklaas are on the case!
While many of the other films on this list explore the more subtle and dramatic moments of the holidays through the lens of horror, this one's a big, wild gonzo adventure story — and it's also a ton of fun. However, it does include a bunch of people in black face early on as that is related to the Black Peter mythological figure, so take that into account when planning your viewing this season.
4 Brawling Brits
I really don't want to say too much about director Johnny Kevorkian's 2018 feature Await Further Instructions because it features a stocking-full of surprises. So, here are the important details: a young British man heads home for Christmas with his girlfriend, though he's absolutely dreading the visit. Things are already tense as his racist family does not fully welcome her, so the young couple plan to ditch out only to find the entire house covered by a seemingly impenetrable metal covering.
The already-strained family dynamics get magnified by about a billion as the captives receive increasingly dangerous and deranged orders through the television. The characters in this movie will likely frustrate and sicken you, but it's an incredibly well-developed family drama that explores how much strain familial bonds can take before they snap like ribbon candy.
3 Killer Clowns
This is what I love about horror. One subgenre can include deeply emotional films that make me rethink my life and also the bloodiest, craziest movie I've ever seen. That's where Damien Leone's Terrifier 3 comes in. The continuing misadventures of Art The Clown take place on Christmas and digs — maybe gouges — more deeply into the murderous maniac and his relationship to Lauren LaVera's Sienna while also offering up some of the goriest scenes ever committed to cinema.
Word got around during early screenings that people walked out of the opening scene, which features Art dressed as Santa dispatching a family with an axe. It's probably for the best that those folks got out of there before the part where Art ripped a guy's face off and it was the second craziest thing in the scene. This one's for Christmas-loving gorehounds only!
2 Gruesome Guests
For many, the holidays are about opening their homes to friends and family in hopes of spreading some cheer and love that will last throughout the year. In the 2020 British film Hosts from writer-directors Adam Leader and Richard Oakes, a well-meaning family with their own problems invite their younger neighbors over for Christmas dinner.
Unfortunately, something is very wrong with the visitors as they turn the festivities into a brutal night of terror. As the family members struggle to survive, deep truths come out that may hurt worse than their grim injuries. Hosts might be a smaller movie that does delve into psychological terror, but it does not shy away from shocking violence as well.
And A Krampus On A Chimney
I really hope you've enjoyed this list and added a few films to your to-watch list this year. By now, you've probably figured out that, when it comes to Christmas horror movies, I'm a big fan of playing with family drama, holiday conventions and, of course, gore. For me, no movie has done that better than Mike Dougherty's Krampus. This 2015 classic not only boasts a stellar cast — Toni Collette, Adam Scott, Allison Tolman, David Koechner and more — but is also the rare holiday horror film that starts off feeling like an excellent family comedy in the vein of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation before morphing into a Gremlins-esque horror film that can bring new fans into the genre.
The film focuses on an extended family holiday visit that no one's too thrilled about. When the youngest boy of the group loses his faith in Christmas, the now-ubiquitous force of Krampus shows up to wreak havoc with enough creepy creatures to pull the most horrible of sleighs. You'll never look at tree angels or Jack in the boxes the same way after watching this film — which you absolutely should do!
Honorable Mentions
We are truly living in an impressive age when it comes to these kinds of movies. A Christmas Horror Story is another solid anthology with wraparounds featuring William Shatner! 2007's Wind Chill is an interesting film starring Emily Blunt and built around a holiday vacation ride-share, but the story isn't overly Christmas-y.
Red Snow looks at what happens when a vampire romance writer stumbles upon an actual bloodsucker. The tone's kinda wonky and it doesn't go as hard as you might want, but it's worth a watch. And then you have It's A Wonderful Knife which has some interesting moments and a great look, but might be too referential for its own good.
And finally, Better Watch Out digs into some important issues and features some incredibly disturbing performances. There's a turn in this holiday home invasion flick that stuns, setting up the rest of an excellent, but likely triggering second half.
Regardless of how (or if) you celebrate, I hope there are some flicks in this list that will add some fun, drama or freakiness to the end of your year.
