The five best Christmas horror films –

Christmas movies during the Christmas season are certainly a given for many people to maximize the Christmas spirit. It can be anything from Love Actually to Die Hard to A Christmas Carol – anything that adds that little extra to the atmosphere. I’m in that company. Christmas movies are even essential to make the Christmas spirit fly. For myself, Christmas horror movies have also become a constant part of the preparations for the crescendo of December 24th. For the past five years, I’ve taken a Friday or Saturday relatively close to Christmas Eve and picked three Christmas horror movies to watch — a Christmas horror movie marathon, so to speak. I thought I’d present below what my favorites are when it comes to Christmas horror movies. This list isn’t ranked by the five films I consider the best, but by that Christmas feeling I’m looking for.

5. The Evil of Christmas (1980)
A fun slasher from the genre’s golden era, released the same year as classics Friday the 13th and Prom Night. The film, also known as You Better Watch Out, revolves around the character of Harry who, as a young man, witnessed his mother having sex with Santa Claus himself. This childhood trauma, a recurring theme in slasher films, later contributes to Harry becoming a lover of Christmas as an adult. He loves Christmas so much that he even works in a toy factory. Harry just can’t understand how anyone could not love the festive season; in Harry’s world, following all the unwritten laws of Christmas is a given. It gets so far that on Christmas Eve Harry dresses up as Santa Claus and goes on a killing spree. The film contains several mood-boosting elements for yours truly, including a touch of magic at the end of the film. Because everyone knows that Christmas is full of magic, right?

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4. Gremlins (1984)
I was probably 8-9 years old when I first saw Gremlins, so it’s always been a classic for me. A terrifying Christmas film in which you really feel the cold and snow surrounding the small town. In the context of Christmas horror movies, it’s too much comedy to rank higher on this list, because that’s not really what I’m looking for when doing my marathon. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the Christmas feeling, that’s why an honorable fourth place.

3. Rare Exports: A Christmas Story (2010)
A Finnish mischief maker enters the top three. The film takes place high in Finnish Lapland, where American researchers believe they have found Santa Claus buried deep in a mountain. The Santa Claus in this film doesn’t look exactly like the one we see before us, and his helpers are not the cute elves we’re used to, but naked, deadly villains. The freezing landscape of Lapland has me stuck on the couch, but I also curl up as the film hits that Christmas feeling inside my body that I can’t meaningfully define and summarize. Is it because of the snowy landscape, or because Santa Claus is portrayed as evil (which is the opposite of what we are used to) that contributes to this? I really don’t know.

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2. Black Christmas (1974)
Could this be the very first slasher film? Released the same year as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is not a slasher film, Black Christmas has many of the elements of a slasher film. One of the reasons I continue to gently but firmly maintain that Halloween (1978) is the first slasher film is that the killer’s motive in Black Christmas is unknown throughout the film, an approach not typical for the genre. However, I don’t want to get lost in a gender discussion now – that’s for another time! Black Christmas is set during the Christmas season on a campus somewhere in North America and revolves around a group of female students who live together in a large house on campus. Within the walls of the house there is a killer who eliminates women one by one in classic slasher style. My love for the genre, combined with the fact that I saw it on Christmas Eve 15 years ago with my parents, contributes to this Christmas feeling. A snowy and cold campus doesn’t even ruin this feeling.

1. Krampus (2015)
Little did I know that Krampus would become my favorite Christmas horror movie (so far). It has everything: evil gingerbread men, a man-eating Jack-in-the-box, blizzards, sharp-toothed teddy bears and snowmen. They are quite fascinating counterparts, in this case to belief in Santa Claus and, to some extent, also to Jesus/Christianity. Krampus is the last person you want to see on Christmas Eve – talk about a Christmas spoiler. However, the film is the holiday horror that increases my Christmas feeling the most.

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), another slasher film from the genre’s golden age, but it didn’t make the list. Now I’m not entirely sure what films I’ll watch this year, but at the time of writing I’m leaning more towards Krampus, Silent Night, Deadly Night and Don’t Open until Christmas (1984). But that’s still a ways off, so that could change.

Did we miss one of your favorite Christmas horror movies?