Yuletide Terror: A Blood-Drenched Sleigh Ride through the Christmas Horror Classics
Image credit: Joe Daly
In the twisted, tinsel-tangled world of Christmas, there exists a shadow realm where cheery jingle bells mix with blood-curdling screams and the soft glow of holiday lights shines a flickering strobe on scenes of abject terror. As the holiday revelers don their gaudy sweaters and slurp tumblers full of cheap eggnog in a blissful haze, the true connoisseurs of the season know that this is the prime time for slasher flicks. It's a season where the crackling fireside becomes a backdrop for blood splatter patterns and jump scares, where each snowflake falls with the icy doom of a swinging axe. And so, for your merriment and delight, please enjoy this yuletide descent into winter madness with the ten best Christmas horror films:
10. Krampus (2015)
This film has yet to bask in the abundant love that it richly deserves. Old World charm meets a violent paranormal entity, leading to pant-shitting terror. A jaded modern family, drowning in whirlpools of nasty bickering and withering sarcasm, unwittingly summon the ancient shadow of Saint Nicholas. Enter Krampus, a horned, hellish beast, bringing not gifts but his spine-snapping wrath for those who have lost their Christmas spirit. This film is more than just a horror flick; it’s a full-throttle sleigh ride into the depths of hell, where monstrous elves and possessed toys turn the holiday into a shriek-inducing bloodbath. The family's fight for survival ratchets up the suspense until every gingerbread cookie and twinkling ornament morphs into a harbinger of impending death. Krampus doesn’t just jingle bells; it rattles the bones of Christmas, serving up a buffet of creepy vignettes with a side of dark humor and reminding us that holiday cheer has a shadow, and it's got horns, hooves and an appetite for destruction.
9. Black Christmas (1974)
The OG of Christmas horror flicks. Black Christmas depicts a sorority house under siege during this most joyful of seasons. As winter's icy grip tightens, so does the nerve-scraping levels of panic, with each sorority sister shuffling from her mortal coil at the remorseless hands of an unseen, murderous stalker. This pioneering slasher-fest is a masterful blend of jaunty holiday scenery and moments of terror so intense that not keeping a heart-reviving shot of adrenaline nearby borders on irresponsible. Each creak of the floorboards, each rustle of tinsel, amplifies the increasing terror. It's a story where the jolly figure of Santa is replaced by an unrelenting malevolent force, turning every holiday trope into a straight-up death trap. Black Christmas carved its name in the frosty windows of horror history, crafting a nightmarish holiday tale where the only thing decking the halls are the bodies.
8. Gremlins (1984)
A vasty-underrated Christmas film where CGI cuties meet surging chaos in a spectacular fireball of fur and fangs. Too heartwarming for this list? Nah! This dearly-beloved Spielberg classic kicks off with an innocent gift — a lovable creature named Gizmo, bound by three bizarre rules: no water, no food after midnight and no bright light. So, because we’re not complete ding dongs, we know what’s coming. Cue the mayhem. Gizmo spawns a legion of gremlins, mischievous monsters that turn a sleepy town into a carnival of catastrophes. These cackling hellspawn rampage over all vestiges of the Christmas spirit, blazing through an anarchistic winter wonderland where the snowmen have teeth and the Christmas tree fights back. Sure, it’s ultimately a feel-good kids movie but Gremlins earns massive props for its incalculable contributions to the War on Christmas.
7. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)
Finns are the world’s most committed metalheads, so it’s hardly a surprise that they’d be pretty handy with horror movies as well. Venture deep into the icy heart of the Finnish tundra with this electrifying indie tale of ancient secrets that claw their way from the depths of rhe frozen terrain. This is the polar opposite (see what I did there) of the stereotypical quaint Santa tale; it's a depraved, frostbitten journey into the darkest depths of the Christmas myth. In this eerie narrative, a group of fearless locals stumble upon an excavation site, unearthing what appears to be the original Santa Claus. But hold your reindeer – this Santa turns out to be a terrifying evil entity — a relic of pagan times — with a sinister agenda. The local children start to vanish and the chilling truth unfolds: this Santa preys on the naughty. As the villagers brace themselves, a young boy and his father face this monstrous legend head-on. Rare Exports is the perfect companion for winding down after that soul-sucking holiday party where you’ve been trapped in a corner listening to some guy talking about his start-up all night.
6. A Christmas Horror Story (2015)
This joyful holiday bloodbath goes down in Bailey Downs, a town haunted by a pulverizing tragedy one year previous. Playing out as an anthology, with its myriad plots spliced together into a singular montage of death, it features a pack of doomed teens delving into a ghostly school, while our friend Krampus, the nightmarish anti-Santa, unleashes his trademark reign of terror. Amidst this chaos, a cop confronts his son's eerie transformation and Santa, in a glorious and thoroughly over-the-top twist, battles zombified elves at the North Pole. Narrated by the whiskey-voiced DJ Dangerous Dan, this film interweaves its occult tales with a manic energy. It's a jack-in-the-box of horror - jarring, bizarre and wildly entertaining for those who enjoy their terror fed to them like water from a firehose.
5. Better Watch Out (2016)
You love to see it — a Christmas classic that turns the cozy, snow-covered suburbs into an ultraviolent battleground of the mind. A seemingly innocent babysitting gig on a silent, holy night unfurls into a harrowing chess game of deceit and terror. Young Luke, harboring a dark, obsessive crush, engineers a home invasion to impress his babysitter, Ashley. But holy Yukon Cornelius, the night unravels into a bloody siege of shocking twists and cunning ploys. No demure holiday classics plinked out on an old timey piano; this is a symphony of psychological warfare, where each moment is wrapped in layers of tension and paranoia and every reveal unleashes an explosion of adrenaline. Sleep on this at your peril. Better Watch Out is a masterful mix of horror and dark humor, a holiday classic that gleefully unwraps the madness beneath the mistletoe.
4. Christmas Evil (1980)
Look, if life were fair, this would be number one but the passage of time has rendered this a bit dated, though still hellaciously enjoyable. But don’t let the wardrobes and lack of Terrifier-level effects detract from the majesty of this enduring monument to 80s horror. This is the saga of a toy factory worker, his mind marinating in Yuletide obsession, who dons the Santa suit not to deliver joy, but to judge the naughty and the nice in a brutal and thoroughly deranged fashion. As he prowls the snowy streets in a van as his sleigh, he's both a giver of toys and an agent of death, depending on his whims. Straight from the jump, Christmas Evil unveils a deep dive into a fractured mind, where Christmas isn't just a holiday, but an all-consuming mania. Each scene is a twisted jingle of psychosis, turning every carol into a whisper of insanity and transforming the festive season into a bizarre tapestry of terror, delusion and death. Demented and remorseless, Christmas Evil is a gleeful voyage into holiday hell that should not be missed, if only for its epic ending.
3. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas is a gothic waltz through a bizarro winter wonderland. It’s a love letter to the macabre, a place where Halloween and Christmas collide in a sublime ballet. Jack Skellington’s quest is a fever dream of fantastical frights and delights, a hallucinogenic voyage into a phantasmagoric realm that darkens even the brightest of holiday fare. Here, in the town of Halloween, Skellington, the Pumpkin King, grows weary of his morbid routine. Enthralled by the alien wonders of Christmas Town, Jack plots to usurp Santa’s role, spiriting away the jolly old elf and decreeing a ghoulish takeover of the yuletide season. His well-intended folly unleashes a menagerie of Halloween horrors onto the unsuspecting world of Christmas. This stop-motion masterpiece is a delirious blend of fright and festivity, a fever dream where skeletal hands deck the halls and every carol is a ghastly cry from the netherworld.
2. Silent Night, Zombie Night (2009)
Gear up for a cannibalistic holiday apocalypse in this supremely-fun bit of holiday escapism, where Christmas carols are drowned out by the groans of the undead. This isn't just a zombie outbreak; it's a cheerless catastrophe, unfolding on once-peaceful streets now teeming with flesh-hungry killers. The film throws you into the epicenter of chaos, following two cops, Frank and Nash, as their world turns into a winter wasteland of the walking dead. Joyously mining all of the great cop buddy tropes, the guys navigate the unfolding nightmare, battling not just zombies but the decay of humanity itself. It’s a gruesome holiday spectacle that delivers all of the OTT gore and splatter that any good girl or boy would hope to find in their stocking on Christmas morning.
1. The Children (2008)
Why don’t more people talk about this? Sitting at number one, The Children is a slow-burning fuse leading to an explosion of holiday horror. This film is a masterclass in suspense, with a creeping dread that builds like a blizzard. Amid scenes of a picturesque winter getaway, a family reunion embodies all of the cozy trappings of Christmas. But beneath the surface of this idyllic gathering, a heart-stopping and thoroughly horrifying malaise festers. The children, sweet cherubs of yesteryear, morph into ruthless and otherwordly conduits of carnage. The adults find themselves in a blood-drenched struggle for survival, not just against the fiendish and fatal machinations of their own offspring, but also battling the disintegration of their familial bonds and sanity. As the holiday cheer curdles into terror, The Children masterfully weaves a tapestry of psychological horror, where each jingle bell echoes like a death knell in this harrowing Christmas nightmare.