As great as the standard holiday classics are, after the 100th viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life, you might find yourself craving a different take on the holiday season. Rather than holiday cheer, horror movies twist the images we all grew up with in a delightfully sinister way. Seeing our childhood Christmas icons reach increasingly darker depths stirs up some of our most deep-seated emotions, which is what makes these holiday horror flicks so fun. Here are some instant inductees into the alternative canon of Christmas films.

5. Silent Night, Deadly Night

You might have missed the lecture in psychology class about how watching your parents get murdered by a man in a Santa Claus suit will inevitably lead you to a lifelong love of donning Santa suits and going on murder sprees. Or, maybe that class never happened. For the sake of Silent Night, Deadly Night, suspend your disbelief and watch little Billy grow up emotionally scarred by the specter of Santa and an evil, abusive Mother Superior. As he forges his bloody path through life, he devises a surprising number of Christmas-inspired ways to off his victims and end their holiday cheer. And, for whatever it’s worth, it was famously derided by Siskel and Ebert.

4. Black Christmas

Black Christmas combines university co-eds, an oversized, mostly empty sorority house and a psychopath with a telephone to craft an atmosphere of mounting terror. After a series of obscene phone calls, the sorority sisters begin getting picked off one by one. The phone calls continue to worry the women, but they don’t even realize just how close the killer is. The phone calls are scary enough, but the Christmas songs playing in the background at the same time create a blood-chilling contrast. Director Bob Clark (who also, incidentally, went on to direct A Christmas Story) puts us in the uncomfortable position of seeing through the killer’s eyes by shooting many of his scenes from first person point of view, a trick many later horror films would use.

3. Gremlins

This 1984 classic invites you to imagine a truly unique Christmas present that could potentially destroy your town and kill half of its residents. That is exactly the present Billy Preston gets from his father: a cute, furry animal called a mogwai. Unfortunately, he doesn’t pay attention to the strict rules regarding water and food, not knowing that failure to do so would spawn the gremlins. The gremlins attack Billy with saw blades, a crossbow, a chainsaw and basically anything they can get their little green hands on. In fact, by the time Billy is facing down the barrel of a gun, even he has probably forgotten how many brushes with death he has had in this single day. And in case you’ve already seen this one a thousand times, check out the Manhattan-based sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, which is notable for a Hulk Hogan cameo and for boost enrollment in ADT Security around New York City.

2. Jack Frost

It took a while for this 1997 film to attract a following. At first glance, the barely B-movie effects and dialogue make for a good laugh rather than an authentically frightening experience. But Jack Frost goes right ahead with its outlandish plot about a serial killer who transforms into a snowman. Also, look for the scene with antifreeze and oatmeal. Don’t ask. It has to be seen to be believed. Despite these ridiculous plot points and a bargain-basement budget, fans have taken to the movie, making it a new cult classic.

1. Santa’s Slay

In Santa’s Slay, our evil Santa Claus doesn’t waste time getting to the slaughtering. In fact, Santa dispatches a table full of people with considerable panache in the first scene alone. From this point on, viewers realize that this Santa doesn’t need a contorted backstory. He is pure evil. He rides a sleigh and swears liberally. He’s into strippers. He quips playfully after killing people. Nick, the main character, finds out that Santa is essentially hell spawn, which makes everything much clearer. The rest of the movie takes viewers on a scramble to get Santa the hell out of Hell Township. Former professional wrestler Bill Goldberg’s portrayal of Santa is equally brutal and funny, making this movie strangely rewatchable.

 

We’re moving! It’s been a long week of packing boxes, but we’ve found some movers in Kitchener and are now in our new offices. The hard part is done… now we can spend the next month unpacking!