UNHINGED|| The Ultimate Guide to Holiday Horror

By Fused Film Staff • December 20, 2009 • 1 Comment

When the Christmas spirit is filling everyone at Macy’s on 34^th Street, I think of nothing other than severed limbs and gouged out eyeballs.  Yes, I am a Scrooge.

What better holiday is there than Halloween?  Christmas and New Year’s just pale in comparison.  So what should we do when our favorite day of the year has passed and we have nothing else to look forward to?  Well, we just have to turn these winter holidays in a Halloween reborn.  The best way to bring back Halloween is to find Christmas-themed horror movies!  Thankfully for us, there are plenty to be had.  What follows is a guide to movies (good and bad) that will make your holiday season just a little bit bloodier.

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)
Nothing gets me into the holiday spirit like a killer in a Santa suit.  Okay, so this movie is not the best in the batch, but it’s a damn good time.  This makes a good starter to a holiday horror movie marathon.  It won’t beat out the best, but it won’t bore you either.

Gremlins (1984)
Once you’ve begun your blood feast, you might want to take a minute to step back and laugh.  A blast from my generation’s lost childhood past can be found in Gremlins.  Little alien creatures turn up in a town and start to terrorize its residents.  No other movie made me so worried about what would happen to me if I ate after midnight.  No other movie made me afraid to take a shower.  Gremlins developed the only alien creature that I ever wanted to pet.  And hey, if someone gave me Gizmo as a pet, I would love him just like a child.

Terror Train (1980)
Okay, so maybe this movie is actually a pile of poo, but it’s a fun one to watch.  Jamie Lee Curtis plays a nice college girl who participated in a prank that leads to a train ride of murder during a New Year’s Eve party.  Things to look forward to in this flick are the varied costumes of the killer and as much time as possible with Jamie Lee.  She’s worth spending an evening with on any old holiday.

Inside (2007)
Okay, okay, I know this isn’t holiday horror in the way the rest of these flicks are, but come on, it’s gorgeous.  A young woman spends the night alone in her home before she is to go into the hospital (on Christmas) to have her labor induced.  But she doesn’t remain alone.  Another woman arrives at her home and wants the baby that’s inside her.  This is the first film in about fifteen years that has actually scared the pee out of me.  How long has it been since you sat in front of the television shouting, “Oh no!  They’re not going to—.  Oh shit, they are!  Oh God!”?  While Christmas is not the focus of this amazingly realistic French gorefest, the timeline of it gives you the perfect excuse to watch this beauty of a film on the oh-so-happiest day of the year.

Black Christmas (1974)
If you only watch one movie this holiday season, you need to make sure it’s this one.  A strange man climbs into a sorority house and stalks and kills the sorority sisters in between uber-creepy phone calls to the girls to freak them out.  Black Christmas has it all: slutty sorority girls, drunken old maids, a troublesome cat, and Margot Kidder.  That’s right.  I said it.  Margot Kidder.  Everyone needs a little Margot Kidder on Christmas—especially an asthmatic, alcoholic Margot Kidder giving booze to little kids after they sit on Santa’s lap. I have to admit that it took me until about two years ago to see this movie, and I have to say Bob Clark’s film is a masterpiece of 70s horror that actually chills the spine more than the weather outside.  (Disclaimer: There is a remake of this film, and unless you want to see a filmmaker destroy something beautiful, you should be sure to keep it off your list of films for the holiday season.  The killer is yellow, man.  Doesn’t that say enough?)

So this is a pre-designed holiday season in horror viewing that will manage to turn “the most wonderful time of the year” into the gore-filled extravaganza it should be.  Sit down, push play, and get ready to be scared into the holiday spirit.  These are films designed to carry you through to the next year.  Enjoy ‘em.

Read more from Fused Film Staff >>

Be the first to like.

like this post?

(unlike)