Three holiday horror movies that will give you the cold chills
- Carla Davis
- Dec 10
- 5 min read
Updated: Dec 11
Holiday horror movies are the best, aren't they? Halloween-themed horror just makes sense, but Christmas themed horror is something special. Cold weather just lends itself to goosebump-inducing movies, which are perfect to watch while snuggled up in a nice, warm blanket (with the fireplace going unless you live in Florida as I do).
There are a lot of Christmas-themed horror movies out there, but I have done the heavy lifting for you by picking my favorites. Let’s dive right in!
Black Christmas (1974) – This is my all-time favorite Christmas horror film, and it doubles as one of the defining horror movies of my life. I saw it when I was about 10 years old, and it’s the first “scary movie” I truly became obsessed with.
Set in a sorority house during the Christmas holiday, Black Christmas introduces us to sorority sisters Jess (Olivia Hussey), Barb (Margot Kidder), Phyl (Andrea Martin), and Clare (Lynn Griffin), along with Mrs. Mac (Marian Waldman), and Jess’s boyfriend Peter (Keir Dullea).
The girls have been receiving obscene phone calls, and on the night of their Christmas party, they get another. Barb, who has had a bit to drink, really goes off on the caller, who then tells her she is going to die tonight. Clare goes upstairs to pack, since she is going home for the holidays, and is suffocated with a plastic bag before being dragged up to the attic and placed in a rocking chair. That’s an image that has stayed with me my entire life: Clare’s lifeless body in the chair, plastic bag still over her head, the chair rocking slightly since the sorority house’s cat Claude jumps in her lap. Brrrrr….
Since most of the girls have left for the holiday, Jess, Barb, and Phil are there alone, and the killer we will know as “Billy” is hiding out in the attic, coming down only to kill.
Black Christmas is intense, genuinely scary, and keeps us guessing as to exactly who Billy is…is it Peter? The acting performances are great, and we truly care about the house’s inhabitants, which is important in a horror film.
Black Christmas has been remade twice, and a fan-made sequel titled It’s Me, Billy was made in 2021. The 2006 reboot was actually really good until the very weird last ten minutes or so, the 2019 remake is so bad that I wish I could un-see it, and the fan film is definitely worth watching (you can watch in on YouTube).
Black Christmas can be seen on Shudder, and other streaming apps.
Christmas Evil – Poor little Harry is scarred for life when he catches Santa (actually his Dad in a Santa suit) fooling around with his mom. More than 30 years later, he is working at the Jolly Dreams toy factory, and obsessed with ol’ St. Nick. He keeps his apartment decked out in holiday décor, and keeps an eye on the kids in the neighborhood to see if they are naughty or nice, even writing down their good and bad deeds in a notebook. Kinda creepy, right?
Harry’s co-workers bully him regularly, and one asks him to cover one of his shifts so he can be with his family. That’s a lie, though, as Harry discovers when he spots the guy at a bar while on his way home from work. This is where poor Harry’s mental health starts to go on a downhill slide. Things only get worse when the owner of the toy factory announces at the company party that he will donate toys to the children’s hospital – but only if the workers increase their productivity and give their own money towards the donations.
That’s when Harry really loses his shit. He steals toys to fill up bags, and leaves them on the doorsteps of the good boys and girls, while leaving bags of dirt for the ones on the naughty list. He dons a Santa suit and glues a white beard to his face, truly believing that he is Santa.
When a group of bullies leaving church start to taunt him, he reacts in a violent way, killing them. And those aren’t the only bodies that will drop on this holly jolly Christmas!
In the hands of a less appealing actor, Harry would just be seen as a straight-up bad guy. But Brandon Maggart makes us actually feel for Harry. After all, he is only killing people who truly deserve to be on the naughty list.
Christmas Evil has a really spectacular ending that has to be seen to be believed.
Christmas Evil can be seen on Tubi.
A Christmas Horror Story – This one is an anthology film, weaving together four different tales that eventually intersect. These are not the typical warm and fuzzy Christmas stories, though – they are instead dark and chilling.
The thread that runs through the stories is a disc jockey named Dangerous Dan, who is stuck at his radio station during Christmas. The Christmas music he plays is regularly interrupted by news reports involving a disturbance of some sort at the local shopping mall. Dangerous Dan is portrayed by William Shatner, so you know you are in for a good time.
The first tale sees three teens breaking into their school, which was the scene of a double murder the year before (and a convent many years earlier). Somehow, Dylan, Molly, and Ben wind up locking themselves in the basement, where they are haunted (and possessed) by the ghost of a teenage girl. The ending is quite brutal, which sets the tone for the other stories.
In story number two, a couple take their son Will into the wintry woods to chop down a Christmas tree, and Will wanders off. His frantic parents do end up finding him huddled up inside a hollow tree, but their joy is short-lived when he starts acting not himself. Is he a changeling, as the owner of the woods insists?
Story three involves a bickering family paying a holiday visit to rich Aunt Edda, who introduces them to the story of Krampus. Thanks to son Duncan’s bad decision to break a Krampus figurine at Edda’s house, the family’s trip back home is interrupted by Krampus himself.
The final tale involves a very buff Santa Claus, whose elves have turned into rage zombies. He kills off the elves (and Mrs. Claus) in assorted gory ways, before facing off with Mr. Krampus himself. Watch for a very nice, clever twist in this one.
A Christmas Horror Story is available to stream on Shudder and AMC+.
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