Ok – that title just seems dirty, but in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working through a number of Christmas horrors, new and old, that I hadn’t seen yet, seeing (to paraphrase Morpheus) “how deep this chimney goes.” The answer would seem to be, “not terribly deep, but really rather weird.” Each time I crossed my fingers and hoped that I was going to discover a hidden classic, something that would really surprise me and become a new favorite, and…well, that didn’t exactly happen. I can’t make any claim that today’s movies represent the greatest heights of the genre – but hey, they’re not the worst either. And each of them, no matter how odd it gets (and often because of how odd it gets), or how little it comes together as a whole, each of them has something that I genuinely appreciated and enjoyed.
So, you could probably call these ‘minor entries’ in the canon of holiday horror – nothing here holds a candle to heavy hitters like Black Christmas (1974), Christmas Evil (1980), or Gremlins (1984), but we’ve all probably already seen those (and if you haven’t, boy are you in for a treat), and so much of the pleasure of really digging into one genre, or sub-genre for that matter, is finding those peculiar little entries that will never win many awards, but do give our life on earth so much more character. They may not be great. They may not always even be good. They may only pay lip service to the holiday or to horror. But they do make things all that more interesting.
Now, I write this knowing that everyone and their brother is publishing rundowns of Christmas horrors these days (‘tis, as they say, the season), but hey, just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it isn’t a good idea – and it’s what I’ve watched recently, so it’s what I can write about. So, let’s get into it, shall we? I’m pretty sure I’m going to spoil most of these, so be forewarned…
Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 3: Better Watch Out (1989)
Honestly, I loved the first half of this odd little picture. It is, in a word, ‘weird,’ and I found myself rather hooked by its peculiarities. We follow Laura, a young woman who was blinded in a car accident and seems to have some degree of psychic powers. A particularly unscrupulous doctor has been subjecting her to experiments wherein he links her consciousness to that of the comatose Ricky, the killer from Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (and brother to Billy, the killer from part 1). He survived getting gunned down at the end of the last flick only to end up in a coma, his Santa hat replaced by the aquarium attached to his head, displaying his murderous brain (he’s also been recast and is played in this installment by genre mainstay Bill Moseley (Chop Top from Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part II).
Probably the first ten minutes of the film is an extended dream sequence in which they enter each other’s minds through a series of sterile, institutional corridors filled with Christmas detritus. After this, Laura begins traveling with her brother and his girlfriend to their grandma for Christmas Eve dinner, all the while having horrific visions of Ricky’s thoughts, dreams, and actions (of course he’s now awake, on a fresh killing spree, and coming for her).
For the first roughly 45 minutes, I was totally engaged. The movie was peculiar, but also really specific and honestly kind of fresh. Psychic stuff, dreams, Bill Moseley with exposed brains, hallucinations, and a solid taste of the holiday as we periodically cut over to Grandma happily preparing her home for the young siblings. I even remember thinking at some point, “wow – this is fun and I really have no idea what’s going to happen – that’s great!”
Yeah – I shouldn’t have thought that. Within minutes of entertaining this assessment, Ricky had killed off granny in advance of Laura and her brother arriving, and once they got to grandma’s empty house, the rest of the film was a totally rote slasher – not terrible or anything, but pretty by the book and not all that inspired. The second 45 minutes were, sadly, a bit of a slog.
But everything leading up to that moment, I really enjoyed, so perhaps you will too…
Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 4: Initiation (1990)
So having seen part 3, I was intrigued to final check out the only remaining entry in this series I hadn’t seen yet. (Part 1 is satisfyingly grisly, Part 2 is campy fun, and Part 5 is a pretty solid little Pinocchio inflected Christmas horror about a killer toymaker). Directed by Brian Yuzna (of Society, Bride of Reanimator, and Return of the Living Dead Part 3, among others), this film maintains a small sense of continuity with the rest of the series, but then goes off in some wild new directions, aided by the goopy, fleshy, trippy physical effect work of special effects artist and frequent Yuzna collaborator, Screaming Mad George.
Christmas is almost an afterthought this time in this story of Kim, a young woman striving for respect and autonomy at the newspaper where she works, as she takes the initiative to investigate a recent case of spontaneous combustion, against the patronizing instructions of her chauvinistic boss. This brings her into contact with a coven of witches who conspire to initiate her into the insectoid, flesh melting mysteries of their Lilith worshiping, patriarchy busting, pagan rites, coinciding roughly with the winter solstice. For some reason, they are assisted in this by Ricky (from the last two movies), now played by Clint Howard (Evilspeak, The Ice Cream Man), with his brains once again covered by bone and flesh, and no suggestion that they ever weren’t.
There is a tiny dose of Christmas as she visits her boyfriend’s family in the days leading up to the holiday, where she explains that she’s Jewish and doesn’t celebrate, resulting in rude comments from his conservative, religious dad. Later, on Christmas Eve, she shows up to kidnap his younger brother (while Ricky garrotes his unpleasant parents with Christmas lights) as she needs to sacrifice a male to complete the ceremony – so there – you’ve got a bit of Christmas stuff.
Otherwise, it’s all vaginal larva insertions, vomiting up giant bugs, having fingers melt together into tentacley appendages, legs fusing together until they form a giant segmented tail, and lots of randomly bursting into flames. It is filled with insect gross out horror (the cult worships Lilith, presented here as the source of “all that crawls”); it is sleazy and sexually exploitative (including, for those who would want to be warned of such things, a carnivalesque, ritualized rape scene); and it is peculiar, unique, intriguing, creative, and disturbing. It won’t be for everyone, but I sure can’t say I’ve seen a movie quite like this before, and that singularity does speak in its favor.
The Advent Calendar (2021)
It’s funny – I feel that this French Christmas horror from a couple years back situates its scares and uncanny dread not so much in the Christmas of it all, though it does circle around an evil Advent Calendar – counting down the days to Christmas, but rather in the idea that German stuff (and the language itself) is just really creepy (as I understand it, the tradition of the Advent calendar originates in Deutschland).
Eva is a former dancer, now paralyzed from the waist down, whose friend comes back from Germany with an antique wooden advent calendar as a birthday present. The thing is a little threatening – for example, its back is inscribed with a warning that “If you get rid of this, I’ll kill you” – but the two women laugh it off with the sense that ‘it’s German – of course it’s threatening!’ It’s already December third, so she opens the first couple of doors to find some candy and a series of instructions – basically, if she starts eating the candy, she has agreed to keep opening doors, following instructions, and eating the candy until the end, no matter what happens. Again and again, the instructions say that if she breaks a rule, “I’ll kill you!” What fun!
At first, the candies seem miraculous, causing lovely things to happen – her father suffering from Alzheimer’s momentarily recognizes her, a cute guy gets interested in her, some jerks mysteriously die, she can temporarily walk; but unsurprisingly, it quickly takes a dark turn as the calendar starts demanding sacrifices in exchange for its varied gifts. Also, this tall, thin, Germanic demon thing sometimes shows up and kills anyone who interferes. In theory, this takes Eva on a fraught moral journey as she must do terrible things to both win her desires and simply to stop the German Box Monster from offing her as well.
First, it must be said that there are some cool, inventive moments along the way (a surprising death by dog is a standout example) and the Teutonic monster is sufficiently creepy. Also, it’s all played straight and it takes its story and characters and emotion seriously.
But while I generally enjoyed watching it play out, I did struggle to get past a certain drama and horror dampening sense of inevitability. After an intriguing first act, when things really start spiraling, it felt as if Eva was just moving from one demand to the next with little sense of internal struggle or choice. Perhaps she was just already committed and going on the ride, but I suspect I should have felt more of a bite of tragedy in what she was being called on to do, or conversely, the vicarious thrill of knowing that what she was being given was so great as to justify the costs. I didn’t feel those things. More I felt that a cool set up and a solid horror conceit just hadn’t quite landed satisfyingly (and along the way there were some logical leaps that stuck a bit in my craw).
But I don’t want to come off too negatively. There are plenty of horror moments that work, and even a bit of intentional comedy that doesn’t derail the weight of the events. And it was a spin on a concept I hadn’t exactly seen before. But again, though it is all about this Christmas item, it never feels like Christmas time, or like a Christmas movie. It’s just a spooky German box that keeps threatening to kill you if you don’t eat its chocolate correctly.
Violent Night (2022)
Ok, first off, it must be said that although I tend to cast a really wide genre net, I have trouble considering this a “horror movie,” but I’ve seen it listed on some Christmas horror lists, I watched it recently for the first time, and I rather liked it, so I’m going to write about it anyway. I hope you’ll grant me that indulgence. In its defense, it is very, very violent (it’s in the name).
Like a love child of Die Hard, Bad Santa, and Miracle on 34th Street, this gory, vulgar, sweet hearted concoction features a group of brutal mercenaries infiltrating a wealthy family’s remote estate on Christmas Eve to hold them all hostage as they empty the sizable vaults. But it just so happens that a down on his luck, drunk and embittered St. Nick, recently abandoned by his reindeer, has been stranded in the house, there to deliver a gift to the one good child there who still believes in him even if he no longer believes in himself.
Fortunately, we learn that before he became the perennial gift giver that he is today, Santa used to be a fierce Viking warrior and, to borrow a turn of phrase, he isn’t locked in with the mercenaries – they are locked in with him. And in a cute turn, when he takes a walkie talkie from one of the kidnappers, it allows him to stay in touch through the night with Trudy – the nice little girl, ala John McLane and Sgt. Powell.
A tremendous number of bad guys get their heads crushed, impaled on things, eviscerated, exploded, decapitated, or in one way or another, torn to pieces. The little girl, who just saw Home Alone for the first time, also manages to off a few baddies herself with DIY traps (with more brutal effect than in the popular Christmas comedy). And, most importantly, along the way, Santa learns his requisite Christmas lesson, gets his groove back, and comes to believe in himself, in the holiday, and in the potential goodness of mankind once more. In a reversal of many a Christmas horror flick, this time, the killer Santa is the good guy.
It is all a fun idea and generally well executed, but I think it rests so clearly on the shoulders of David Harbor (Stranger Things), who is just absolutely perfect for the role. He balances the misery, the irreverent, fed up crudeness, the bloodthirsty rage, and the genuinely affecting, earnest sweetness so well. I can’t imagine the movie without him – it’s a great vehicle for his talents and he manages to lift it above its enjoyable, but potentially either saccharine or overly mean spirited premise, allowing it to be both and neither in a really satisfying way. It’s a really fun, if not exactly great, movie – but I have trouble labeling it horror. But, again, Santa kills like a hundred people in this thing, so let’s agree that justifies its place on the list.
Inside (2007)
Ok, so we’re back to France for another movie that, while it’s set on Christmas Eve, doesn’t feel all that Christmasy – if anything, it’s just that it’s all about birth (which, for religious types, Christmas is as well), and I guess we hear that some characters are having Christmas dinners, but we don’t see anything of the holiday itself. I think this works therefore, more as Christmas counter-programming than Christmas horror per se. But it is, in many ways, a very effective, visceral thriller, with shocking, horrific moments of jaw dropping, cringe inducing ugliness, and, for a while, oodles of tension and suspense. There’s a reason this was grouped among the films knows as “The New French Extremity.”
Months after the death of her husband in a car accident, Sarah is due to have labor induced on December 25th. Everyone around her seems happy about the upcoming birth – her doctor, her mother, her boss, but Sarah seems ambivalent at best. Depressed and alone, she’s facing down a future with a stranger who will forever remind her of who and what she’s lost. And then there’s a knock at the door…
From there, this becomes an intense home invasion nightmare as an unnamed woman works her way into Sarah’s home, relentlessly coming after her, hellbent on cutting her fetus out of her belly with a large pair of scissors, and willing to destroy anyone who potentially stands in her way. And it gets pretty rough – by the end, rivers of blood have been spilled. All of this happens against the backdrop of riots in the Paris suburbs – everyone is so scared of the “violence” enacted by people who are viewed as outsiders (there are strong xenophobic undercurrents), but it is in this quiet neighborhood that a real invasion and violation is taking place.
When it’s working at its best, Inside is breathless and exciting, with extreme moments of mutilation and pain that can really shock if you stay open to them. If you let yourself go on its ride, it can be a real rollercoaster.
But, it must be said (must it? I don’t know, but I’m gonna) that when it’s at its worst, characters make some of the most frustrating “horror character bad decisions” I’ve seen in a while. For example, at one point, a police officer is in the house, trying to help Sarah escape. His partner is dead, and there are plenty of other corpses lying around as well. He makes a cursory examination of the place and determines that the killer has left. Suddenly, the lights go out. Sarah starts screaming (rightfully so) that “she’s still here!” but he decides that rather than get her to safety post haste, he’s going to move her to a bedroom, lay her on a bed with a revolver and go downstairs to find the fuse box. Have I mentioned that he still hasn’t called in the crime scene to dispatch or that he has a guy he’s arrested handcuffed to him the whole time for some reason (handcuffs don’t work in police vehicles or something…)? Anyway, off he goes and then Sarah – who has been under attack, who has seen loved ones die, who has been stabbed and mutilated and terrorized by this crazy woman – who is clearly still in the house – puts the revolver away and lies down to go to sleep. I’m all for willing suspension of disbelief, but this movie is really pushing it to the limit.
So yeah – some aspects didn’t work for me – and tended to break the tension because I just couldn’t believe the choices being made (also – there is waaay too much CGI fetus-cam going on for my liking – probably any CGI fetus-cam at all is too much, and this movie has much more than that). But when I wasn’t being pulled out of it, which was generally when it was just the two women, the movie was, admittedly, kinda great. So overall, it was a bit of a frustrating watch, but I am glad to have seen it. I’ve long heard its praises sung and there is a lot there to value if you can overlook all the other stuff.
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And there we are. “Another year over and a new one just begun” Happy Christmas everybody! If you’ve been watching your way through the collected holiday horrors as I have, I hope you’ve found some good ones. I’ll say that I like it best when they really bring both elements – when they are full of Christmas and are still a full on horror movie. Some, like Inside, can be a satisfying watch if you want something that is nominally set on Christmas but will give you a totally different experience, but I really love when you get those warm holiday vibes, but they are accompanied by a discordant note of something unsettling, something uncanny or threatening – that, for me, is when a Christmas horror lives up to its full potential.
Stay warm and I’ll be back atcha in the new year.