It\u2019s Christmas! Do you know what grim, gory holiday-themed movie you\u2019re going to watch after you finish ripping through your presents? Horror streamer Shudder has an excellent selection, so it\u2019s our annual go-to when deciding on frights to fill those long, cold winter nights.<\/p>\n
io9 did a variation on this list a few years ago, which you can read here<\/a>. There\u2019s some overlap in the list below\u2014especially among the classics\u2014but there\u2019s no genre that lends itself more to watching every year than seasonal favorites<\/a>, particularly ones that mix candy canes and twinkling lights with a high body count<\/a>.<\/p>\n Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) and Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 (1987) <\/p>\n A reboot of this classic slasher series<\/a> from Mike P. Nelson<\/a> just hit theaters, but no new entry could ever take the place of what came before: a movie about a kid so traumatized by seeing his parents murdered by a crook dressed as Santa that he himself takes up the murderous-Claus mantle once he\u2019s old enough to hoist an axe of his own. The sequel incorporates a laughable amount of flashbacks, but it also has its own catchphrase (\u201cGarbage day!\u201d) to go with the original\u2019s immortal \u201cPunish!\u201d<\/p>\n Black Christmas (1974) <\/p>\n Bob Clark also directed 1983\u2019s A Christmas Story, which has its own demented elements, but far creepier is this proto-slasher<\/a> that helped pave the way for Halloween, Friday the 13th, Scream, and many more. Just before the holiday break, sorority sisters start going missing from a house that\u2019s been receiving obscene phone calls\u2014a premise that barely begins to scratch the surface of a wonderfully disturbing film that more than lives up to its tag line: \u201cIf this movie doesn\u2019t make your skin crawl, it\u2019s on too tight!\u201d<\/p>\n The Advent Calendar (2021) <\/p>\n Mean-spirited in the very best way, this 2021 French-Belgian release took us by surprise when it first arrived on Shudder<\/a>, and it\u2019s one we still look forward to re-watching with the season. A woman whose dance career was cut short by a terrible car accident receives an unusual gift: an antique wooden advent calendar that holds a sinister but tantalizing secret. A clever script and a tense, disorienting atmosphere make The Advent Calendar a truly diabolical holiday treat\u2014the equivalent of a Christmas cookie with its head bitten off.<\/p>\n The Sacrifice Game (2023) <\/p>\n The \u201cboarding school where a couple of kids must hang out over the holidays\u201d trope has been done a lot, no offense, Paul Giamatti. Also, the \u201ccult performing ritualistic murders to raise a demon\u201d trope is nothing new. But who would ever think about putting the two together? The Sacrifice Game did, and the end result is a gruesome and ghoulish (yet still seasonal) yarn<\/a>.<\/p>\n Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022) <\/p>\n An animatronic Santa malfunctions, breaks out of a small-town toy store, and goes on a killing spree. That\u2019s already a fun setup even without the introduction of Christmas Bloody Christmas<\/a>\u2018 unconventional heroine, who\u2019d rather be out drinking at the bar on Christmas Eve but will certainly fight for her life using every badass trick in the book when robot Kris Kringle locks onto her like the Terminator.<\/p>\n The Haunted Season (2024, 2025) <\/p>\n Shudder\u2019s ongoing holiday horror series celebrates the tradition of telling scary stories at Christmas<\/a>, though the short films themselves aren\u2019t actually Christmas-themed. They are chilling, though, and this year\u2019s entry, The Occupant of the Room<\/a>, directed by series creator Kier-La Janisse, does take place in late December. Last year\u2019s, Sean Hogan\u2019s To Fire You Come at Last, just might make you think twice about walking home in the dark after the festivities are over.<\/p>\n Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Christmas! 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