With the holidays being a time of comfort and joy, the idea of a Christmas horror movie may not make much sense to some audiences. However, fans of the genre like myself (usually) take comfort and find joy in watching great horror movies set during the otherwise family-friendly season.
In fact, some of the best Christmas movies, in my opinion, are not always the ones where Santa makes it around the world before morning or a family finds happiness by a cozy fireplace but the ones in which red comes at the sight of blood and green is the color your face might turn by the end. These kinds of thrillers are certainly not traditional Christmas movies but for horror fans who have made them a part of their annual traditions, here are some of the best and how to watch them.
Terrifier 3 (2024)
Director: Damien Leone
Starring: David Howard Thornton, Lauren LaVera
What it’s about: Still recovering from a Halloween tragedy years earlier, Sienna Shaw suspects that Art the Clown is alive and out for revenge while spending the holidays with her aunt, uncle, and cousin.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: The third installment of the intensely gory series of creepy clown movies, Terrifier 3, sees Art the Clown commit his most unspeakable acts yet while dressed as Old St. NIck.
How to watch Terrifier 3
I Trapped The Devil (2019)
Director: Josh Lobo
Starring: Scott Poythress, AJ Bowen, Susan Burke
What it’s about: As a holiday surprise, a man and his wife pay a visit to his brother, whom they discover is holding captive a person he believes is the Devil incarnate.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: Bearing similarities to the classic Twilight Zone episode, “The Howling Man,” I Trapped the Devil is a spine-tingling, paranoia-fueled suspense thriller that may call to mind heated arguments you may have had with a family member in past seasonal gatherings.
How to watch I Trapped the Devil
- Stream I Trapped the Devil on AMC+
- Rent or buy I Trapped the Devil on Amazon
- Buy I Trapped the Devil on Blu-ray on Amazon
All The Creatures Were Stirring (2018)
Director: David Ian McKendry, Rebecca McKendry
Starring: Various
What it’s about: A couple on a Christmas Eve date are treated to a collection of bizarre scary stories all involving the holiday.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: All the more mundane aspects of the season are hyperbolized to a frightening and even funny degree in the anthology horror flick, All the Creatures Were Stirring.
How to watch All the Creatures Were Stirring
- Stream All the Creatures Were Stirring on AMC+
- Rent or buy All the Creatures Were Stirring on Amazon
- Buy All the Creatures Were Stirring on Blu-ray on Amazon
It’s A Wonderful Knife (2023)
Director: Tyler MacIntyre
Starring: Jane Widdop, Joel McHale, Justin Long
What it’s about: Reeling from a tragedy that occurred a year earlier, a young woman discovers her self-worth when she is brought to a world where she had never been born.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: Fans of Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life and slasher movies will not want to miss out on It’s a Wonderful Knife, which is also available with a Shudder subscription.
How to watch It’s a Wonderful Knife
- Stream It’s a Wonderful Knife on AMC+
- Rent It’s a Wonderful Knife on Amazon
- Buy It’s a Wonderful Knife on Blu-ray on Amazon
A Christmas Horror Story (2015)
Director: Grant Harvey, Steven Hoban, Brett Sullivan
Starring: William Shatner, George Buza
What it’s about: A radio host entertains his listeners with interwoven creepy tales that each involve the holiday season.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: From a pine tree hiding an evil presence, an attack by Krampus, and Santa at war with infected elves, A Christmas Horror Story is an anthology with everything you could want for a spooky holiday.
How to watch A Christmas Horror Story
- Stream A Christmas Horror Story on AMC+
- Rent or buy A Christmas Horror Story on Amazon
- Buy A Christmas Horror Story on Blu-ray on Amazon
Adult Swim Yule Log (2022)
Director: Casper Kelly
Starring: Megan Hayes, Tordy Clark
What it’s about: A holiday tradition that turns out to be more than it seems.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: Adult Swim Yule Log starts off just as the title suggests, as a continuous shot of a burning fireplace, before evolving into a creepy and cheekily funny story from the director of Too Many Cooks which has a sequel coming to Max on December 6, 2024, called, Adult Swim Yule Log 2: Branchin' Out.
How to watch Adult Swim Yule Log
Inside (2007)
Director: Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury
Starring: Alysson Paradis, Béatrice Dalle
What it’s about: A recently widowed expectant mother is visited on Christmas Eve by a mysterious woman who wants her unborn child all for her own, by any means necessary.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: Inside is one the best (and most brutal) examples of a few different categories: home invasion thrillers, horror movies that explore grief, and films from the mid-2000s French New Extremity movement.
How to watch Inside
Silent Night (2021)
Director: Camille Griffin
Starring: Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Roman Griffin Davis
What it’s about: A well-to-do family goes forward with hosting their annual holiday party with close friends on the eve of a cataclysmic environmental disaster.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: Silent Night is a crazy disaster movie and a deliciously demented satire that elevates the struggle to keep the holidays bright when all hell breaks loose to a literally world-ending degree.
How to watch Silent Night
- Stream Silent Night on Netflix
- Stream Silent Night on AMC+
- Rent or buy Silent Night on Amazon
- Buy Silent Night on Blu-ray on Amazon
Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022)
Director: Joe Begos
Starring: Riley Dandy, Abraham Benrubi
What it’s about: A record store owner’s plans to party on the night before Christmas are interrupted when she becomes the next target of a killer robot Santa.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: As far as I am concerned, the words “killer robot Santa” should be enticing enough to give the technophobic, eye-catchingly neon, old-fashioned slasher Christmas Bloody Christmas a shot.
How to watch Christmas Bloody Christmas
- Stream Christmas Bloody Christmas on AMC+
- Rent or buy Christmas Bloody Christmas on Amazon
- Buy Christmas Bloody Christmas on Blu-ray on Amazon
Await Further Instructions (2018)
Director: Johnny Kevorkian
Starring: Sam Gittins, Neerja Naik
What it’s about: A bickering family discovers on Christmas morning they are trapped by a strange barrier surrounding their home as foreboding messages appear on the TV.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: Sometimes family gatherings during the holidays are not so cheerful and the British sci-fi nail-biter Await Further Instructions exaggerates that very relatable concept to a thoroughly intense degree.
How to watch Await Further Instructions
- Stream Await Further Instructions on Amazon Prime
- Stream Await Further Instructions on Tubi
- Buy Await Further Instructions on Blu-ray on Amazon
ATM (2012)
Director: David Brooks
Starring: Brian Geraghty, Josh Peck, Alice Eve
What it’s about: After making a stop for some cash on their way back from a company Christmas party, three coworkers find themselves trapped inside a vestibule by a stranger whose malicious intentions soon become clear.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: A claustrophobic thriller spliced with a deadly cat-and-mouse game, ATM takes advantage of the winter weather that comes during the holiday season in very horrifying ways.
How to watch ATM
- Stream ATM on AMC+
- Stream ATM on The Roku Channel
- Rent or buy ATM on Amazon
- Buy ATM on Blu-ray on Amazon
Pooka! (2018)
Director: Nacho Vigalondo
Starring: Nyasha Hatendi, Latarsha Rose, Jon Daly
What it’s about: After taking a job as the mascot for a new toy, a struggling actor suspects the furry character is somehow taking over his life.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: The first Christmas-themed installment of Into the Dark – Blumhouse’s Hulu-exclusive horror anthology series of monthly holiday-themed horror features – is Pooka!, which is one of the most unique, unsettling, thought-provoking and, simply, weirdest movies about the holiday.
How to watch Pooka!
Gremlins (1984)
Director: Joe Dante
Starring: Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates
What it’s about: A young man receives a unique, furry creature for Christmas which comes with a set of rules that, once broken, could put his entire town in danger.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: For any squeamish viewers, there is not too much “red,” but plenty of green once the titular monsters from Gremlins emerge to bring holiday fear in the classic creature feature written by future Home Alone director Chris Columbus and produced by Steven Spielberg.
How to watch Gremlins
Krampus (2015)
Director: Michael Dougherty
Starring: Adam Scott, Toni Collette
What it’s about: “Scrooged” visiting relatives cause a young boy to lose his Christmas spirit and accidentally summon an ancient evil with more sinister plans than a lump of coal.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: What Michael Dougherty did for Halloween with 2007’s Trick ‘r Treat, he attempts to do for Christmas by bringing a terrifying German folk tale to life in Krampus.
How to watch Krampus
- Stream Krampus on Max
- Stream Krampus on Peacock
- Rent or buy Krampus on Amazon
- Buy Krampus on Blu-ray on Amazon
Black Christmas (1974)
Director: Bob Clark
Starring: Olivia Hussey, Margot Kidder
What it’s about: Over winter break on their empty college campus, sorority sisters suspect someone can see them when they are sleeping and knows when they are awake but it is certainly not Santa.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: Nearly a decade before Bob Clark released his hilarious, family-friendly masterpiece, A Christmas Story, he arguably gave birth to the modern slasher movie with his first holiday classic, Black Christmas, which has been remade twice but never to the same acclaim.
How to watch Black Christmas
- Stream Black Christmas on Amazon Prime
- Stream Black Christmas on Tubi
- Stream Black Christmas on Peacock
- Buy Black Christmas on Blu-ray on Amazon
Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)
Director: Charles E. Sellier, Jr.
Starring: Robert Brian Wilson, Alex Burton
What it’s about: Years of abuse and recent flashbacks of his parents’ murder drive a teenager recently hired as a department store Santa to go on a murderous rampage.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: Technically, you could say it is Santa who sees people when they are sleeping and knows when they are awake before giving them a particularly gruesome gift in Silent Night, Deadly Night – probably the most beloved cult classic about a killer Kris Kringle, of which there are a surprising amount.
How to watch Silent Night, Deadly Night
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Director: Henry Selick
Starring: Chris Sarandon, Catherine O’Hara
What it’s about: Growing tired of the same spooky celebrations, Jack Skellington comes across a land that treats Christmas as obsessively as his home treats Halloween, inspiring a misguided attempt to incorporate holiday cheer into a town defined by fear.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: Santa (the real one) becomes a kidnapping victim in The Nightmare Before Christmas – an irresistibly creepy and highly inventive stop-motion animated fantasy from producer Tim Burton and composer Danny Elfman.
How to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas
- Stream The Nightmare Before Christmas on Disney+
- Rent or buy The Nightmare Before Christmas on Amazon
- Buy The Nightmare Before Christmas on Blu-ray on Amazon
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)
Director: Jalmari Helander
Starring: Jorma Tommila, Onni Tommila
What it’s about: A boy, his father, and his hunting buddies hold the recently unearthed Santa Claus for ransom from the shady corporation that dug him up, only to become targets of their prisoner’s loyal elves.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: Santa is a victim of kidnapping but also a perpetrator of the same crime in the Finnish thriller Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale – one of the strangest movies that treats its dark twist on holiday themes somewhat in earnest.
How to watch Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
- Stream Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale on Freevee through Amazon
- Stream Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale on Peacock
- Stream Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale on Tubi
- Buy Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale on Blu-ray on Amazon
Anna And The Apocalypse (2017)
Director: John McPhail
Starring: Ella Hunt, Malcolm Cumming
What it’s about: A teen and her friends must fight to survive after Scotland becomes overrun with hordes of the flesh-eating, reanimated corpses of Christmas shoppers and others dressed as festive figures.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: As an inventive mix of uproarious zombie carnage literally splattered against traditional images of the holiday, Anna and the Apocalypse is a great horror-comedy movie (and a great horror comedy musical) for any time of the year.
How to watch Anna and the Apocalypse
- Stream Anna and the Apocalypse on Tubi
- Stream Anna and the Apocalypse on Pluto TV
- Rent or buy Anna and the Apocalypse on Amazon
- Buy Anna and the Apocalypse on Blu-ray on Amazon
Better Watch Out (2016)
Director: Chris Peckover
Starring: Olivia DeJonge, Levi Miller, Ed Oxenbould
What it’s about: A 17-year-old babysitting for her 12-year-old neighbor and his friend on Christmas Eve must become their protector when intruders come stirring.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: If you ever wanted to know how Home Alone might have played out if it pushed for an R rating, it might look something like Better Watch Out – a home invasion thriller with the pulse of a horror movie and the heart of a suburban satire.
How to watch Better Watch Out
- Stream Better Watch Out on Tubi
- Stream Better Watch Out on Peacock
- Rent or buy Better Watch Out on Amazon
- Buy Better Watch Out on Blu-ray on Amazon
P2 (2007)
Director: Franck Khalfoun
Starring: Rachel Nichols, Wes Bentley
What it’s about: A workaholic becomes trapped in her company building’s parking garage by a sadistic security guard one late Christmas Eve night.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: While its only real connection to the holidays is its time setting, P2 is still worth a watch as a surprisingly intense cat-and-mouse game co-written by Alexandre Aja and carried swimmingly by its talented central leads.
How to watch P2
The Wolf Of Snow Hollow (2020)
Director: Jim Cummings
Starring: Jim Cummings, Robert Forster, Riki Lindhome
What it’s about: A series of grisly deaths that all mysteriously occurred under a full moon during the holiday season leads a small-town cop and the rest of his department to question if their perpetrator is a werewolf.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: The Wolf of Snow Hollow boasts a quirky sense of humor amid its suspenseful tone and also sees the late Robert Forster in his final onscreen performance.
How to watch The Wolf of Snow Hollow
- Stream The Wolf of Snow Hollow on Tubi
- Stream The Wolf of Snow Hollow on Pluto TV
- Rent or buy The Wolf of Snow Hollow on Amazon
- Buy The Wolf of Snow Hollow on Blu-ray on Amazon
The Lodge (2020)
Director: Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz
Starring: Riley Keough, Jaeden Martell, Lia McHugh
What it’s about: Having already dreaded the idea of spending Christmas with her fiancé’s kids, a woman begins to suspect that the heavy snowfall is not the only thing keeping them trapped in their remote cabin.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: The Austrian directorial duo behind Goodnight Mommy take that 2015 chiller’s themes of dysfunctional family issues to more unrelentingly tragic levels with their English-language debut, The Lodge.
How to watch The Lodge
Holidays (2015)
Director: Various
Starring: Various
What it’s about: A collection of equally shocking tales that put new meaning to “surviving the holidays.”
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: Scott Stewart directs one creepy Christmas-themed story about a gift from hell in Holidays – a great anthology horror movie that also features a Halloween-set chapter by Kevin Smith and opens with a “hearty” Valentine’s Day bit from Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, to name a few.
How to watch Holidays
Jack Frost (1997)
Director: Michael Cooney
Starring: Scott MacDonald, Christopher Allport
What it’s about: When the vehicle transporting him to death row crashes with a truck hauling genetically engineered liquid nitrogen, a serial killer is resurrected in the form of a snowman and wreaks havoc on a local town of Christmas-obsessed citizens.
Why it's one of the best Christmas Horror Movies: While the plot does bear some similarities to the 1998 family movie with the same title, instead of a heartwarming holiday story, this Jack Frost is one of the most aggressively cheesy horror-comedies ever made.
How to watch Jack Frost
- Stream Jack Frost on Amazon Prime
- Stream Jack Frost on Tubi
- Stream Jack Frost on Peacock
- Buy Jack Frost on Blu-ray on Amazon
For how obscure and unlikely the concept of the Christmas horror movie is, as you can see, there are plenty of movies available to help make sure you have a bloody good holiday season, and the list continues to grow with new and upcoming horror movies like Carnage for Christmas.
