Listicle: Holiday Horror
It’s the most wonderful time of the year – Holiday Horror time. For me, this means Christmas-themed horror specifically, as that’s the holiday I celebrate, but December is home to several holiday festivals and celebrations so Happy Holidays to you all!
This year (2025) Margashirsha month ends for Hindus on the 4th December; December 2025 is then an important month for Hindus – here is a complete list of the festivals and Vrat dates for the month.
Bodhi Day, celebrated by many Buddhists on 08th December;
Hanukkah, the Jewish festival which takes place from the 14th to the 22nd of December;
Summer Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere (celebrated on the 21st December in 2025)
Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere (celebrated on the 22nd December in 2025), both of which are celebrated by many who follow various Pagan traditions;
Advent and the Christmas period, both observed by many Christians just in December up to and including the 25th December, and by others up to and including the 6th January, and by other Christian traditions from mid-November through to January;
Kwanzaa, beginning the 26th December and running to 01st January. #
This year there are no Islamic festivals that fall in December, but that isn’t always the case. Some Muslims do celebrate Christmas both to honour Īsā ibn Maryam عليه السلام (peace be upon him), the penultimate prophet, and to join in with the celebrations of Christmas that dominate secular life in their home countries, like here in the UK.
When it comes to Horror, though, Christmas tends to come out on top in terms of the sheer number of Christmas horror films. This is unsurprising, given that the countries that produce the most films also have a history of celebrating Christmas, and this is a holiday with a lot of baggage for a lot of people, not to mention the dark folklore that often goes with it. In the UK, Christmas is the traditional time for ghost stories around a fire, and so I thought I’d go through some films for the season – just my own list of the serious, and not-so-serious.
My Holiday Horror Lists
First of all, let’s get the serious horror out of the way: this is the list I won’t be watching/rewatching this year, because this year I want some fun. However, if serious horror set around Christmas and New Year is your vibe, let’s go.
Top of the list, I’m talking Calvaire, the Belgium horror film of 2004, directed by Fabrice Du Welz. This film features forced feminisation, bestiality, male rape, and a whole host of other trigger warnings. If you want unrelentingly grim and fucked up serious drama in the Belgium countryside, then this is the bleak, viscerally brutal film for you. Possibly. It’s not one for my personal re-watch pile, but that’s because of its content and my reaction to that content, not because I think it’s a bad film.
If that’s a bit too much for you but you still want serious, there’s The Children, a 2008 horror directed by Tom Shankland. If you can cope with a virus that alters children’s brain chemistry and drives them to brutally murder their caregivers in violent, stomach-churning ways, then give this a watch. The kids are not alright, and, after some of those kills and the way the children played it like a fun game where their adult family members were getting seriously hurt, neither was I.
If you want something from the silent era that’s spooky, Swedish, and brimming with humanistic moralising, then go for Körkarlen/The Phantom Carriage (1921) dir. Victor Sjöström. This is a lovely piece from that era, set on New Year’s Eve (31st December) and full of supernatural folklore and historical importance. This is the film that heavily influenced the celebrated Swedish director Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007).
If you’re after a bit of folkloric body horror with strong Biblical influences and parallels, then Icelandic drama Dýrið / Lamb (2021) dir. Valdimar Jóhannsson is one for the watchlist. This is played completely straight, and set at Christmas time in Iceland – which is never a good thing. Cinematically beautiful (although Iceland’s scenery does most of the heavy lifting for any cinematographer), this is a deeply weird family drama with horror elements. Icelandic Gothic, perhaps.
Le Calendrier/The Advent Calendar (2021) dir. Patrick Ridremont is a story about revenge, dealing with sudden, career-ending disability, and an Advent Calendar that grants wishes at a great cost. Is walking again worth destroying (and ending) other people’s lives? But not just other people – our protagonist Eva also faces consequences as the windows open and she eats the contents. This one isn’t very extreme, but it’s a pretty dark one.
For a snowy Hammer Horror film, and one of the first crop of films that the modern iteration of that label produced, try The Lodge (2019) dirs. Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz. This one goes back to the label’s roots, with psychological drama, cults, unprepared women being fucked over by the poor decisions of terrible men, and religious horror in the mix. These are the directing duo behind the unrelentingly bleak Des Teufels Bad/The Devil’s Bath, by the way.
And that’s enough of that, thanks.
Here’s the much less serious list of Christmas films I am going to be watching/rewatching! I will also be watching some lovely fairy tales, because that’s also my vibe, but that’s a very different list… well… perhaps with some overlap…
Top of the list is the annual rewatch of Krampus (2015) dir. Michael Dougherty. I fully love this one. It’s a good family drama yarn, there are some genuinely funny moments, and I really like the creature designs. I watch this one every year, and I still love it.
Rare Exports (2010) dir. Jalmari Helander is not an annual rewatch, it’s based on whether or not my streaming services are carrying it, and if so, then I will indeed be watching it. I really enjoy this Finnish horror, I really liked the concept and the characters.
Not just a rewatch once a year, but a film I watch multiple times just for fun over Advent (I think I watched it 3 times last year), is Mean One (2022) dir. Steven LaMorte, which is the story of the Grinch turned into an ultra-violent, campy slasher that is so much fun. I really get a kick out of this. Have most reviews on Letterboxd given it half a star? Yes. Is it still one of my favourite Christmas films? Also yes.
It’s A Wonderful Knife (2023) dir. Tyler MacIntyre has its plot holes and faults, but it also has sapphic teens finding love during timey-wimey parallel universe escapades, and, of course, It’s A Wonderful Life references. It’s a fun horror-romance that is a warm-hearted spoof of that black-and-white Christmas classic, and I had a lot of fun with it, so it’s on the rewatch list.
Christmas, Bloody Christmas (2022) dir. Joe Begos is a great slasher that makes me feel feelings, and is essentially Chopping Mall (1986) set at Christmas time. I loved Chopping Mall, and this one is good too. Not just because of the killer Santa android, but because I love the characters as well, and I know not everyone likes the dialogue, but I am always really invested in their relationship dynamic every time I watch it.
A classic, I guess: The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) dir. Henry Selick. I always misremember this as a being a ‘directed by Tim Burton’ film, but he was involved as one of the producers, and wrote the original story that was then rewritten/adapted for this film by Michael McDowell and Caroline Thompson. Selick also directed one of my Halloween favourites, Wendell & Wild (2022), which is a Halloween rewatch for me since it came out.
Not horror, but the Ghost of Christmas Future scared the crap out of me as a kid, so it’s on the list just for that segment: The Muppet’s Christmas Carol (1992) dir. Brian Henson. It’s the best version of this classic ghost story, particularly the original version with ‘The Love is Gone’ song included, and I will not take any questions at this time. Or ever.
Panna a Netvor / Beauty and the Beast (1978) dir. Juraj Herz. Fairy tales are great at any time of year, but this Czech New Wave adaptation is set in the winter, the beast happens to be a bird-headed monster in the forest, and it’s absolutely gorgeous. It’s not exactly set at Christmas, but there’s snow, so I say it counts. It’s my favourite version of the story. I have other favourites, like Fanga/Belle (2023) dir. Max Gold, a live action fantasy-horror set in Iceland where the Beast is an immortal prince, always man-shaped, always hairy, who becomes a rampaging cannibal when the curse condition is triggered. Even if you’re on a budget, you can achieve great things. However, Fanga isn’t set around Christmas time, so while I will probably rewatch it, it’s not on the list as a Christmas Horror.
And there you have it… the serious, and the not-so-serious. I’ll also be rewatching things like Three Wishes for Cinderella (both the original and the remake) and some other family-friendly comfort films too, but that’s my go-to Horror list for when I need something a little darker to offset the sugar and spice.
I’ll be watching a lot of different genres and comfort films as well, and this year I’ll be binging the latest series of Stranger Things, but those are my Holiday Horror films of choice.
Whatever you’re observing and celebrating through December (and even if you’re not), happy watching.
By C. M. Rosens
Insta/TikTok/Threads/Lemon8: @cm.rosens
Bluesky: @cmrosens.com
