The same cold breeze that nips at children’s cheeks till they are rosy while caroling can also send a chill down our spines and freeze our very bones. The wholesome-looking apple often hides a rotten, worm-laced core. Horror fans at xmas1 time have been delighting in this dichotomy since the days of Marley rattling his spectral chains2 or Solokha riding her broom.3
However, xmas horror movies as an established genre have transformed from having core themes of societal-economic horror, to using the aesthetic of xmas for purely fantastical creature feature storytelling. Examples of this are films such as Black Christmas4 (1974) and the banned at the time of its release Silent Night, Deadly Night5 (1984), in comparison to later films such as Jack Frost6 (1997) or Krampus7 (2015).
Of course, you cannot make this statement without allowing that there are outliers on both ends of the timeline that do not fit neatly into these two categories. Still, the sea change is deep enough to be worth discussing. It is also interesting to briefly note that this change happened inversely to that of American society. The majority of American celebrations of the holiday have moved away from it being one of the fantastical belief of a divine being having been birthed into our plane of existence.8 Now it is a largely capitalist socioeconomic event, where even if the religious nature of it is given lip service, it is done through a lens of market consumption, where children are told the amount of value and goodness they hold is in relation to the economic means their guardians have to purchase them gifts.9 This is not a new issue or in fact one that resides mainly within film or horror as a genre. The religious right has for decades bemoaned the “war on xmas” and many forms of media have touted a return or examination to the true meaning of xmas or the “reason for the season.” However, these culture wars do not parallel the progression of the holiday’s representation in film on any sort of perfect one to one scale. If anything, I think that xian fundamentalists fearmongering over things such as Santa Claus, elves, and Krampus (much like jack-o’-lanterns at Halloween) are part of some occult conspiracy to infiltrate their society just serves to give horror yet another boogeyman aesthetic to dangle in front of their fainting sensibilities. A new devil to wrap in a costume and caper through the increasingly murderous sugarplums and gumdrops of each new generation. Perhaps in a case of cultural reverse psychology, the more fundamentalists decried Santa and other secular iconography as the enemy of the seasonal status quo, the more horror creators latched onto it as something to twist to their own horrific ends.
This morphing from a focus on an aesthetic fantasy to a societal-economic one is a cultural funhouse mirror going in the opposite direction of the horror genre’s trajectory. That, however, is not the focus of this essay.
Let us instead lay out two films on either side of the spectrum and timeline and contrast how they approach the genre of a xmas horror film.
On the side of societal-economic horror, we have the films Black Christmas (1974) and Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), and on the other, the aesthetic of the supernatural, we will look at Jack Frost (1997) and Krampus (2015).
Black Christmas10 holds the position of not just being an early xmas horror film, but also one of the films that popularized the genre that became known as slashers. For this essay, we will not delve into the arena of proto slashers like Thirteen Women (1932) and Peeping Tom (1960) or the vastness of early giallos, but instead talk of slashers as they came to be codified in a specific genre and name.
In the film, we see the often-echoed conceit of a person or group of people (here, it is sorority girls) who have chosen, because of economic pressures, to not go home for the holidays. Because of that, they are not under the rosy-pictured protection of the American way and xmas domesticity. The girls, several of whom are seen to still be working their jobs and not caring in the least for the festivities of the holiday, and their alcohol-tippling housemother are shown at length to be purposefully thwarting the expectations of the current patriarchy (obsessive fathers, controlling boyfriends, dismissive cops). The housemother goes as far as to cover up for the girl’s promiscuity to their parents and thusly, along with her own spinsterhood, is included with the girls in the societal norm rejection pattern of the xmas horror’s victim demographic. It’s the same as the trope of anyone who has sex in a slasher film being next on the chopping block. There is a not insignificant hint of the morality play in slasher films, where if the protagonist veers from the established norms of society, they are outside in the cold dark of nonconformity, and that is where death and mayhem lurk.
Silent Night, Deadly Night, on the other hand, proposes the horror of the Other invading the sanctity of xmas and goes as far as to have its protagonist, in a very problematic viewing of mental health, have his psyche shattered from seeing his parents assaulted by a man wearing a Santa costume. As a result, he engages in a killing spree of anyone he thinks would be on Santa’s naughty list. Silent Night, Deadly Night approaches the theme of societal horror from the stance of repercussions for profaning the holy. It defines the horror as the idea that there are forces from the edges of society that want to tear down our established xmas traditions, and anyone caught in their wake will also be infected with their murderous Otherness. The Santa-dressed spree killer is engaging in a perversion of the xmas tradition of Santa going from home to home delivering presents. He is instead robbing people and taking lives and passes this warpedness on to the protagonist. This is further brought into a nightmarish kaleidoscope of differing mores as the film also has a heavy theme of religious discipline at the hands of Catholic nuns. This plays a part in what fractured the protagonist’s psyche into a cycle of becoming an avenging punisher for perceived slights against the holiday. The psychosexual nature of the abuse he suffered while living at a Catholic orphanage entwines with the nun’s repeated use of Christmas gifts as a reward/punishment. Here we don’t see the church decrying the pagan aesthetic of Santa Claus but instead using it as a tool of control. Which is just another layer of iconographic perversion for the filmmaker to use.
Both these films take their horror from a viewpoint of established societal norms of behavior and then show the audience a fever dream slaughter of what could happen if you step outside those lines. Black Christmas with its vision of what happens when economic pressure and gender liberation leads a group of femme-presenting individuals to forsake the call of family togetherness/duties for the holiday and Silent Night, Deadly Night with its unhinged vision of the psychological damage that a violent predator from the outliers of society can wreak when wrapped in the guise of Santa. They are, of course, not alone in this, but to list an exhaustive catalogue of films that follow this pattern and their permutations upon the form would be to sidetrack ourselves from this more focused discussion. I do encourage you to seek them out and watch them, especially in order of cinematic release date, to observe the mutating nature of these themes and elements for yourself as the genre coalesces around its own bloody tinsel and holly-wreathed nucleus.
On the other side of the frost-rimed blade of xmas horror, we have the films Jack Frost and Krampus. These are the result of the genre’s gradual slide from illuminating societal horrors to taking the aesthetics of xmas and using them to tell mainly supernatural monster stories. The filmmakers of these titles are more interested in the ideas of the perversion of iconography and the subversion of intent than their predecessors’ societal worries.
The 1997 film Jack Frost takes the previously wholesome concept of Frosty the Snowman, synonymous with good cheer and xmas spirit, and uses it to instead deliver a bombastic tale of a mutated serial killer who becomes a snowman and unleashes an avalanche of terror and murder. Much of the horror here comes not just from the acts of violence he commits but from the dissonance of a childhood symbol being perverted into mayhem. It is the taboo of using childlike and/or wholesome things for decidedly unwholesome ends.
Then we arrive at Krampus. Here, the subversion is of a purely aesthetic nature. In fact, in many ways, it is a film taking a holiday legend at its face value (the central European legend of Krampus) and running with it to its fullest extent, extrapolating a “if that, then this” scenario of a dark secret truth hidden inside of our cheerier holiday veneer. It takes the iconography of xmas toys and elves and Krampus (the dark reflection of St. Nick) and lays it all out for the viewer to revel in. It doesn’t worry about societal traditions or their trespassing, it instead says, “Here inside the winter wonderland of snow, frosted cookies, and twinkling lights, there be really cool looking dragons, and I am going to show them to you.”
In fact, we can see our central thesis exemplified solely within the confines of Black Christmas (1974) and its 2019 remake.11 The breadth of the evolution of xmas horror to be found within a single franchise and the disparity of vision between these two directors is striking as a microcosm of the larger movement. The 2019 remake takes a story that, as previously mentioned, held its horror in the realm of economic and societal elements and instead inserts a supernatural creature element with the inclusion of an occult black ooze that takes over the minds of the frat boys who are the main antagonists of the film. I would go as far as to say that the use of this supernatural force as the driving element behind the frat boys’ behavior also serves to diminish the few elements of societal horror that had survived from the first film (violence towards women, patriarchal status quo) by giving an excuse or an outside factor to blame for those societal ills.
This addition to the original 1974 text serves us well as a bridge between the two viewpoints on the source of horror in xmas films. It is here that I, the writer of this essay, and you, the reader, must mull over the implications, if any, of this evolution of filmmaking intent. I think it is something as simple as horror loves to play with taboos and subvert perceptions. As both horror filmmakers and the genre itself have matured—and genres and subgenres have been codified and discussed critically—the opportunities the horror filmmaker or writer has to do this have broadened in places and diminished in others. At the same time our illusions of possible societal perfection or what our roles in said society can be have been tarnished irreparably. No longer is the idea of someone eschewing the Rockwellian portrait of American life all that revelatory. We are not going to be shocked over patriarchal violence and gender inequality. Our own daily lives reflect these darkest of before imagined timelines. Instead, the horror filmmaker will more frequently be reaching into the realms of the fantastic, unlimited by societal mirrors, to conjure up a holiday nightmare or holding up previously revered yuletide iconography in a violently blasphemous (or hilariously parodical) nihilist fever dream. But no matter when the film is made or what well the creator is drawing from, the viewer is still encouraged to wonder: What is the true source of the violence? The mind-controlling tar or the equally pitch-black hearts of men? Societal woe or lurking monster? Christmas mistletoe or cyanide kiss? Jack Frost nipping at your nose or your jugular? Maybe just being led to ask that question has been the goal all along. The contemplation of the amorphous quality of evil and terror a pursuit in and of itself. To paraphrase a lyric from The Sound of Music, “how do you catch a [blood-torrenting killer] cloud and pin it down” and why would you want to? The many diverging paths our own haunted mind palaces will lead us down after experiencing these films are far richer and diverse than any quantifiable or labeled and filed away answer.
Or perhaps in the final shuddering breaths of your trip through xmas horror, you will find yourself spitting peppermint-laced blood onto an ornament shard-covered basement killing floor and staring up in mute disbelief at the most horrific question of them all…
Where can I find any of these films streaming?
A Small (and by no means exhaustive) Recommended Watching List:
Scrooge, or, Marley’s Ghost (1901) dir Walter R. Booth
The Night Before Christmas (1913) dir Ladislas Starevich
Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972) dir Theodore Gershuny
Home for the Holidays (1972) dir John Llewellyn Moxey
Black Christmas (1974) dir Bob Clark
To All a Goodnight (1980) dir David Hess
Christmas Evil (1980) dir Lewis Jackson
The Dorm That Dripped Blood (1983) dir Jeffrey Obrow, Stephen Carpenter
Don’t Open Till Christmas (1984) dir Edmund Purdom
Gremlins (1984) dir Joe Dante
Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) dir Charles E. Sellier Jr.
Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987) dir Lee Harry
El Dia De La Bestia (1995) dir Álex de la Iglesia
Jack Frost (1997) dir Michael Cooney
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010) dir Jalmari Helander
Krampus (2015) dir Michael Dougherty
Black Christmas (2019) dir Sophia Takal
Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022) dir Joe Begos
Carnage For Christmas (2024) dir Alice Maio Mackay
1 Throughout this essay I will be using “xmas” in lieu of “christmas” to further distance the discussion from the trappings of religious dogma and avoid any inference of misplaced respect for the name of Christ. See also, “xian” for “christian.”
2 Scrooge, or, Marley’s Ghost (1901) dir Walter R. Booth.
3 The Night Before Christmas (1913) dir Ladislas Starevich.
4 Directed by Bob Clark.
5 Directed by Charles E. Sellier Jr.
6 Directed by Michael Cooney who also directed the 2000 sequel Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman.
7 Directed by Michael Dougherty.
8 One could read into this the thematic element of cosmic horror, but that would just muddy our waters.
9 An admittedly dour and secular viewpoint but the viewpoint of this writer nonetheless. Scroogelike even.
10 Also of note is that Black Christmas shares the same release year with another film, Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), dir Tobe Hooper, that simultaneously became branded into the filmgoing psyche as what makes a film a slasher.
11 Directed by Sophia Takal.
© 2025 Jordan Shiveley
