The 5 Best And 5 Worst Christmas Horror Movies

Christmas is a time of comfort and joy, a time for decoration and presents and hot cocoa by the tree. If you're in the right mood, though, it's also a time for killer Santas, demonic elves, murderous prowlers and other seasonal frights. Christmas is so ubiquitous in modern pop culture, and Christmas movies of all types are so prevalent, that the Christmas horror film has become a beloved and reliable subgenre all its own. There's something about juxtaposing the bright lights and jingle bells with a little murder and mayhem that makes both the festive and the frightening more fun, and the horror element means that even people who don't necessarily enjoy the holiday can get in on the action. As with all Christmas films, though, not all holiday horror movies are created equal — they range from legitimate classics to boring slogs to movies that are so ridiculous they have to be seen to be believed. So, to jumpstart your annual Christmas marathon, here are some of the best and worst seasonal scary movies.

Black Christmas is a film beloved by both horror movie and Christmas movie fans, and its plot is both very adaptable and conveniently relevant no matter what decade you choose to set the film in, so it shouldn't necessarily be a surprise that a remake ultimately arrived. Styled as Black X-mas, the 2006 second incarnation of this story attempted to flesh out exactly who and what was committing the brutal Christmas murders at the sorority house, and while the answer to that mystery is satisfyingly bizarre, it does pull time away from the victims and their stories. The result is a film that can't live up to its predecessor, and attempts to distinguish itself from the original film largely through increasingly disgusting murder sequences which culminate in the reveal of the killer. The film is commendable for its effort to grow the mythology of the story and to truly take its murders over the top, but Black X-Mas is mostly a reminder that you could be watching a better version of this terrifying holiday tale.

Silent Night, Deadly Night is a Christmas slasher camp classic with arguably the best poster the holiday horror subgenre has ever produced. Its sequel is, sadly, a surprisingly dull exercise in retreading the first film and giving very little reason to celebrate the arrival of a new killer Santa. The story of Ricky Caldwell, younger brother of the original film's killer Santa Billy, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 spends a massive chunk of its runtime on Ricky recounting his family story to a psychiatrist. That means there are a lot of flashbacks, and flashbacks mean a whole lot of footage from the first movie is simply reused. By the time the film actually does get around to new killer Santa shenanigans, you could have very easily just turned it off and started watching the first one all over again. Christmas movies of any kind, but particularly Christmas horror movies, can often succeed simply by not being boring. This Santa slayer sequel ends up on the naughty list because it takes far too long to get even half as interesting as its predecessor.

Jack Frost is not, by traditional standards, a good movie. It's the story of a serial killer whose DNA merges with snow after the truck taking him to be executed crashes into some strange genetic research material. As a result, his consciousness and his urge to kill takes the form of a sentient, shapeshifting snowman who terrorizes a small town through visual effects that weren't even great by 1997 standards. Throw in an often ridiculous plot and campy performances and you've got a film that was critically panned upon its release. Jack Frost has stuck around for the last two decades, though, because all that low-budget absurdity also brought with it a kind of absurd joy. The film may be blissfully unaware that it's bad, or it may be blissfully self-aware of its badness, but to the viewer it doesn't matter. In the years since its release Jack Frost has developed a loyal cult of viewers who've made it a part of their holiday viewing traditions, because bad movie or not, you're unlikely to find another bathroom murder this bizarre.

Santa's Slay might be a bad movie, but it falls gleefully into the category of films that truly embrace a campy and outright bonkers premise, and that means it's very hard to watch it and not have a good time. Famously starring professional wrestler Bill Goldberg in the title role, the film goes all-in on its murderous Santa premise, delivering not just an evil man dressed as Saint Nick, but the genuine article given a murderous overhaul. Santa's sleigh is pulled by hell deer, he murders just about everyone in a seasonally appropriate way, and just to make sure we get the point, the film even delivers a villainous origin story for Father Christmas. He's not just a Santa gone mad, but a Santa born bad, and that kind of effort takes the film into truly buck wild territory. Plus, if you stick around after the credits, you get to hear Goldberg — as Santa — use his signature wrestling catchphrase.

We've got so many killer Santa movies at this point that it's only logical we'd get at least one about murderous elves at Christmastime, but Elves strays far from the Santa's helpers formula into something much stranger. Most of the horror unfolds at a department store, where a group of teenagers and a down-on-his-luck ex-cop turned shopping center Santa (Dan Haggerty) are spending the night. It turns out they aren't alone, because a strange elf creature is also roaming around this holiday season. That could have been enough to kickstart a horror movie, but Elves gets so much stranger that it has to be seen to be believed. It's not a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but it falls into the "so bad (and so bonkers) it's good" category simply because of far it's willing to go. What does a monstrous elf at Christmas have to do with a secret Nazi occult plot? Watch this weird holiday horror movie to find out.