It’s another holiday season, and while the traditional Hallmark Christmas movie may be on many people’s television, we know that some are looking for something a little bloodier this holiday season. While we offered up our first round-up of holiday horror movies that have Christmas way more embedded in them, like Krampus and Better Watch Out, we wanted to offer more holiday horrors and include some cold ones that really hit the nail on celebrating Christmas in the pandemic head.
While we have some more traditional picks for holiday horror movies like A Creepshow Holiday Special or Black Christmas we also have others that nail being stuck in a small space with no way out in the freezing cold. I mean, what sums up 2020’s holiday season better than being stuck in a house with people you may or may not trust? So, while all of these may not be directly tied to the holidays or Christmas, they do hit that cold winter chill perfectly.
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Cold Skin
Director: Xavier Gens
Writer: Jesús Olmo, Eron Sheean, and Albert Sánchez Piñol (novel)
Stars: Ray Stevenson, David Oakes, Aura Garrido
“A young man arrives at a remote island to take a post of weather observer only to find himself defending the watchtower from deadly creatures which live in the island shores.”
Black Christmas (2006)
Director: Glen Morgan
Writer: Glen Morgan (screenplay), Roy Moore
Stars: Michelle Trachtenberg, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Lacey Chabert
Okay, don’t close this tab just yet. This movie is bad, like really really bad. But it’s also a time capsule for the 2000s that perfectly captures the slashers of the time, the very bad fashion, and the need to make everything extra heinous. I just needed to add a note to before the synopsis to defend terrible horrible no good but also super fun movie.
“On Christmas Eve, an escaped maniac returns to his childhood home, which is now a sorority house, and begins to murder the sorority sisters one by one.”
The Lodge
Director: Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz
Writer: Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz, and Sergio Casci
Stars: Riley Keough, Jaeden Martell, Lia McHugh
“A soon-to-be stepmom is snowed in with her fiancé’s two children at a remote holiday village. Just as relations begin to thaw between the trio, some strange and frightening events take place.”
Watch the movie here.
The Thing
Director: John Carpenter
Writer: Bill Lancaster (screenplay), John W. Campbell Jr. (story)
Stars: Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Keith David
“A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.”
Inside
Director: Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury
Writer: Julien Maury, Alexandre Bustillo
Stars: Alysson Paradis, Jean-Baptiste Tabourin, Claude Lulé
“Four months after the death of her husband, a woman on the brink of motherhood is tormented in her home by a strange woman who wants her unborn baby.”
The Wolf of Snow Hollow
Director: Jim Cummings
Writer: Jim Cummings
Stars: Jim Cummings, Riki Lindhome, Robert Forster
“Terror grips a small mountain town as bodies are discovered after each full moon. Losing sleep, raising a teenage daughter, and caring for his ailing father, officer Marshall struggles to remind himself there’s no such thing as werewolves.”
The Children
Director: Tom Shankland
Writer: Paul Andrew Williams (story), Tom Shankland
Stars: Eva Birthistle, Stephen Campbell Moore, Jeremy Sheffield
“A relaxing Christmas vacation turns into a terrifying fight for survival as the children begin to turn on their parents.”
A Creepshow Holiday Special
Director: Greg Nicotero
Writer: Greg Nicotero
Stars: Anna Camp, Adam Pally, Pete Burris
“An anxious man who is trying to figure out his disorder enlists into an organization called Shapeshifters Anonymous without realizing that Santa Clauses are after him.”
Scare Me
Director: Josh Ruben
Writer: Josh Ruben
Stars: Josh Ruben, Aya Cash, Chris Redd
“During a power outage, two strangers tell scary stories. The more Fred and Fanny commit to their tales, the more the stories come to life in their Catskills cabin. The horrors of reality manifest when Fred confronts his ultimate fear.”
Watch the movie here.
Wind Chill
Director: Gregory Jacobs
Writer: Joe Gangemi (as Joseph Gangemi), Steven Katz
Stars: Emily Blunt, Ashton Holmes, Martin Donovan
“Two college students share a ride home for the holidays, but when they break down on a deserted stretch of road, they are preyed upon by the ghosts of people who have died there.”
The night is cold and dark and filled with movies about being trapped in a house or Arctic research facility. While these may not be the cheeriest of holiday horror movies, they do capture the winter. So, do you have any holiday horror movies that you watch every year that didn’t make our list? Let us know on social media!
Synopses for the films on our Holiday Horror Movies list come directly from IMDb.com.
