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Christmas horror movies combine festive cheer with terrifying subversions, infiltrating the familiar and safe spaces in viewers' minds. Films like Christmas Evil and Better Watch Out twist traditional holiday tropes, subverting expectations and delivering dark humor alongside thrills. From Gremlins to A Christmas Horror Story, these movies offer a unique and unsettling experience, blending horror with holiday festivities and capturing the spirit of the season.

The best Christmas horror movies delight and terrify by combining the whimsical season with strong doses of fear. This combination has become so common that Christmas-themed horror films have risen to occupy their own cinematic subgenre. It's a popular premise because a vast majority of audiences around the world are deeply familiar with the festive season and what it represents.

From the scariest Santa Clauses in horror movies to other terrifying subversions of the season's icons, these films infiltrate the seemingly safe spaces in audiences' minds.

Pressman Film is a production company that was founded by Ed Pressman, a prolific producer of over 90 films, including the likes of Wall Street, American Psycho, and The Crow. Sadly, Pressman passed away earlier this year at the age of 79. Now his son Sam Pressman is the CEO of Pressman Film, which recently rebooted The Crow – and landed an eight-figure domestic distribution deal for the film with Lionsgate. Moving forward, the company is working with Antoine Fuqua on a project called The Street, which was written by Goodfellas‘ Nicholas Pileggi, and planning an adaptation of the 1975 Edward Abbey novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which will be directed by Catfish‘s Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman. They’re also trying to figure out how they can exploit titles in the Pressman Film library… and in a recent article, Deadline mentions that endeavor might involve remakes of the 1980 holiday horror film Christmas Evil...

Longtime readers of Arrow in the Head will probably remember the article series The Test of Time. Now The Test of Time has been revived as a video series, and you can check out the new episode in the embed above! Christmas Day has come and gone, but the holiday festivities continue with this episode, as the film we’re looking at is the 1980 holiday horror cult classic Christmas Evil (watch it Here)!

Written and directed by Lewis Jackson, Christmas Evil has the following synopsis:

As a boy, he saw mommy making love to Santa Claus. As an adult, he is a crazed killer who has kept a list of all the girls who have been good, and a list of all the girls who have been bad. It’s Christmas time, and all the bad girls are in trouble. A man dressed as Santa Claus is stalking the streets,...

Stars: Brandon Maggart, Jeffrey DeMunn, Dianne Hull, Andy Fenwick, Brian Neville, Joe Jamrog, Wally Moran, Gus Salud, Peter Neuman, Lance Holcomb, Elizabeth Ridge | Written and Directed by Lewis Jackson

When little Harry sees his Dad in a Santa Claus outfit, groping his mother one Christmas Eve, life changes for the quiet little boy. Thirty odd years later, now all grown up and disgruntled by his dead end job in a depressing toy factory – he’s making a list, checking it twice and descending into a self-created Christmas nightmare where he is Father Christmas and his judgement is final! Dressed as St. Nick, Harry is going to show his bullying co-workers and all the other naughty people what the true spirit of the season is.

Lensed in 1980 and described by cult director John Waters as “greatest Christmas movie ever made,” Christmas Evil is one of only a [growing] handful of Yuletide-set shockers to ever grace movie screens.

Donald Trump vs. Starbucks' War on Christmas. The War on Christmas: The movies that come to mind We're still in November, but the War on Christmas – according to online buzz, a second cousin once removed of the War on Cops – has begun. Weeping and gritting of teeth has seized certain population segments in the U.S.A. (and perhaps other countries as well) after Fox News, that beacon of intellectual freedom at the end of the cable news tunnel, announced that … Starbucks' holiday season cups are a) red b) devoid of Christmas decorations. Could it be a satanic conspiracy disguised as politically correct inclusiveness? The result of a communist takeover at the Seattle-headquartered company? Cruel and unusual Christian persecution in the form of paper cups? Your guess is as good as mine. Far-right Republican icon, U.S. presidential candidate, and 2015 political circus ringmaster Donald Trump seems to think that Starbucks...

Christmas Evil (aka You Better Watch Out)

Stars: Brandon Maggart, Jeffrey DeMunn, Dianne Hull, Andy Fenwick, Brian Neville, Joe Jamrog, Wally Moran, Gus Salud, Peter Neuman, Lance Holcomb, Elizabeth Ridge | Written and Directed by Lewis Jackson

When little Harry sees his Dad in a Santa Claus outfit, groping his mother one Christmas Eve, life changes for the quiet little boy. Thirty odd years later, now all grown up and disgruntled by his dead end job in a depressing toy factory – he’s making a list, checking it twice and descending into a self-created Christmas nightmare where he is Father Christmas and his judgement is final! Dressed as St. Nick, Harry is going to show his bullying co-workers and all the other naughty people what the true spirit of the season is.

Lensed in 1980 and described by cult director John Waters as “greatest Christmas movie ever made,” Christmas Evil is one...

1980 - 92 mins. - Rated R

D: Lewis Jackson

C: Brandon Maggart, Dianne Hull, Scott McKay, Joe Jamrog, Peter Friedman, Patricia Richardson

Man obsessed with Christmas takes it upon himself to punish the naughty while dressed in a Santa Claus suit.

Not really the slasher film that people believe it to be mainly due in part to the marketing campaign which changed the title from "You Better Watch Out" to "Christmas Evil". Christmas Evil is really a psychological horror film about the mental state of a man who is scarred from a traumatic experience as a child in relation to Christmas and how that experience has caused his mental deterioration over the years, especially when he feels that everyone has lost the Christmas spirit. He dresses in a Santa suit to hastily punish those that have been naughty, because he in essence believes he is Santa. As a portrait into the mental state of a person,...