Christmas slashers are all the rage. From the forthcoming Violent Night to the early classics like Black Christmas and Silent Night, Deadly Night, there’s no shortage of yuletide slaughter to make the holiday season a little more bearable. With gore comes good tidings and joy and all that. Heck, even the likes of 2015’s All Through the House and 1982’s The Dorm That Dripped Blood have their charms– especially The Dorm That Dripped Blood. Randy Meeks was rarely right, but he was right about that. Alongside killer Santas, there have even been some Christmas creature features, with both Krampus and Rare Exports coming to mind as the best of the (few) best.
Yet, for as popular as the subgenre has been in recent years, Christmas horror movies have been curiously resistant to the idea of a nice, chillingly gothic Christmas ghost story. Have no Christmas fear, and instead bask in the Christmas cheer. Here, I’ve got five fantastic Christmas ghost stories you have to check out.
The Conjuring 2
James Wan has made it very clear that The Conjuring 2 is a Christmas horror movie. Sure, unlike some other Christmas horror offerings, it’s never more than set dressing. There’s a tree, some spooky Christmas songs, and even an ominous children’s choir on the television. But it never imbues the narrative with anything more than some visual and audial flourishes. It doesn’t matter, though. Wan himself has confirmed it, and given how few bonafide Christmas ghost stories there are, I’m certainly not going to argue otherwise. When a movie is as terrifying as The Conjuring 2, it can be anything it wants. A dependent for tax purposes. An astronaut. Whatever The Conjuring 2 wants, it can have.
Ju-On: White Ghost
I recently explored the entire history of the Ju-On franchise. Given the sheer breadth of the franchise, even supernatural diehards might not know that there was not only one, but two different Ju-On anniversary outings in 2009. Titled Ju-On White Ghost and Ju-On Black Ghost respectively, both are remarkably short, clocking in at just a little over an hour. Neither entry follows The Saeki murders, either, meaning Kayako is absent, with an entirely new supernatural threat.
White Ghost maintains the anthologized, anachronistic style of the previous films, though this time, there’s a little Christmas horror thrown in to balance the scales. While the eight segments can be confounding, there’s no shortage of grim nihilism, a series staple. It’s remarkably dour stuff, with the central ghosts even going so far as to stalk men dressed as Santa. It’s certainly not the best the series has seen, but the Christmas atmosphere does wonders to distinguish it from others in the storied series.
Wind Chill
There are few pleasures as wonderful as catching an older horror movie and recognizing a current A-lister in one of their earliest roles. In Gregory Jacobs’ Wind Chill, Emily Blunt stars simply as the girl, a college student who unwisely accepts a ride home from a guy (Ashton Holmes) for the Christmas break. En route to their destination, the guy’s car breaks down, stranding the two of them along a haunted stretch of road. There’s plenty of Brenda Lee on the soundtrack, spectral police, and even a dollop of gore thrown in for the more discerning crowd. Blunt is incredibly good, if a little acerbic, and Jacobs manages a few noteworthy jolts of his own. There’s little quite as chilling as Wind Chill this holiday season. It’s top-tier Christmas horror.
The Christmas Party (Dead of Night)
1945’s Dead of Night might be most famous for Alberto Cavalcanti’s segment “The Ventriloquist’s Dummy”. But, nestled within this enduring anthology is a remarkably frightening tale of Christmas hauntings. Cavalcanti similarly helmed “The Christmas Party,” the story of a young girl playing hide-and-seek in a mansion at a Christmas party. While hiding, she encounters a weeping boy. As she comforts him, she soon learns said boy was murdered years before by his sister. Sure, nothing especially scary happens. But Cavalcanti milks the Gothicism for all its worth, letting the unknown augment a brief foray into the supernatural.
The Stone Tape
Sure, The Stone Tape might not be explicitly festive, though it did air as part of BBC’s Christmas ghost story programming in 1972. Ergo, it warrants inclusion here. Peter Sasdy directed this haunted house shocker from a script by famed writer Nigel Kneale.
Here, scientists occupy an ostensibly haunted rural Victorian mansion, setting up their new research facility there. As their theory goes, the stones there—natural, organic materials of the earth—are records of paranormal activity, with past events quite literally imprinting themselves on rocks and other matter. In fact, the film popularized the idea of the “Stone Tape” theory, a genuine parapsychological phenomenon whereby ghostly activity is theorized to be recorded on organic matter. During the course of their investigation, the team inevitably contacts and unleashes a more frightening force. While it might seem tame by contemporary standards, it stands alongside Ghostwatch as one of the most fiercely frightening and haunting BBC ghost stories ever made.
What will you be watching this holiday season? Let us know over on Twitter @DreadCentral. Stay festive—stay scary!
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