Black Christmas is probably one of the most important horror films of the ’70s, given how influential it was on slasher films. But, despite my endless search for new Christmas horror films, it’s probably also the best serious Christmas horror movie. (Gremlins is a comedy.) I suspected both remakes were bad but I’m not sure …
Tag: Christmas
X-Mass Death Jazz (2018) by Panzerballet
I grew up loving Christmas Carols, they were one of my favourite parts of Christmas outside of the gifts. I loved decorating our tree while listening to carols, it really put me in the holiday spirt.
The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t (1966, Rossano Brazzi)
There are movies that more competent than the worst made movies but somehow manage to be almost worst than the least well made films, in how dull they are, or how incompetent they are from a story perspective. This Christmas film was an absolute chore to sit through even with the MS3K jokes.
Better Watch Out (2016, Chris Peckover)
This is a very, very dark Christmas horror comedy that’s light on the comedy and unnecessarily set at Christmas. But it’s still one of the better Christmas horror movies I’ve ever seen.
Love Actually (2003, Richard Curtis)
This is a romantic comedy about a whole bunch of people finding love (or not) around Christmas. Apparently it has inspired a whole host of similar films, something that I was completely unaware of given how little I watch romantic comedies or holiday movies. So it’s sort of the inaugural film of this type of …
A Christmas Tale (2008, Arnaud Desplechin)
The way I watch older movies is I go through my ridiculously long 90-page list and see what I can watch on Netflix or borrow from the library. I rarely remember why I added them. That can lead to some pretty hilarious misunderstandings when I added something I really didn’t mean to. Or, as in …
A Christmas Carol (2009, Robert Zemeckis)
This feels like an attempt to make a more faithful adaptation of A Christmas Carol using animation while, at the same time, taking the supernatural elements of the story to more fantastical heights.
Rare Exports (2010, Jalmari Helander)
This is a strange, but certainly unique Christmas “horror” film. I use the term horror loosely because there isn’t a lot of horror in it by our standards, it’s more of a Christmas fantasy film. SPOILERS
Anna and the Apocalypse (2017, John McPhail)
This movie is a Christmas, Zombie Musical. Yes, you read that right, three genres in one.
Krampus (2015, Michael Dougherty)
Krampus is a horror comedy with too many ideas, not enough jokes, not enough of its own internal mythology and a weak ending. In some ways it feels like it’s trying to be a new, more Christmas-oriented Gremlins, but it is definitely not. SPOILERS
A Christmas Story Live! (2017, Scott Ellis, Alex Rudzinski)
Like many other people my age, I grew up with A Christmas Story. For as long as I can remember, I have watched it every few Christmases except for when, at one point, I watched it every Christmas. Unlike the vast majority of movies I loved as a child, my adult cynicism has not yet …
The Night Before (2015, Jonathan Levine)
This is one of those seemingly innumerable movies where celebrity cameos are viewed as a substitute for a good story and laughs. This is one of those “spot the cameo” movies, with a host of famous people popping up at different points. I suppose Scrooged is like that too, but at least it’s working off of A …
Elvis’ Christmas Album (1957)
Without doing the appropriate research I am going to assume this was the first “rock and roll” Christmas album. There had been Christmas albums ever since the invention of the format but, until Elvis, they were more the purview of Bing Crosby than rock and roll performers.