Top 12 Scary Christmas Movies

Post-Halloween blues? Or perhaps you’re seeing the snow fall and wondering why Christmas just simply can’t be scarier. Fret not this season, for we’ve provided a list of frightening Christmas movies guaranteed to satisfy your scary needs.

1| The Nightmare Before Christmas

Perhaps one of the best-known Halloween-Christmas crossovers, Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, is a family-friendly classic. We follow the story of Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween, during a mid-life (death?) crisis in which he plots to take over a much more cheerful holiday, only to have  “nothing turn out quite the way it should”.

2| Jack Frost

The story of Jack Frost is one that focuses on a young boy, Charlie, who loses his father in a winter car accident. The spirit of the father ends up possessing the snowman that was built by Charlie and his dad. If having your father die and reincarnate into a snowman isn’t enough, spring comes in the movie, and we all know what happens to snowmen in summer.

3| Dr. Suess’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas

A green home invader with a shriveled heart, a slightly delusional little girl, and a plot to steal all of the hard-earned decorations of an entire village that wouldn’t take a noise complaint is a summed up version of a family favorite, Dr. Suess’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. One look at that devious grin of the infamous Mr. Grinch is enough to know that you’re in for a wicked story.

4| Home Alone

The holidays is a peak time for burglary, which is terrifying enough, but in Home Alone, the sole defender of the house is a child. Home Alone tells the story of a brave but melodramatic boy who resorts to using toys and everyday household objects to defend his home from two grown men whose goals turn from robbing his house to hunting down the juvenile home defender.

5| Gremlins

If you’re looking for a cute cuddly companion with low-maintenance instructions, don’t look for a cat, a Gremlin will easily fit your needs. Gremlins follows the story of the sweet adoption of a cuddly mogwai and what happens when you don’t treat your pets correctly.

6| A Christmas Horror Story

Following what appears to be four wildly separate Christmas stories, A Christmas Horror Story cleverly brings together an eerie ghost story, the folklore of a changeling, the tale of Krampus, and a wicked battle of Santa versus zombies. If you don’t think it’s possible, give it a watch, be patient, and you’ll have your mind blown with the twist ending.

7| Krampus

If you’re looking for a more humorous approach to your slasher Christmas, you might want to try the 2015 release of Krampus. A pouting child who feels that the spirit of Christmas has been lost due to his fighting family summons “the shadow of Saint Nick”, an ancient pagan deity named Krampus, who brings an assortment of creepy helpers to take down a family who handles matters in a most American fashion.

8| Christmas Evil

It’s not your standard obscure cult film. It’s the story of how Mommy kissing Santa underneath the Christmas tree can be very emotionally scarring to children, enough so that your standard co-worker can become a homicidal Santa Claus who strongly overreacts to criticism and lives out a delusion that he is the true Saint Nick.

9| Elves

According to Elves, Hitler’s true perfect race was not entirely blonde-haired and blue-eyed. His dream breed was much more supernatural: a half-human and half-elf crossover was the ideal goal. In this twist on history, the last remainder of the Aryan race teams up with an ex-cop turned mall Santa to fight back against the remaining elves who are determined to carry out Hitler’s master plan.

10| Silent Night, Zombie Night

Looking for zombies this Christmas? Silent Night, Zombie Night has enough of those to make the Walking Dead jealous. The story of a brave L.A. police officer looking to cut connections from his wife and his friend turns into an all-out fight for survival between the three of them and the zombified city of Los Angeles.

11| The Children

If holidays aren’t stressful enough, having your little ones fall sick during this time makes for a very unmerry Christmas. In this dark slasher, a virus infects a family that causes the children to turn on each other in a twisted bloodbath. The adults don’t notice anything wrong until it’s too late, and the final escape leaves you wondering if anyone is truly safe.

12| Sint

No, I didn’t misspell the word Saint. The Dutch celebration of Sinterklaas presents a former bishop and his thieving gang as benign characters; their murders being hidden in history. On the years of where the celebration falls on a full moon, the gang returns for revenge. This is predicted by a police detective who saw the last time the gang returned and prepares to take down the supernatural gang.

It’s not a shocker that the number one scary Christmas movie is The Nightmare Before Christmas. In our previous blog, we have 12 shockers about The Nightmare Before Christmas that will probably blow your mind! If you haven’t seen it yet, click on the button below!