Trees, that shed their leaves months ago, reach their spindly fingers up into the cold winter night air, grasping at passing flakes until an entire blanket of snow covers the area. Other trees that were of a better class are cleaned up, brought into the warm indoors, and garnished with garish lights and ornaments crudely constructed by tiny wishful fingers. Lovers find each other behind locked doors in office buildings and will forever equate the scent of eggnog with a mistake made at a past office party. The influence of the holidays can reach out and touch almost anyone this time of year, even horror fans.
Not a year goes by that I don’t Irish up a cup of coffee, get all snuggly on the couch, and enjoy the Christmas staples; “A Charlie Brown Christmas”, “A Christmas Story”, the Rankin/Bass classics, and my personal favorite, “Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas”. But as the evenings grow longer and the nights get darker, the horror fan in me needs a little something more than even The Riverbottom Nightmare Band can deliver. So here’s a little X-Mas gift for you horror fans; the Top Five Holiday Horror films of all time!
5. “Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!” (1989)
While anyone who would consider themselves a horror fan has spent at least one Christmas being disappointed by the overrated original, few have wasted time on any of the four, yes four, sequels. While the first two films in this series were released as a (now out of print) double feature DVD in 2003, the subsequent (and superior) sequels have joined the growing list of low budget horror to be left behind in their analog state while lesser films get multiple treatments in digital formats. But for those of you lucky enough to track down this long forgotten gem of a video cassette, you are in for some festive fun.
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The first two flicks in the series were fairly straight forward slasher films; Ricky, a young child, sees his family brutalized by a maniac in a Santa costume. The now orphaned kid grows up to be a crazy eighteen year old who finally snaps after his boss at a toy store forces him to dress up as Santa. Clad in red velvet and a hat to match, he goes on a murderous rampage through his town. “Part 2″ is much of the same; after all, it is mostly footage from the original recut with a few new scenes. Numero Tres on the other hand is a different breed of cat all together.
I’m not going to bore you with a plot recap, or wax philosophical over this campy treat, I’m just going to throw out a steady stream of things that make this flick great in one of the longest run on sentences of all time. Ricky’s still alive in a coma and is awakened by a “gifted clairvoyant” Laura, they share a mutual doctor played by Richard Beymer in his final film before taking the career defying role of Benjamin Horne in “Twin Peaks”, the detective trying to track down the awoken Ricky is Robert Culp of “I-Spy” fame or as I prefer to remember him, Bill Maxwell on “The Greatest American Hero”, Laura’s (the girl with “The Shine”) brother shows up and it’s another future “Twin Peaks” star Eric DaRae (Leo “new shoes” Johnson), then you realize that the character Jenni is played by a young Laura Harring from “Mullholland Dr.” which makes three David Lynch vets in the movie and I still haven’t revealed the best parts of all, while in a coma Dr. Newbury had been experimenting on Ricky’s brain which is now exposed in a giant oversized Plexiglas dome that is so gargantuan that only one chapeau can hide it….a Santa cap. Now here is the piece de resistance, the reason that no horror fan will be able to resist the siren call of “Silent Night Deadly Night 3″; the monosyllabic, exposed brain clad hitchhiking Ricky is played by non other than the great Bill Mosley aka Chop-Top aka Otis B. Driftwood aka one of the coolest dudes in the universe. If you can’t track this one down, then give part 5 a go. It’s written by Brian Yuzna, has killer (literally) toys, and features both Clint Howard and Mickey Rooney!
4. “You Better Watch Out” AKA “Christmas Evil” (1980)
“The greatest Christmas movie ever made”- John Waters, with a quote from the man who gave us Pink Flamingos and Cry-Baby is their anything a joker like me can say to influence you more?
Filmed four years before 1984′s “Silent Night, Deadly Night”, “You Better Watch Out” set the standard for what “Silent Night” would later rip-off without so much as a “Merry Christmas”. As a young boy on Christmas Eve Harry Stadling witnesses something no child could ever recover from, Santa Claus going down on his mom. While something as traumatizing as seeing the woman who gave you life get the ‘Kringle Kiss”, might drive most of us to hate all things tinsel, Harry begins a life long obsession with the holiday leading to an adulthood spent keeping tabs on the naughty and nice children in his neighborhood. After getting fed up with the constant bulling he receives at work, the lack of holiday cheer in the air and the bratty neighborhood kids; one of whom requests “a lifetime subscription to Penthouse”, Harry dons the red suit, paints up his van like a sleigh and goes about handing out gifts and death sentences.
While light on gore and nudity, “You Better Watch Out” makes up for it with decent character development and a fun script. How many times do you get to see a town that forms a torch bearing mob on the look out for an evil St. Nick while police across the city are putting Santas in a lineup. While cheap, washed out full screen versions of this unheralded classic are readily available, pony up the extra cash for Synapse Films recent remasterd widescreen director’s cut, with great deleted scenes and two director’s commentaries, one of which features the aforementioned John Waters!
3. “Santa’s Slay” (2005)
Originally aired in the fall of 2005 on Spike TV, then dumped a few months later onto DVD by Lion’s (we’ll release anything) Gate, “Santa’s Slay” wasn’t forgotten as much as it was ignored. This is not only regrettable but inexcusable for a film featuring cast members of “The Godfather”, “Lost”, “SCTV”, “This is Spinal Tap” and failed pro football player turned “pro” wrestler Bill Goldberg. Besides, how many times will you see a 6′ 3″ Jew playing Santa?
“Santa’s Slay” is far funnier than most people would give it credit for; closer to splatstick than an actual horror film “Slay” goes out of its way to entertain. Plus it marks the second appearance of Robert Culp on our list. I hope working with Goldberg doesn’t end his career like it did Bret Hart, zing!
For more info on Santa’s Slay check out fellow Yearbooks staff member Molly Celaschi’s review…
[Editors Note: I knew I hired Tyler for a reason! Nice way to get out of writing a review buddy! Read Molly's Review Here]
2. “Dead End” (2003)
For what feels like the twentieth year in a row Frank Harrington’s spending Christmas Eve driving his family to visit his in-laws. This year, determined to make better time, he takes them on a shortcut; a mistake that leaves Christmas cheer in their rearview mirror and the road to hell directly in front of their headlamps.
Starring yet another “Twin Peaks” vet Ray Wise as Frank, “Dead End” is an eerie ghost story with a “twist” ending that while anyone can see coming, doesn’t affect the superb atmosphere. The film follows the dark, snow-torn trip taken by Frank, his wife Laura their two kids and their daughter’s boyfriend Brad. Shortly after heading out on his shortcut, Frank and family happen upon a ghostly figure (the mannish yet stunning Amber Smith) that haunts them as they get lost in a maze of woods with seemingly no end. After pulling over in the middle of nowhere to try and help the constantly disappearing woman in white, Brad is abducted by a mysterious hearse and is seeing pressed up against its back window with a look of ultimate horror splashed across his face as his new ride disappears into the cold black night. The Harringtons try in vain to catch up with the hearse only to find Brad’s mushy, almost unidentifiable remains a short way down the road. Slowly, without warning or explanation one by one the hearse takes them away leaving behind scraps of flesh as the only proof they ever existed, and as the family turns on each other so do their own minds.
Featuring Lin Shayne, one of my favorite character actresses in her best role outside of “Kingpin”, and an inspired first time job by the writer/director team of Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa, “Dead End” is a little known gem that deserves wider recognition. Thank god Lions Gate will release anything!
Stocking Stuffer- “Tales from the Crypt: And All Through the House” (1989)
Since this is a list of the Top 5 Holiday Horror “Films” of all time, I couldn’t get away with including this great episode from the first season of Horror’s best television show. But I had to mention it, so here it is a little stocking stuffer for you boys and ghouls.
Even if you haven’t seen this episode since its debut on HBO over seventeen years ago (christ I’m old!), like an axe wound, it stills leaves a permanent impression. Larry (“Dr. Giggles”) Drake stars as the best lunatic to ever don the jolly man’s duds and go a killin’. The simplistic plot is roughly the same as most of the 99 episodes of “Tales from the Crypt”; a spouse kills their significant other and is then terrorized, not by the guilt but by an ironically related character. What makes the episode great and eternally memorable is the touches put on it by one of horror’s greatest creators.
Fred Dekker the writer/director of two of the late eighty’s best “horror” films “Night of the Creeps” and “The Monster Squad” (both still unavailable on DVD!) took the story originally presented in EC comic’s Vault of Horror #35 (by the late great Johnny Craig) and made it his own. Dekker’s take is much better than the version presented in 1972′s “Tales from the Crypt” film, and even though this episode was directed by that scumbag Robert Zemeckis who would go on to shove “Forrest Gump” down our throats a short five years later, this is still a Christmas treat that should become a yearly tradition for any fright fan!
#1 “Black Christmas” (1974)
“Black Christmas” is often noted as the grandfather of the slasher films; paving the way for bloodthirsty franchise characters like Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees to stab their way to millions of dollars of profit while “Christmas” collected dust in the horror section of video stores across the country. Which is surprising considering that director Bob Clark’s other holiday themed film is a well know staple that plays for 24 hours straight on December 25th every year; that’s right the man who brought us “Black Christmas” also gave us “A Christmas Story”.
The residents of the sorority house Pi Kappa Sig have been getting obscene prank calls that at first fit the norm of the common pre-star 69 variety; heavy breathing, curse words, etc. But as Christmas draws closer the calls begin to get personal and at times almost demonic. After one of their sorority sisters, Clare goes missing the local police finally start to take their complaints seriously. Lieutenant Fuller (John Saxon) and his team of keystone cops search the town for the missing girl as the rest of the young women await news back at the sorority house. Little do they know that Clare is closer than they think, upstairs near an attic window with a plastic bag cinched around her head locking in her dying breath and she isn’t the only person up there, just the only one dead…
With an all star cast, featuring a pre-”Superman” Margot Kidder spouting lines like “You can’t rape a townie”, the eternally gorgeous Oliva Hussey, genre icon Saxon and character actor Nick Mancusco as the voice on the phone; it’s shocking that this film hasn’t gained wider acknowledgement, especially with the director’s connection to the holiday classic “A Christmas Story”. Completely devoid of nudity and with very little blood “Christmas” did what almost no film of that genre has been able to replicate, genuine terror without ever showing you the killer or an ounce of gore. Plus it has what I regard as one of, if not the best endings in the history of modern horror.
So there you have ‘em, the best holiday films horror has to offer and if you can’t find these gems at the video store reliable fallbacks like “Jack Frost 1 & 2″, “Silent Night, Bloody Night”, “Gremlins” and for those non-horror fans (what are you doing here?) I highly recommend 2003′s gut-buster “Bad Santa”. So get off your asses and go get a copy of the original “Black Christmas” before the remake ruins it for everyone, Glen Morgan I dub thee the new grinch.
Happy Non-Denominational Holiday everyone.
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