THE CHRISTMAS HORROR ADVENT CALENDAR - Door 24: Everybody's Waitin' for the Man with the Bag

So then, we are finally here, the last door of our advent calendar and the final chapter in this history of the evolution of the Christmas horror movie. And indeed 2015 was the year that everything changed, and after this Christmas, no more would we have fallow years devoid of festive fright flicks and Yuletide chillers. Indeed from 2015, every year would bring new Christmas horror movies, and in increasing numbers. So what changed? Well, let’s look at the two Christmas movies released this year and find out… 

First out of the tinsel garlanded gate was A Christmas Horror Story. This Canadian movie, released on 23rd October 2015, was the brainchild of three directors Grant Harvey, Steven Hoban, and Brett Sullivan, all of who had worked previously on the Ginger Snaps trilogy of movies. What brought them together was the desire to make a Christmas anthology movie, something very much in the vein of the old Amicus movies and Creepshow. They wanted to tell a selection of tales that would be fun, festive and frightening but with a modern twist. And so we have five tales told in A Christmas Horror Story, and without letting any spoilers out of the sack, I can tell you the following…

We open on Christmas Eve, and our first stop is the North Pole and Santa’s workshop. It is a busy time but there is something amiss, and one of the elves is getting sick. We then move to the little town of Bailey Downs, where DJ Dangerous Dan, played by William Shatner, is manning the decks and taking the listeners through Christmas Eve to the big day. We learn that the previous Christmas there had been a terrible tragedy in the town - two high school students were slain by a mystery assailant. However at the school, three students, Molly, Dylan and Ben, have snuck in to make a documentary about the crime, and have got hold of a key to the basements where it happened.

Meanwhile across town Scott Peters and his wife Kim, and their young son, Will are out to get a Christmas tree. But Scott, a cop who should know better, leads them to a fenced off woodland marked ‘no trespassing’. They get a fine tree from there, but of course, there will be a price to pay. Finally also out and about are the Bauer family, who are going to visit their Aunt Edda, a rich old lady of German descent, who lives out of town in a country mansion. However their elderly relative isn't particularly welcoming, nor feeling very festive, as tonight is Krampusnacht…

Now what makes A Christmas Horror Story stand out from the pack is that rather than use the traditional format of an anthology film - basically a wraparound tale and then telling one story at a time - instead they opted to weave the stories together so they run concurrently. And while some reviewers stated they would have preferred the usual anthology format, in this case weaving the stories together works very well. To begin with it’s refreshingly different, but also there are many links between the stories which ties them together in a satisfying way, and what's more they are all playing out concurrently on the same night, a Christmas Eve where dark forces are abroad. 

As mentioned, our trio of directors were aiming for fun, festive and frightening, and A Christmas Horror Story does deliver on all three fronts. You have a nice range of different sorts of horror here - there’s creepy ghostliness, there’s a decent amount of the red stuff spilled in over-the-top kills, and a large helping of the old darker side of Yuletide for folklore   fans. Plus it is quite fun too, with William Shatner’s increasingly sozzled DJ being a highlight. And I can assure you that the poster does not lie either - we do get to see Santa Claus go toe-to-toe with a very impressive Krampus. 

It’s all done with a terrific sense of fun, with a love of both the genre and the season apparent, and the whole delicious feast is served with a liberal sprinkling of humour just like Creepshow (1982), Tales From the Crypt (1972) and the old EC comics that inspired both.  When it was first released, it was, I fear, somewhat overshadowed by the other Yuletide horror movie that came out that year, but A Christmas Horror Story certainly found an audience on disc and streaming platforms. Seemingly it reappears on one of the big streamers in time for Christmas every year. And this too has become an annual favourite here at Hypnogoria Towers. 

But of course A Christmas Horror Story wasn’t the only festive fright flick out in 2015, for released on 4th December was Krampus! I mean, a movie named Krampus, not the actual mythological being. Now this serving of festive frights was dreamed up by director Michael Dougherty, who previously had given us another seasonal horror, the Hallowe’en themed anthology Trick R Treat (2007) which quickly became a cult favourite for lovers of the spookiest night of the year.  

Now this Yuletide movie’s genesis was Dougherty seeing old postcards of Krampus, back when tales of this dark Germanic Christmas visitor began circulating online. And so, with writers Zach Shields and Todd Casey, the movie Krampus was born, and the plot goes like this… 

The Engel family is preparing for Christmas, but the Yuletide spirit seems to be in short supply. Young son Max, played by Emjay Anthony, has gotten in top fight at the school nativity recital, older sister Beth, played by Stefania LaVie Owen, is hitting full-on teenager mode, while Dad Tom, played Adam Scott is distracted by work, while Mom Sarah, played by Toni Collette is increasingly stressed trying to get everything ready for the big day. 

And what is souring the season for everyone is the prospect of Sarah’s sister, Linda,  played by Allison Tolamn, and her family coming to stay. Her husband Howard, played by David Koechner, is a somewhat unrefined gun-nut, who is very much raising his two daughters, Steve and Jordan, to have his love of trucks and hunting.  And also in tow, in Aunt Dorothy, played by Conchata Ferrell, who is somewhat abrasive to say the least and can be relied upon to drain any bottle of festive spirits nearby. The only calm spot in this storm of family relationships, is Omi, played by Krista Stadler, Max’s elderly German grandmother, a lady who knows the importance of not losing one’s Christmas spirit. 

However after an extremely fractious family dinner, Max, in a fit of rage and despair,  tears up his letter to Santa Claus, and hurls it out of the window. But a strange wind seems to pick up the pieces and whirl them away. Soon a blizzard hits the neighbourhood, and Krampus is coming…

With a gifted cast who have appeared in numerous comedies and dramas, Krampus begins not unlike a darker version of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989). However once the blizzard begins, the movie takes a distinctly eerie turn, bringing us something far stranger than simply having this dysfunctional family being stalked by a folkloric bad Santa slasher. Rather there is a series of uncanny and bizarre events enveloping the family, and before Krampus himself appears in all his glory, his various little helpers come to call first. Brought to life by the famed Weta Workshop, here we have some highly original and very memorable festive horrors, taking images and items from traditional Christmas iconography, and reflecting them through festive nightmares. It is an impressive imaginative and dark movie, steeped in the festive season but offering some very chilly terrors.    

But while this movie is fairly uncompromisingly dark, quite clearly its take on the sinister side of Yuletide struck a chord, with the movie making over four times its budget back on its initial release, making it the most successful Christmas horror movie since A Nightmare Before Christmas back in 1993. And obviously it has continued to do great business every Yuletide since. 

Now most Christmas horror movies have been smaller films, and while movies like Rare Exports got great reviews and didn’t necessarily perform poorly, they didn’t exactly set the box office on fire, or have the profile Krampus did. And I think it was the surprise success of Michael Dougerty’s festive horror that inspired a new wave of Christmas fright flicks. 

Initially they were the low budget rip-offs and knock-offs with movies such as Krampus The Reckoning (2015), Krampus The Christmas Devil Returns (2016), Krampus Unleashed (2016), and Krampus Origins (2017) to name but a few. But less cynical film-makers realised that Christmas horror could be more than the sort of straight-to-video dreck we encountered behind Door 19. And more importantly, after the box office success of Krampus, studios, distributors and streaming platforms suddenly realised there was a bona fide market for Christmas horror movies. And hence since Krampus came to the big screen in 2015, every year since then we have had a fresh crop of seasonal shockers. In fact, in the years since we have had dozens of Christmas horror movies. 

Now obviously not all of them have been great, and it’s not unfair to say that a great many terrible cheap movies have been released into the wild. But despite a slew of lazy Santa slashers and Krampus knock-offs, we are getting good new Christmas horrors coming out too, and often exploring brand new avenues for festive frights. For example, there’s I Trapped The Devil from 2019, a claustrophobic chiller in which a man and his wife make a Christmas visit to his estranged brother, and discover that his brother now believes that he has Satan himself confined in the basement. Or how about The Advent Calendar from 2021, an intriguing French-Belgian movie about an old wooden advent calendar whose sweet treats have magical powers… but each one comes with a price.  

And coming right up to date, this year, 2024, we can round off this history of Christmas horror movies with a genuine milestone. Now in the main, Christmas horror movies are one-off affairs, and this festive subgenre has only really spawned one proper franchise, and that is of course Silent Night, Deadly Night. However, even then, each movie in that series has featured a different antagonist, and indeed there’s nothing really connecting the last three films, and even the remake, to the original story and characters. But this year we had a genuine first, a Christmas horror movie in a very successful franchise starring a genuine horror icon. Step forward and take a bow, Art the Clown and Terrifier 3. 

Created by director Damien Leone, Art the Clown first appeared in a pair of low budget shorts, The Ninth Circle (2009) and Terrifier (2011). These were later packaged together with a third tale and a wraparound story to form the anthology All Hallows Eve in 2013. A few years later, Leone got the funds together to make a full length Terrifier movie, and stepping into the role of Art was David Howard Thornton, a gifted actor trained in physical comedy and mime. The movie got picked up by several film festivals and secured a limited theatrical release where its back-to-basics slasher action coupled with Thornton’s genuinely creepy performance and massively over-the-top gore gained the movie and Art the Clown a fan base.

Terrifier 2 came in 2022, and was bigger, better and bloodier. Here Art became a genuine icon, with Thornton getting to really spread his wings with a performance that was as hilarious as it was frightening, in a movie with a more developed story. Terrifier 2 built up an intriguing mythology around Art but also introduced his nemesis, a truly kick-ass final girl Sienna Shaw, played by Lauren LaVera. With a bigger release and a growing audience, fans were delighted to learn that there would be a third movie in which Art would come back for a second round with Sienna.     

Now the first two movies, and the All Hallow’s Eve anthology obviously, were all set on Hallowe’en night, however Terrifier 3 is set at Christmas time. So we get Art the Clown creating his usual bloody mayhem in the festive season, and indeed, with a good many seasonal items. And he even dons a Santa suit for a good chunk of the movie. There’s guest appearances from Tom Savini and Jason Patric, but directly tying Terrifier 3 to Christmas horror movie history there is a very special cameo. In an early scene, Art spots an off-duty store Santa in a bar having a drink, and rushes in, and hilariously behaves like a small child meeting old St. Nick. However, also drinking with the store Santa, is another old fellow with a big fluffy white beard, and it is none other than Clint Howard, who was Ricky in Silent Night, Deadly Night Parts 4 and 5! Yes, dripping equally with blood and festive cheer, Terrifier 3 is a Christmas horror movie through and through. 

But do be warned that the Terrifier films are massively gory, and I wouldn’t recommend watching Terrifier 3 while having your Christmas dinner! However despite the jaw dropping splat-tastic set pieces, Terrifier 3 was a box office smash - an incredible achievement for an unrated indie movie. And it has, of course, now appeared on streaming and returned to theatres for the Christmas season. 

The Terrifier saga is highly unusual in horror history. To begin with it is extremely rare, in fact I think unprecedented, that a horror franchise of this kind has had the same creative force at the helm for every movie. And hence, this is also the only horror franchise, where the director has actually planned out a proper saga. Damien Leone sat down early on with David Howard Thornton and they worked out a story arc for the series, and so unlike other franchises where they are making it up as they go along, and every film only has slight connections to the preceding movies, with the Terrifier movies, each film builds on the last, and it does pay to watch them in order. 

But most importantly in the context of Christmas horror history, this is the first time we have had a horror icon in a Yuletide fright flick. Yes, Art the Clown has succeeded where Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Frankenstein monster, King Kong, Godzilla, Norman Bates, Leatherface, Jason, Michael, Freddy, Deadites, Chucky, Leprechaun, Critters, Ghostface, Jigsaw, the Cenobites, Xenomorphs and Predators have all failed. And when you consider how long Christmas has been associated with spooky stories, it is quite incredible it has taken us so long to have a Christmas horror featuring one of the genre’s famous recurring characters. 

All too often these days we tend to think that it has all been down before, but as our new best fiend Art the Clown has proved, there’s still fresh ground to be broken in the realm of Christmas horror. And given the incredible blockbusting success of Terrifier 3, you can be sure there will be a new wave of Christmas horror coming next year, bringing us more festive frights and seasonal shockers to make the season bright! 

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THE CHRISTMAS HORROR ADVENT CALENDAR - Door 23: Silent Nights

Now then behind our last door we had two Christmas crackers, a pair of fantastically festive bad Santa movies. However true to form, 2011 was yet another fallow year. Was there some tradition or old charter that ruled you could only make Christmas horror movies every other year? It certainly seems like it! 

However, since the new millennium, while we regularly had every other year lying fallow, the next year we’d get not one, but two new festive fright flicks. And so, 2012 would deliver two seasonal shockers. But as seems somewhat traditional too, at least one of them would be released at a stupidly unseasonal time. And such was the case with today’s first movie, ATM, which was released 6th April 2012.  

Directed by David Brooks, this movie had a script by Chris Sparling, who had previously written Buried, the claustrophobic 2010 thriller starring Ryan Reynolds. Indeed it was the success of Buried that led to the spec script for ATM, which also features characters being confined and trapped, being scooped up. The premise is fairly straight-forward…

At a Christmas party, stockbroker Dave, played by Brian Geraghty, plucks up the courage to ask out co-worker Emily, played by Alice Eve. To his delight she agrees, and he offers to drive her home as it's a snowy night just before Christmas and cabs are thin on the ground. However he also ends up reluctantly agreeing to give his somewhat sozzled mate Corey, played by Josh Peck, a lift home too. 

Not content with playing gooseberry, Cory asks if they can stop at an ATM so he can get some cash out to buy pizza. Now this is not a hole-in-the-wall style bank machine, this is a locked booth in a parking lot which you need a bank card to open. The worse for wear Corey ends up having trouble with the machines and David and Emily go in to help out. However, as they are about to leave, a mystery man, dressed in a large parka with the hood up completely obscuring his face, stands waiting outside… 

And I will leave the plot summary there, as it would be unfair to let any spoilers slip for this little seen film. However suffice to say the mystery man is extremely dangerous and a battle of wits ensues to try and not just escape the booth, but survive the night. 

Now I must admit I’d not heard about his movie before I started researching this advent calendar, and looking at the reviews I was expecting a fairly cheap run-of-the-mill slasher. However that isn’t what ATM is about at all. Rather it is a dark little tale of being trapped on a freezing winter’s night. And where the chills come in, is the fact that our hooded man isn’t just playing the usual cat-and-mouse slasher games. Now it’s not a hugely festive movie per se, but the isolation of the characters trapped in the booth is magnified by the fact that just beyond the deserted icy car park, you can see Christmas lights strung along the streets. 

ATM presents us with a highly intriguing and increasingly unsettling situation, and I suspect its poor reviews are partly down to the fact that it does not deliver the expected slasher antics and goes down its own individual path instead. Plus I don’t think the unseasonal release date helped either, as this is certainly a movie to watch on the long dark nights before Christmas. It’s a very interesting little movie that’s stark, dark and icy cold, and it will certainly bring a chill to the Yuletide. 

Now November 30th 2012 brought something of an early surprise Christmas present. Although perhaps it wasn’t anything that was high on anybody's Christmas lists! For all of a sudden, the Silent Night, Deadly Night franchise suddenly sprang back to life, with a remake of the original! Well, a sort of remake…

In the early 2000s, there had been a screening of the original Silent Night, Deadly Night and in attendance with none other than the original producer Scott Schneid, the man who started it all. And he suggested that perhaps the time was right for a remake. And his thoughts did not fall on deaf ears, for soon a script was in the works. Now screenwriter Jayson Rothwell apparently hadn't seen the original, and he started with his own impressions of Christmas horror movies, but also he took some inspiration from a real life case, the Covina Massacre. In this shocking case, on Christmas Eve in 2008, Bruce Jeffrey Pardo dressed up as Santa and attacked a Christmas Eve party at his ex wife's house, and set the place ablaze, killing nine and shooting himself afterwards. Hey, I told you it was a shocking case! 

Thankfully the movie, directed by Steven C. Miller, and now with the shortened title of just Silent Night, is nowhere near as unpleasant. And while there are many differences to the original,  it does centre around a killer dressed as Santa who is punishing those which he deems to be naughty. However this Santa Claus killer isn’t Billy or any of the multiple Rickys from the original series, rather it is an entirely new character with their own new backstory.  Likewise, rather than going down the making of a maniac route of the original, Rothwell’s script goes back to slasher basics, and instead builds a fun mystery around who the masked Santa slayer is. But let’s have a plot outline before going any further…

In the opening scenes we see the arrival of our mystery maniac, and get straight to the first kill, death by Christmas lights! We learn that we are in the small snowy town of Cryer, Wisconsin, and investigating the gruesome events is Deputy Aubrey Bradimore, played by Jamie King, who soon begins to suspect they might be dealing with a bona fide serial killer. But her boss, Sheriff Cooper, played by Malcolm McDowell no less, is not entirely convinced. However our heroine is correct and the Santa Claus Killer begins working their way through the naughty list…

Now on its first release, Silent Night was met with somewhat mixed reviews, and there was a certain amount of grousing about its departures from the original. But as we have previously discussed in this advent calendar, the original Silent Night, Deadly Night is a somewhat uneven movie, and while it has a part of horror history, that has more to do with the controversy around it than the merits of the movie itself. Furthermore, carping about changes to the original are somewhat redundant as this film did put some distance between itself and the original by changing the name, and it was very much sold as being based on the first film, rather than a straight remake anyway.  

And indeed once people got over the differences, there was a lot to enjoy here. There some ridiculously over the top set piece kills, a well realised snowy small town setting, and the decision to focus on the investigation of the killer made for a far more engaging plot line. Jaime King and Malcolm McDowell spark off each other nicely, and there are some very satisfying twists and turns to the plot as they slowly work out who the maniac in the Santa suit actually is, and why he has chosen the little town of Cryer. Is it the best in the series? Well, it is certainly the best made movie in the Silent Night, Deadly Night franchise, although I doubt anything will ever top Eric Freeman’s Ricky in Part 2. However, if you are in the market for a festively themed slasher, Silent Night will fit the bill, plus where else can you see Malcolm McDowell hamming it up in a Christmas movie? 

However after 2012, it all went quiet on the Christmas horror front once again, with the festive fright flick taking a break for three long years. However as we will learn behind our final door, 2015 was a landmark year for seasonal shockers… 

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THE CHRISTMAS HORROR ADVENT CALENDAR - Door 22: You'd Better Watch Out!

So then, after a little flurry of seasonal shockers, after The Children, once again it all went quiet again, with 2009 being another fallow year for Christmas horror. However a new decade would open with not one, but two bad Santa movies. And here I am not talking about maniacs dressed as Father Christmas going on a slasher killing spree. Rather these bad Santas were ancient spirits of Christmas, and in this pair of movies we were presented dark mythologies which revealed the sinister truth about dear old Santa Claus. 

Now it should be noted that around this time, there had been a growing awareness that Santa Claus wasn’t always the same festive figure we know today, and earlier versions had some dark variations. For just as dark and unsettling folk tales were sanitised to become our  modern sweetness-and-light fairy tales, so too various Santa Claus traditions in old Europe had some darker elements which we have forgotten. And in the early years of the 21st century, much of this lore was rediscovered and was rapidly disseminated by the internet, with dozens of articles on Santa’s dark helpers such as Krampus and Black Pete, who punished the wicked while St. Nick handed out presents to the good. Also very popular at the time were various theories - now discredited by the way - that interpreted Santa as a shaman, a pagan god, or a folk horror wild man. 

Now while much of this chatter about old dark Christmases was highly inaccurate, and often historically dubious, this swirl of ideas associating Santa with ancient dark forces certainly inspired today’s two movies, however perhaps very wisely, both opted to create their invented ancient lore. 

First up we have Sint, also known as Saint and St. Nicholas. Having its premiere on Halloween night at the  Razor Reel Fantastic Film Festival in 2010, the movie then went on general release on 10th November, and usually for a Dutch movie, gained an international release as well. It was made by veteran Dutch director Dick Maas who previously had enjoyed success outside the Netherlands with The Lift in 1983, about a high tech elevator which develops a murderous mind of its own, and Amsterdamed in 1988, a horror thriller which was effectively a Dutch giallo. 

However with Sint, Dick Maas crafted a uniquely Dutch Christmas horror.  And before we get to the movie, here’s a quick crash course on the Netherlands' Yuletide traditions. In Holland, while now there are usual Christmas celebrations at the end of December, traditionally the gift giver was St. Nicholas himself - Sinterklaas as he is known there, which is where we get the name Santa Claus. The feast day of St. Nicholas is 6th December, and traditionally Sinterklaas therefore makes his rounds on the night before, on 5th December. Much like our Santa, he comes down chimneys and leaves gifts for the good, but he has a helper, Black Pete, who is so called because he is covered in soot from the chimneys. Also it is Black Pete who carries off the especially naughty children in sacks! And for more on this and other old traditions do check out my In Search of Santa podcast series. 

Sint opens in the year of our lord 1475, a corrupt bishop Niklas is terrorising the land with his band of thugs, sailing in their galleon from place to place and effectively pillaging whole towns.  However on the night of 5th of December, one village - which one day will become Amsterdam - takes revenge. The locals steal out in the dead of night, and by the light of a full moon, and they set fire to Niklas’s galleon burning all aboard to death. 

However that is not the end of it, for there is a dark legend that whispers whenever there is a full moon, the evil Niklas and his horde of Black Petes, now semi-incinerated undead thugs, rise from the grave to murder and pillage in Amsterdam once more. And this year, the moon will be full again, and a police detective, Goert, played by Bert Luppes, knows the legend is true as his own family was murdered when he was a boy when the moon was last full on the eve of St. Nicholas.  Meanwhile two teens Frank, played by Egbert Jan Weeber and his girl friend Lisa, played by Caro Lenssen will also cross paths with Goert and learn the horrific truth behind the legend of Sinterklaas. 

Sint is a terrifically fun movie and a feast of both festive fun and Christmas horror. To begin with Amsterdam, at Christmas time and blanketed in slow falling snow looks fantastic. The undead Niklas, played by Huub Stapel, looks fantastic, in particular as he gallops through a snowy Amsterdoam on his white horse causing all manner of bloody mayhem. Then we have his Black Petes, all burnt zombie pirates who dish out violent and gory deaths galore. However, as well as a generous helping of supernatural mayhem, Dick Maas gives us interesting and engaging characters with their own story arcs, and tells his tale with a good deal of wit and humour. Sint is a wild ride that gleefully dashes through the snow of a Dutch Christmas, merrily lopping off heads as it goes, and here at Hypnogoria Towers, it is now an annual tradition to watch this gem of a movie every 5th December.   

Now Sint in itself would have made 2010 a landmark year for Christmas horror all on its own, but then on 3rd December we got another treat! Now as I alluded to earlier, the Netherlands has an important link to Santa Claus through St. Nicholas, but as every child knows, another country closely associated with the Jolly Old Elf is Lapland, where some say he makes his home. And so drawing on old legends of the lands of the north comes Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale from Finland.

Released on 3rd December 2010, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is a movie written and  directed by Jalmari Helander. Now the movie was inspired by two short movies Helander has made previously -  Rare Exports, Inc.  in 2003 and its sequel Rare Exports: The Official Safety Instructions. Now I can’t really tell you another about either of these festive but darkly humorous shorts as that would involve spoilers for the full feature movie which is perhaps a prequel of sorts to them. And indeed, while they can be found online, I would recommend seeing the full movie first. 

So what of the film itself? Well the story revolves around a young boy, Pietari (played by Onni Tommila) who lives in Korvatunturi in the Finnish region of Lapland, with his father Rauno (played by his real life dad Jorma Tommila). His mother has passed away, and father and son are finding things increasingly hard as Christmas approaches. An American team is excavating the peak of Korvatunturi, and since work has begun, strange things have been happening in the local area. Studying old books, Pietari learns of an old legend that tells of the original Santa, a huge ogre of the man with horns who ravaged the land. The Sami people grew tired of his reign of terror and trapped the ancient monster in ice, which in time became the peaks of Korvatunturi. And our young hero suspects that the excavations there are going to unleash something very old and very dangerous…

Now Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is a truly magical movie. It is beautifully shot, immersing you in the glorious wild beauty of Lapland, much like the last Finnish Christmas horror we spoke about, The White Reindeer. However, like Sint, it also draws on traditional local Christmas legends about Santa. There he is known as Joulupukki, the Yule Goat, and was a much more terrifying looking figure, a horned humanoid dressed in furs, before his image was softened and brought more in line with the Santa we know today. Rare Exports draws on these older traditional depictions of Joulupukki, and again like Sint, uses them as springboard to create a new mythological tale revealing ancient and dark origins for our familiar cosy Father Christmas. 

But do be warned, when I said it was a magical movie, I was referring to the magic of old folklore and legends rather than modern fairy tales, for there are some very dark things occurring in Rare Exports. But that said, this is still a proper Christmas tale, there is light as well as the darkness, for at its heart, it is the story of how a young boy sets out to save both his family and Christmas itself as well. And hence despite some unsettling scenes, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale does live up to its full  title, and delivers a finale that will fill you up with the spirit of the season.  

In another of these little Christmas coincidences, once again we got two movies released in the same year that make a perfect festive double bill! And indeed, both are high recommends for any lovers of Christmas horror. 

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THE CHRISTMAS HORROR ADVENT CALENDAR Door 21: I'll Be Home For Christmas

Often the joys of Christmas are the cosy times, either spent with loved ones or just cuddled up at home, in particular on Christmas Eve, soaking up the comforts of the festive season. Well, unless that is you are in any of the films hiding by this particular door. 

To begin with, in the dishonourable mention category, we have Calvaire (2004). In this dark psychological drama from Belgium, a struggling musician on the way to a Christmas gig breaks down in the middle of nowhere. However he happens across a local youth who leads him to a run-down motel, operated by an eccentric old man, Mr Bartel, who seems like a friendly old fellow.  However, of course, as we all know, run-down motels in the middle of nowhere are trouble, and Marc finds himself trapped in a world of pain and depravity. Drawing on the likes of Deliverance and Wake in Fright, and featuring a few nods to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Calvaire is a bizarre and bleak film filled with unpleasant things and most unfestive behaviour. But while it is sometimes described as a horror film, it is a long way from your usual horror genre fare, and is more a very strange arthouse exploitation film, and hence earns a dishonourable mention here.  

Moving on, our next  film sails very close to the wind too, a 2007 French horror movie which is about as far from cosy as you can imagine. Released in France on June 13th 2007, and a little later in other territories, was À l'intérieur, better known in English-speaking countries as Inside. This was the debut feature of a pair of directors, Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, who would go on to make a string of French horror movies including Livid (2011), Among the Living (2014), Kandisha (2020), and The Deep House (2021). Plus they made what has been hailed as one of the few decent sequels in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, Leatherface (2017). However Inside, their first feature remains their most notorious. Often bracketed with other European New Extremity horror films like Haute Tension, Irreversible, Frontiere, and Martyrs. 

So then, what’s the story? It is Christmas Eve, and Sarah, played by Alysson Paradis, is pregnant and close to birth. We learn that she lost her husband several months ago in a tragic car accident, and her baby is due tomorrow. However there is a knock at the door, and a woman, played by Béatrice Dalle, asks to come in and use the phone. Sarah is suspicious and refuses to let her in, and things take a turn for the weird when the mystery woman reveals that she knows that Sarah’s husband is dead. The woman tries again to gain entry but Sarah repels her and calls the police. However later the mysterious woman breaks in, and a harrowing and bloody game of cat and mouse ensues… 

Now Inside started with a simple concept - rather than doing another movie in which a guy chases a girl, what if the maniac was a woman? It was then a short step to having the victim be pregnant. And as it was it was this second wrinkle that makes Inside such a difficult watch for most viewers. Now, in many regards, Inside is not more violent or gory than many other stalk and slash movies, but the pregnancy puts everything into a far more upsetting context. And while Inside is undoubtedly an excellently made movie, be warned that for many viewers, it becomes too upsetting to watch. Certainly it is an extremely tense and harrowing way to spend Christmas Eve.  

However later in 2007, there were less controversial festive thrills and chills available in the shape of a little movie called P2 released on 9th November 2007. Funnily enough, this movie also had a connection to the New Extremity films, as director Franck Khalfoun had acted in a role in Haute Tension, and what’s more, P2 was produced by Haute Tension’s director Alexandre Aja. However thankfully here we have a somewhat more accessible movie! 

The title P2 refers to the number of a bay in an underground car park of a Manhattan office block. It is Christmas Eve, and businesswoman Angela Bridges, played by Rachel Nichols, has been working late. However on reaching P2, she finds her car won’t start and so turns to the parking garage’s security guard for help. And the guard, Thomas, played by Wes Bentley, is more than happy to help. However there are two small problems getting in the way of Angela getting home for Christmas. Firstly the car still wouldn’t start, and secondly, Thomas really, really doesn’t want her to go… These two things are not connected, and Angela finds herself, shall we say, forcibly invited to spend Christmas with Thomas, whether she likes it or not. 

Originally developed by Alexandre Aja after reading about attacks in Paris car packs, P2 largely avoids the violent excesses of Haute Tension. And while there is some splatter, there’s only one scene which is quite jaw-droppingly gory, and in the main P2 opts instead for taut and terrifying suspense. It’s very much one of those movies which has you asking yourself, what would I do in this situation, namely being trapped in a deserted car parking complex at Christmas with an obsessed stalker. 

Very much concentrating on the battle of wills between Angela and the increasingly volatile Thomas, the performances from the leads are excellent, with Wes Bentley putting in a brilliant portrayal of a man whose sanity is slowly slipping away as the situation he has engineered begins to spiral out of his control. The tension and terror is very much contrasted with the timely use of Christmas favourites on the soundtrack, making P2 a perfect festive thrill ride. And if it puts you off working too late on Christmas Eve, that’s all the better! 

Finally rounding off today’s selection is a British horror from 2008, The Children. Now strictly speaking this movie is set just after Christmas and over New Year, but with plenty of festive décor and a snowy landscape, it easily deserves a mention here. Plus it was released on 5th December 2008, meaning it was in theatres for that Christmas. It was directed by Tom Shankland, who previously had worked extensively in television on a variety of shows, but had also made crime horror WΔZ, also known as The Killing Gene in 2007. And The Children saw him heading once more into horror territory. So then, what is the plot of this slice of New Year’s terror? 

Elaine and Jonah travel with their two children, Miranda and Paulie, to spend the New Year with Elaine's sister, Chloe, her husband Robbie, and their two children, Nicky and Leah. Also coming along is Casey, played by Hannah Tointon, Elaine's teenage daughter from a previous relationship. When they get there one of the kids, Paulie, is ill, but this isn’t just car sickness, as the other kids get infected too. This isn’t just a case of the sniffles, rather it's an infection that seems to have a very sinister effect on the children, basically turning them into pint-size evil killers.

Interestingly though the movie doesn’t opt for a virus that just turns the kids feral and homicidal. Rather, as I said, it makes them evil; they are smart, cunning, and ruthless, which is far more effective than just having them as very small zombie analogs. And what follows is most definitely not a happy New Year! The Children is a dark but fun little movie, and if you are looking for some snowy mayhem for the days between Christmas and New Year, then this is the film for you! 

However we will have more true Christmas horror tomorrow in the shape of two classic bad Santa movies! 

DIRECT DOWNLOAD - Door 21: I'll Be Home For Christmas

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THE CHRISTMAS HORROR ADVENT CALENDAR Door 20: Driving Home For Christmas

So then we have reached the new millennium, and in the 2000s we will see Christmas horror movies begin to proliferate. However things started quietly, and our first proper festive fright flick didn't arrive until 2003. This movie was Dead End, written and directed by Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa, although it is filmed in the English language. It stars cult icons Ray Wise and Lin Shaye. It had its premiere screening on 30th January 2003 at the Gerardmer Film Festival. It then played various other film festivals over the summer and autumn, and got its first general release in the UK on 12th December 2003, just in time for Christmas. 

The story is very simple, on Christmas Eve, a typical family is driving over to grandma’s house to spend Christmas with the family. In the present-laden car, is Dad, Frank (Ray Wise), Mom, Laura (Lin Shaye), daughter Marian (Alexandra Holden), her boyfriend Brad (Billy Asher), and annoying younger brother Richard (Mick Cain). Rather than take the interstate, as they do every year, Frank has decided to go the back way on a lonely road cutting through a large forest. However as we all know from countless other movies, and often real life experiences too, taking a scenic route can often lead to trouble. And indeed, things take a turn for the strange, after they pick up a mysterious woman in white…

And I will leave the plot synopsis there, for fear of unleashing spoilers. However suffice to say, they are not alone on this lonely road, and along the way as we will discover they are not such a happy family after all. 

Dead End is a very fun little movie that presents a lot of memorable dark and strange scenes as the family travels down this increasingly troubling stretch of lonely road. There are some genuinely eerie events and more than a few shocks, however the real magic comes with the family dynamics. To start, the cast are brilliant in this, from Ray Wise as the father who’s temper is slowly fraying, to Lin Shaye’s always-look-on-the-bright-side Mom. And the kids are good too - Alexandra Holden’s Marion is clearly the golden child who has done well, her boyfriend Brad is clearly punching above his weight, while Mick Cain, as the superbly irritating Richard, gives us a memorable little brother from hell, now in his teenage years and going off the rails. 

So then, if you need an antidote to all those saccharine movies about perfect families having perfect Christmases, well, Dead End is the film for you, showing us a more realistic family, who are flawed and get increasingly tetchy with each on this road trip gone awry. This realism is also subtly underscored by the fact that they are not travelling through the usual Hollywood Christmas weather - there’s not a hint of snow, just a brooding, dark winter forest and an empty road carpeted with long dead leaves. There is a great mix here of drama, comedy and unsettling chills, and it all adds up to a Christmas road trip you won’t forget, but may well want to revisit in future Christmases.  

However, oddly enough, in one of the many strange coincidences in the world of Christmas horror, only a couple of years later we had a similarly themed movie about driving home for Christmas. 2007’s Wind Chill saw a student at a Pennsylvania University, played by Emily Blunt, who through a campus rideshare board, finds another student, a guy played by Ashton Holmes, and gets a ride home with him for the Christmas holidays. They are heading through the snow down to Wilmington, Delaware, but on the way decide to take, you guessed it, the dreaded scenic route. And let’s just say things take a turn for the worse from that point onwards. 

Wind Chill was directed by Gregory Jacobs, who is better known as an assistant director and producer, often with Steven Soderberg, and has worked on a string of well-known movies such as Miller’s Crossing, Solaris, Magic Mike, Edge of Tomorrow, and Ocean’s Eleven. Indeed, Wind Chill was produced with support from George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh's company Section Eight Productions. But despite this pedigree, Wind Chill received a somewhat frosty reception from critics back in the day, and I can’t help wondering if there was a certain snobbishness involved here, for Wind Chill is a fine little film.

To start with we have two quality actors in the lead roles, and Jacobs creates a convincingly threatening snowy atmosphere of tension and dread as the story progresses. The plot has some well-crafted twists and turns, and without giving away any spoilers, has some nice subtle touches, in particular the use of an old Christmas tune on the radio. Despite sounding somewhat similar to Dead End, Wind Chill is a very different sort of movie, whereas Dead End serves up a darkly comic visceral horror, Wind Chill takes a more eerie route looking to deliver snowy suspense and wintry chills. And as two different takes on the horrors of driving home from Christmas, they would make an excellent seasonal double bill! 

However released between these two, was another Christmas horror, which at first looked very unpromising indeed. And I say unpromising because firstly it was another killer Santa movie, and really after the dizzily heights of Eric Freeman in Silent Night, Deadly Part 2, was there any point in doing another? And secondly because this movie was to star a professional wrestler, and as Hulk Hogan’s Santa With Muscles proved back in 1996, mixing wrestlers and Christmas did not a good movie make. Quite the opposite in fact!   

So what was this ill-starred movie? Santa’s Slay, released on 20th December 2005 and starring wrestler Bill Goldberg as a murderous St. Nick, rampaging through a little town on his sleigh pulled by a hell-deer, and despatching residents with a variety of festively themed kills. But, despite sounding like a recipe for a truly awful Christmas chiller, Santa’s Slay proved to be a highly entertaining mix of comedy and festive horror. 

To begin with, Bill Goldberg puts in a brilliantly over the top performance as this evil Santa, becoming the perfect villain you love to hate. The movie wisely lets him show off his physical prowess with many violent physical discourtesies committed against his victims, but Goldberg also proves a dab hand the comedy too, delivering one liners with gleeful relish and shameless mugging at the camera. 

There is great support from the rest of the cast too. We have an engaging young hero,  Nicholas Yuleson, played by a young Douglas Smith, who makes a great team with his girlfriend, Mary "Mac" McKenzie, played by Emilie de Ravin. However, often stealing the scenes, is young Nick’s grandad, who is played with admirable comic chops by Robert Culp, who we last saw in Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 3. Grandad is the only man who knows the true secret of this evil Santa, and what a secret it is. 

For it is here where the film plays the ace up its sleeve. For Goldberg’s maniac Santa isn't just a heavily muscled psycho, he is in fact a dark version of the real Santa.  For in this movie, we learn that originally Santa was the child of Satan, born of a blasphemous virgin birth centuries ago. This Santa had an annual killing spree, until  in 1005 AD he lost a curling match with an angel, and was magically bound to be good and give out presents for a thousand years, thus becoming the Santa we know and love. But of course in 2005, that ancient magic spell is breaking and Santa is free to go slaying on his sleigh again!

Very silly and hilariously violent, Santa’s Slay is a whole sackful of festive fun, proving that there was a whole lot more that could be done in the field of Christmas horror than just sticking a slasher in the famous red suit. Naturally the film has gained a cult following and is an annual rewatch for many. However, with the benefit of hindsight, this daft little film, deftly written and directed by David Steiman, was in fact very ahead of its time. For, while it is often classed as another Santa slasher, actually this is the first movie that explores the idea that there might be a darker, older mythology hiding behind the modern jolly fat man in a suit. And as we will hear very soon, there would be more movies coming in the next few years that would reveal sinister ancient mythological origins for St. Nick. Therefore Santa’s Slay is a truly pioneering film, actually the very first dark folklore Santa movie!  

However all these three movies from the early 2000s show a very interesting development in the world of Christmas horror, and that is, while tales of killer Santas and serial killer chillers had very much dominated the festive fright flick, the new millennium saw film-makers begin to explore different avenues for seasonal chills, and there would be more to Christmas horror in the future than just having a murder among the mistletoe and merriment…

DIRECT DOWNLOAD - Door 20: Driving Home For Christmas

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THE CHRISTMAS HORROR ADVENT CALENDAR Door 19: The Naughty List

Now then, so far in this advent calendar we have looked at a wide range of different movies from many different decades and from all around the world. And all of them have been at least watchable. Yes, there have been a few with rough edges, such as The Dorm That Dripped Blood or To All A Goodnight, but they all have had at least some merit, or at the least, in the context of Christmas horror have some historical value. However, having reached the 1990s, we are well and truly into the age of straight-to-video movies, and an awful lot of rubbish has been inflicted on unsuspecting video rental customers over the years. And of course, there’s vast swathes of drivel sliding out of the various streaming services now too. 

Of course, among all this visual dreck, there are a whole slew of absolutely awful Christmas horror movies, and behind this door we will sample some of the denizens of the Naughty List of Christmas horror! 

One of the earliest and best known Christmas horror turkeys is a little movie called Elves. Now alleged this movie, written and directed by Jeffrey Mandel, had a small theatrical release back in 1989. However I have been able to find no evidence of that actually happening. But what we do know is that it was released on VHS on December 19th 1994 with very little fanfare. Now given its late ‘80s vintage and title, you could be forgiven for assuming that that Elves was some festively themed Gremlins rip-off. However the truth is far weirder! 

To briefly attempt to extract some sort of sense from the plot, basically a homeless man Mike, played by Dan Haggerty - yes, TV’s Grizzly Adams - has landed a gig as a department store Santa. This job has the added bonus giving him the chance to pilfer the store’s snacks after hours. Also working at the store is Kirsten, played by Julie Austin, who turns out to be the last of a specially bred line of Aryans created by a Nazi cult.  However if that wasn’t mad enough, in the film’s opening, while in the woods, she cuts herself which awakens an ancient demon elf. Anyhow before you know it the Nazi cult turns up and plans to breed the elf with Kirsten to create a new master race. And its down to Hobo Santa Mike to stop them. 

So then, let’s cut to the chase here - Elves is a bloody terrible movie. Badly shot, it looks awful, and there’s only one elf in the damn thing. And even then, the effects budget only stretched to a head and some claws. On the upside, the plot is truly demented, and has led to claims that this movie is “so bad, it’s good”, however like many of these lumps of cinematic coal, most viewers will find it’s just so bad, it’s bad. 

However, somewhat bizarrely, it gives us a second unexpected connection between Christmas horror and The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams - for the first Silent Night, Deadly Night film was directed by Charles E. Sellier Jnr. the man who created the fondly remembered TV series. 

But if you think Elves is deranged, it has nothing on a little seen Christmas horror called Bloodbeat. Written and directed by Fabrice-Ange Zaphiratos, although I’m not so sure about that “written” bit to be honest, Bloodbeat is odd to the point of incoherence. Filmed on a shoestring in Wisconsin, the plot, very roughly, goes like this…  A family is gathering for Christmas, and in a spare room, one of the visiting relatives discovers a suit of samurai armour and an ancient sword. Which comes to life and starts killing people. Two of the family turn out to be psychic, leading to outbreaks of poltergeist activity and a big fight with magic swords at the end. 

At least I think that’s what happened. I might have hallucinated the whole thing. Certainly many viewers have wondered if there was any sort of script when they started filming, and the director has later tried to claim he was making an arthouse film. I think the truth is, Bloodbeat is just incredibly inept. And while there is a certain charm to some bad movies, others are just interminable to sit through. So, do be warned - many of these terrible Christmas horror movies are not as entertaining as they sound. 

Of course there are movies that are setting out to be bad in the first place, which brings us to our next lump of coal - Feeders 2: Slay Bells. Now this movie was a sequel to a 1996 independent science fiction horror flick called - surprise, surprise - Feeders. This shot on a camcorder movie was made for just $500, and the sequel was made for even less! 

Both movies are the world of the Polonia brothers, who made a string of shot on video movies all for next to nothing. The Polonia charter was basically shoot quickly, shoot cheap, and make up for the complete lack of funds and resources by having ridiculous over-the-top plots. Hence while in the first Feeders we had aliens popping down to earth to snack on humans, in Feeders 2: Slay Bells when the little critters return, it’s down to a laser gun wielding Santa to repel them. The box blurb claims “it's a sci-fi adventure you won’t want to miss”  but most would violently disagree. No budget movies like this are definitely an acquired taste, but even so Feeders 2 is so lacking in anything resembling proper film making, it's a challenge for even bad movie devotees.

Also an absolute chore to watch and barely even qualifying as a movie is Santa Claws, released on October 22nd 1996. Starring cult actress Debbie Rochon in a very early role, Santa Claws is basically 83 minutes of your life you will never get back. Looking like it was shot on a camcorder bought in a fire sale, and shot in storerooms, Santa Claws is absolutely dire. There is a plot which has Debbie Rochon as a horror movie actress being stalked by a murderous fan who kills with a not very lethal looking gardening claw, but much of this alleged movie is padding featuring various other girls getting nude. For apparently this was made simultaneously with another straight-to-video tape Scream Queen Naked Christmas which is just girls getting them out. Sadly both of these dubious outings were helmed by John A. Russo, who co wrote Night of the Living Dead with George Romero, and although he later wrote the novel Return of the living Dead which became a classic zombie movie in its own right, here he appears to hit rock bottom. 

Also in the one to miss pile is Christmas Cruelty, a 2013 underground horror from Norway. Originally entitled O'Hellige Jul, which translates to O Holy Christmas, this movie details the rampages of a violent serial killer in very graphic detail. The movie opens with brutal scenes of our antihero butchering a family, but then we have an hour seeing both him, and a group of friends who will be his next victims, going about their business preparing for Christmas. And then in the last twenty or so minutes of the movie we get to watch him rape, torture and dismember them. Christmas Cruelty is a very obscure film, and probably rightly so, boasts a mere seven reviews on IMDB and the majority of those aren’t very positive about it either - it seems the movie is fairly interminable, but not because of the graphic and unpleasant content, but because of the dull day to day scenes, bad editing and highly annoying music which makes up the bulk of the film! 

Moving on to more salubrious but still obscure realms we have Two Front Teeth, a 2006 horror comedy, that like Christmas Cruelty would have languished in limbo if it had not been picked up by Unearthed Films who specialise in releasing highly obscure cult movies. The blurb promises “Rankin-Bass meet EC Comics”, and the plot outline certainly sounds in the right ballpark.  The brilliantly named Francis Johnny Wolf stars as Gabe Snow, a reporter who is obsessed with a mystery plane crash - Flight 1225 was brought down one foggy Christmas Eve, allegedly by a flying creature with a glowing nose. Unfortunately, he has stumbled on the truth and the culprit, a vampiric Santa dubbed Clausferatu, sends out monster elves to silence him. And if that wasn’t enough there’s also a lycanthropic Easter Bunny and a trio of ninja nuns, the Silent Knights. 

Well, you can’t fault the movie for a lack of imagination. Script writer and co-director Jaime Nash would go on to bigger and better things working on the V/H/S film series and scripting more serious horror fare such as Lovely Molly and Exists, directed by Eduardo Sánchez, plus wrote cult favourite the WNUF Halloween Special (2013). And you can see the promise here, however unfortunately though, Two Front Teeth is horribly filmed on video, which will put off most viewers and why this pretty home-made horror comedy doesn’t have a cult following. 

So then, moving on, next up we have a movie that does have something of a cult following, but perhaps doesn’t really deserve one. But at least, it’s a movie you might have heard - Jack Frost, released on 18th November 1997. Now this isn’t the family-friendly movie Jack Frost from 1998, with Michael Keaton coming back from the dead as a snowman. This is the distinctly not family-friendly movie from a year earlier which features a serial killer coming back from the dead as a killer snowman. I imagine there have been many traumatising mix-ups in video rental stores over the years. 

Written and directed by Michael Cooney, Jack Frost stars Scott MacDonald and Christopher Allport, and features the first screen appearance of Shannon Elizabeth. Originally it was intended to be a bigger, more serious movie, with a killer who could morph into snow and ice just like the T1000 in Terminator 2. However instead we got a comedy snowman outfit and a cheap movie knocked out in just eighteen days. Filmed in January 1994, the production very quickly ran into trouble when the director saw the snowman outfits and ended up hastily rewriting the script as a comedy. Then when out shooting on location, all the winter snows unexpectedly melted early, leaving the production with a freak heatwave. And if that wasn’t enough, the production company Prism went under, and seeing the finished cut, banker Lou Horowitz who was in charge of the financial wreckage, deemed it unreleasable and shelved it. And so the film was unreleased for several years until it was picked up by A-Pix Entertainment  who released it  on home video in 1997.     

And unfortunately all of these problems are readily apparent in Jack Frost. And while some of the humour does save certain scenes, and there are some fun festive kills which are suitably silly, mostly the movie is, well, just a bit of a mess. However it gained enough of a reputation as a good bad movie to spawn a sequel, Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman in 2000. But unfortunately this flick chose to relocate the action to a tropical island which rather lost all the seasonal silliness of the first movie. 

However, after this naughty list of low and no budget Christmas horrors that are shockers for all the wrong reasons, I will round off with a surprise gift, and proof that inexpensive indie fright flicks don’t have to be awful! So then folks, let’s sample A Cadaver Christmas! 

Released 2nd April 2011, A Cadaver Christmas is a horror comedy directed by Joseph Zerull, which first appeared at film festivals, and was released on DVD later that year. Since then it has had television screenings and more recently had a Blu-ray release and appeared on various streaming platforms. The plot is as follows… 

A janitor is working late at a university on Christmas Eve, and discovers the cadavers in the path lab have come to life. He escapes to a nearby bar and assembles a motley band of very unlikely heroes to attempt to contain the risen dead.

Written by Joe Zerull with Daniel Rairdin-Hale and Hanlon Smith-Dorsey, who also star as our janitor hero and barfly Tom, A Cadaver Christmas is a fun little zom com done on a tiny budget. However, quite cannily, they chose to shoot it so it looks and sounds like an older movie, the kind of cheap flick that played in grindhouse cinemas or turned up in video rental stores back in the day. Hence there’s scratches and dirt on the film, the colours are weirdly saturated, but also the script and performances very much lean deliberately into that bad exploitation film aesthetic. 

Now how well A Cadaver Christmas plays for you will depend on whether the style of comedy is to your taste or not. If it doesn’t, you will think it’s just another lump of cinematic coal, but if you are on the same humorous wavelength, this is a fun little movie. Now I must admit, when I sat down to watch this little flick, I was expecting another terrible no budget, no talent production, but I instantly recognised the style of exploitation movie they were spoofing and a couple of early lines got surprisingly big laughs on our sofa. And after that, we were onboard for the ride. Yes, it is very cheap and somewhat quirky, but it is fairly well made. In fact, it's a great example of tailoring your script to the resources you have. And what’s more, it was clearly made with a lot of love and passion. And if the style of humour works for you, A Cadaver Christmas will deliver plenty of laughs, some suitably silly gore, and has a nice festive theme running through it. And certainly, as the rest of this naughty list has proved, you could do a whole lot worse! 

DIRECT DOWNLOAD - Door 19: The Naughty List

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