ButterTart's Christmas Horror Film Countdown

88. The Damned Within the Shadows (2001)
Too obscure even for a trailer on YouTube, so here's the entire film in foreign :D
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After witnessing an assassination, a couple are taken into protective custody at an isolated house, only for the agent guarding them to become possessed by the murderous spirit living there.

Hailing from the cinematic wasteland of 2001, this was the very last film I watched for this ranking. The version on YouTube is in JAPANESE so I had to fork out £2.50 for it off the Amazon. Frankly, I feel short-changed. After a fun opening involving a murder-suicide and a dog watching his master swinging by the neck, we’re launched into an interminable story where characters wander around mumbling to each other while looking vaguely disconcerted. The young couple under police protection have absolutely zero chemistry – if the twist was that they hadn’t actually met before arriving at the house, you’d not be surprised. The possessed agent exudes all the menace of a frozen cod, and the only thing intimidating about him is his genuinely ferocious mullet.

Best bit: The opening. It’s very effective in convincing you that you’re about to watch a much better film.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
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ButterTart said:
Is he quite well known? From this I assumed he'd find a role that suited his talents a little more, like a warehouse operative or a coma patient.
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he's one of our biggest actors these days believe it or not!
 
87. Silent Night, Bloody Night: The Homecoming (2013)
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In rural Wales, the sexily named Jeffrey (Alan Humphreys) makes arrangements to sell the family estate he’s just inherited. At the same time, the townsfolk begin to fall victim to an axe-wielding mental.

The first British film on the list, and also our first pure-blooded slasher so far, this is a direct remake of Silent Night, Bloody Night. Set in Wales. On a budget so miniscule it makes those videos the police found on your uncle’s hard drive look like Jurassic Park. Despite having a previous film to copy the answers from, this manages to be a chaotic mess which makes nary a lick of sense. Characters turn up just to get killed, while the final girl only earns that role by standing around being unimportant while every other character dies. The sound mixing is BEYOND awful – one minute you’re attaching sub woofers to your telly so you can hear the conversations, the next you’re hospitalised with whiplash after a sudden explosion of incidental music.

It features the age old horror trope of having a character watch Night of the Living Dead because it’s public domain and makes your own film look a bit more legit, and is also the first of many films on this list to use strangulation with fairy lights as a murder set-piece.

Best bit: A couple breaks into the old mansion for a sly bonk, only for one of them to fall victim to death by dining chair.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
86. Dead by Christmas (2018)
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A group of young folk pay a festive visit to the Louisiana orphanage where they grew up. There, they settle into the long-held Yuletide tradition of chilling with a kindly nun and getting offed in unexciting ways.

Another slasher featuring some cleft in a Santa suit, this clocks in at under an hour but still manages to outstay its welcome by 50 minutes. I give it credit for attempting to do something with a budget so low that the actors were paid with hugs, but there really isn’t much to say about this one. Plus, it’s set in Louisiana and so is about as festive as a biopsy.

Best bit: The opening kill, where Samuel (Cody Wise) has his eyes gouged out with a candy cane. This is far from the last we’ll see of unnaturally sharp candy canes being used to murder people.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
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85. The Elf (2017)
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Nick (Gabriel Miller) inherits a toy shop and accidentally unleashes the spirit of an EVIL ELF which binds itself to him.

Somehow the best of the EVIL ELF films while still managing to be absolute dogshit, this is yet more seepage from the infected penis that is Uncork’d Entertainment. The usual problems persist – atrocious CGI, terrible sound mixing, scenes moving from day to night as if continuity costs extra, and the kills are dull and mostly offscreen. The whole thing is buoyed slightly by some histrionic acting and an attempt at a twist.

Best bit: The elf massacres a load of carol singers in a scene I actually didn’t mind. For some reason, they’re singing quite obviously made up carols. I don’t get why, since carols are PUBLIC DOMAIN. Characters listen to them all the time in Christmas films rather than sticking on a bit of Wham or Mariah Carey like every normal person does in real life.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
84. Stalled (2013)
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A weirdo caretaker, hilariously named W.C (Dan Palmer) gets stuck in the ladies’ toilet of a high-rise office block when a zombie virus strikes the Christmas party being held there.

Possibly a contentious one, this, since people seem to really like it. I feel like it desperately wants to be cool and funny like Shaun of the Dead but doesn’t have anywhere near the wit or familiarity with the genre to pull it off (Seriously, the zombies say ‘BRAINS’ ☹). I give it credit for the use of a single location for most of the runtime, but when the majority of the action is two people talking through a cubicle wall, the dialogue and performances need to be a hell of a lot more engaging than they are here - W.C goes on an anti-religious rant at one point which is clearly just the writer’s own thoughts being broadcast by proxy, and nothing will turn me against a film quicker than that. It’s not funny or deep, it’s just airing a grudge. He also takes a pill which makes him act like characters do on Hollyoaks whenever they take evil naughty drugs – i.e. fuck all like anyone acts when they take drugs in real life. This leads to an excruciating comedy dance sequence which, like every comedy dance sequence in history, is so embarrassingly shit it made me want to jab a pen in my eye to make it go away.

Best bit: Jeff from I.T turns up in a blaze of heroic glory, then immediately dies after choking on a finger thrown by W.C. Quite funny, but W.C is SUCH a dick in this bit it’s impossible to root for him again after it.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
Utterly :agog:that you've managed to get a list of 100 together, I was expecting about 30! Quite relieved to hear that many of them appear to be unbearable crud mind, otherwise I'd be terrified just how many outside the 100 you've actually watched :D
 
I'll be AGHAST if we don't have a (somewhat high) appearance from noted icon Lin Shaye and DEAD END which I honestly love
 
Note: if you google Lin Shaye Dead End it's almost impossible to tell what you're looking at, because Lin Shaye has starred in over 37,000 horror movies, and has the same look and age in all of them.
 
Raining On Me said:
Utterly :agog:that you've managed to get a list of 100 together, I was expecting about 30! Quite relieved to hear that many of them appear to be unbearable crud mind, otherwise I'd be terrified just how many outside the 100 you've actually watched :D
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I was shocked at myself, to be honest. It started as a much smaller list and then I decided there was no point putting myself through some of this without the catharsis of writing about how shit they are.
 
ButterTart said:
I was shocked at myself, to be honest. It started as a much smaller list and then I decided there was no point putting myself through some of this without the catharsis of writing about how shit they are.
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I mean you're selling them better than they obviously managed themselves and thus I will no doubt seek out several of these delights for an evening of self hating scrutiny :disco:
 
Raining On Me said:
I mean you're selling them better than they obviously managed themselves and thus I will no doubt seek out several of these delights for an evening of self hating scrutiny :disco:
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I was actually going to add in where I watched each of them but I didn't want to be an enabler. A LOT are freely available on Prime and YouTube, though...
 
83. Krampus: The Reckoning (2015)
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Child psychologist Rachel (Monica Engesser) takes on a young girl called Zoe (Amelia Haberman), whose Krampus dolls may be related to a string of recent murders.

There’s actually quite a cool concept behind this one, which makes it one of the better Krampus knock offs on the market. The fact that it reaches the dizzying heights of 83 is a reminder that ‘better’ is still a relative concept. This version of Krampus burns his victims to death, which makes for some relatively interesting kills, and the mystery surrounding Zoe actually has some depth to it. As with everything Uncork’d inflicts upon us, though, the pacing is all to cock and the effects (other than the burnings) are uniformly shite. It’s also far too talky which, considering nobody has anything worthwhile to say, means boredom sets in fairly early. Still, you can only fail if you tried in the first place, so the film deserves some acknowledgement for that.

Best bit: Dirty great NONCE Jow (Owen Conway) burns to death in his hallway. The M.O is the same for each killing but this one feels especially vicious.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
I did not know that there was a whole Krampus cinematic universe. The only one I’ve watched was the semi successful one from a few years back with Allison Tolman.
 
82. ATM (2012)
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Three city types (Brian Geraghty, Josh Peck and Alice Eve) get trapped in a cash machine vestibule by a lunatic dressed like Brenda off Urban Legend.

This is by far the most mainstream film we’ve encountered on the list so far, so I’m going to assume a few of you will have seen it. It’s clearly got a reasonable budget and has some actual names in it (Well, Josh Peck), but squanders them on one of the most frustrating stories imaginable. For those who haven’t seen it, imagine screaming ‘Run! You can escape! He’s nowhere near! FUCKING RUN!’ at the screen for an hour and a half and you’re pretty much there. Seriously, these three, young, athletic characters are so intimidated by an unarmed man in a parka that they basically barricade themselves in the vestibule and refuse to help themselves even during the many periods where it’s PERFECTLY SAFE FOR THEM TO ESCAPE. Instead, they wibble, panic, accidentally kill bystanders and eventually get out of their non-predicament by following a plan they came up with literally in the first ten minutes but just forgot about for most of the film. I mean, that's just fucking lazy.

Best bit: Corey (Josh Peck) makes a run for it and falls foul of some cheesewire. Seriously, they’re so determined not to escape that the killer can preoccupy himself with setting up an elaborate trap without fear of them attempting to run in the opposite direction.
 
81. Secret Santa (2015)
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To celebrate the end of their exams, a group of students throw a sexy Christmas party. As they swap their secret Santa presents, they discover that they’ve been replaced with various implements which may or may not later be used to violently murder them.

A low-budget homage to 80s slashers, this one goes in HARD on the comedy and, sadly, totally misses the mark. Things on the horror side are much more promising as the kills are well done and actually entertaining. A man gets his Clarence chopped off (Something we’ll see a ridiculous amount of over the course of this list) and a woman has a bath during her own party just so she can be electrocuted in it (One of the better comedy moments involves the power cord on the hairdryer not being long enough to reach the bathtub). The flat where 90% of the action takes place is far too small for people to keep going missing the way they do, however, and far too much time is spent trying to get Dwayne over as a laugh-a-minute goofball (no matter how well @COB plays him). Not a bad effort, but the writers should have foregrounded the horror because they don’t really have the chops for comedy.

Best bit: Liv receives an electric carving knife as her secret Santa present, which is soon used to graphically disembowel her. The 80s sound effects and flourishes throughout the film are used to great effect here.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
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80. Krampus Unleashed (2016)
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While on holiday for Christmas, a family accidentally activates a summoning stone which releases our dear pal Krampus for a spot of festive slaughter.

Yes, Brenda, ANOTHER ONE. Our old pals Uncork’d are back to prove that if at first you don’t succeed you can still make a few quid from prolific failure. This version of Krampus is most significant for featuring a character called Bonnie Tyler who, like her namesake, will whack her tits out at the slightest provocation. The family dynamic here is an obvious attempt to replicate the one from the more famous Krampus film but lacks any of the heart which made that movie work. The kids react to the brutal murder of their parents as if their Tamagotchi has just died, and nobody is especially likeable. There’s not much going on behind the eyes here, but it’s at worst inept and forgettable, which for these films is quite a lofty benchmark to have reached.

I'm still trying to work out whether the GHASTLY version of Let It Snow used in the opening credits (and in the trailer above) is supposed to be a joke. It's NEXT LEVEL shit.

Best bit: Grandma Alice (Linda Cushma) has her head bitch-slapped clean off her shoulders in a bit of genuinely ridiculous CGI.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
79. Unholy Night (2019)
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Brace yourselves, lads… it’s a fucking ANTHOLOGY. On Christmas Eve, a young nurse is told some spooooky festive tales by her elderly patient. Following her shift, she goes for dinner with her evil mother...

I have a complicated relationship with anthologies; I don't like them even though they're usually pretty good. This one, however, is not good, and absolutely justifies my prejudice. We're treated to two stories - the first is an okayish tale of a lad who takes mushrooms before meeting his girlfriend's parents for the first time, the second involves an off-brand Candyman/Bloody Mary figure called Drunk Dead Debbie, which is more vile than it is scary. The film then forgets it's supposed to be an anthology feature altogether and just turns into a Carrie-lite narrative piece in which the meek nurse fights back against her controlling mother, somehow finding a way to bring a talking mannequin into the mix for good measure. There's some brief flashes of inspiration but overall it's not an experience I'd care to repeat.

Best bit: The story with the guy on mushrooms is definitely the strongest.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch:

Also, whenever I read the name Unholy Night it puts me in mind of this:
 
ButterTart said:
81. Secret Santa (2015)
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To celebrate the end of their exams, a group of students throw a sexy Christmas party. As they swap their secret Santa presents, they discover that they’ve been replaced with various implements which may or may not later be used to violently murder them.

A low-budget homage to 80s slashers, this one goes in HARD on the comedy and, sadly, totally misses the mark. Things on the horror side are much more promising as the kills are well done and actually entertaining. A man gets his Clarence chopped off (Something we’ll see a ridiculous amount of over the course of this list) and a woman has a bath during her own party just so she can be electrocuted in it (One of the better comedy moments involves the power cord on the hairdryer not being long enough to reach the bathtub). The flat where 90% of the action takes place is far too small for people to keep going missing the way they do, however, and far too much time is spent trying to get Dwayne over as a laugh-a-minute goofball (no matter how well @COB plays him). Not a bad effort, but the writers should have foregrounded the horror because they don’t really have the chops for comedy.

Best bit: Liv receives an electric carving knife as her secret Santa present, which is soon used to graphically disembowel her. The 80s sound effects and flourishes throughout the film are used to great effect here.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch:
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Well I for one think Dwayne looks like GREAT FUN and so handsome!
 
78. Slay Belles (2018)
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Three urban explorers break into an abandoned theme park called 'Santa Land'. They soon find themselves under attack by our dear chum Krampus and must team up with Father Christmas in order to defeat him.

We're at a point in the rate where I can no longer say I actively dislike the films, nor can I say I'm especially fond. Slay Belles is another horror comedy with a disproportionate success to failure ratio with its jokes, but those that do land are actually half way decent. The Adventure Girls look like a busted Dolly Style (which is perhaps the nastiest thing I've said in this rate so far when you think about it) and Santa Land was, for some reason, built in what appears to be the hottest point on Earth. Seriously, why build a Christmas wonderland in a region where it's clearly t-shirt weather in December? To its immense credit, the violence here is great fun; any film which involves Santa Claus being messily decapitated deserves some recognition. The downside is the overwhelming neediness of the comedy, which renders the whole thing too annoying to be genuinely good.

Best bit: Brian (Rich Manley) is gored by Krampus and ripped in twain from torso to shoulder. It's fucking BRILLIANT.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
77. Mother Krampus 2: Slay Ride (2018)

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Four hot-in-Cleveland women complete their community service on Christmas day, delivering meals on wheels to lonely old people. Before long, they end up in the company of dear old Dorothea (Kris Smith) who may or may not have slaughtered the actual owners of the house she's passing off as her own.

Krampus is BACK BACK BACK, and this time he's got saggy old woman tits! This is, obviously, complete shit. Even so, I can't pretend it doesn't have its charms. The three women and their drag queen pal (Who goes by the name Lady Athena Slay, is on probation for 'trying to suck a cop's dick for cocaine' and is easily the best character in the movie) spend far too long knocking about at Dorothea's house without consequence - two of them even pop to the mall at one point - and as more characters come, go and drink hot chocolate, the tension is diluted into nothingness by the time the killing starts. Still, the pre-credits massacre is decent if overlong, and there's enough brutalisation-by-axe to keep me satisfied. The killer also has a look of Lesley Joseph cosplaying as Michael Jackson, which is good for a titter. I would probably, possibly, tentatively recommend this, but only if you've nothing better to do.

Best bit: A couple are graphically dispatched with an axe after deciding there's no better place or time for a quick shag than the back bedroom of an old woman's house that they're visiting on Christmas day as part of a court-mandated community payback programme. HOT!

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
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76. Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972)

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Remember the synopsis for Silent Night, Bloody Night: The Homecoming? Yeah, that. Except set in Massachusetts.

I really have very little to say about this one other than that in my notes I wrote 'technically competent but totally uninteresting, like a handjob from Theresa May'. I really don't feel like I can explain it any better than that. The kills are... okay, the characters are... okay. The landscapes are the high point of proceedings; they're lovely and snowy and actually do a good job of convincing the viewer that this might actually be set at Christmas (are you LISTENING, every Christmas horror set in L.A?). There's nothing especially shit about it, it's just THERE. I remember bugger all about it and I only watched it a week or so back.

Best bit: Initial protagonist John Carter (Patrick O'Neal) and his very seventies strumpet Ingrid (Astrid Heeren) make the mistake of doing some sex in a slasher movie and get hacked to buggery in by far the bloodiest moment of the film.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
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75. I Trapped the Devil (2019)

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Matt and Karen (AJ Bowen and Susan Burke) pay a Christmas visit to Matt's reclusive brother, Steve (Scott Poythress), who tells them he has the devil locked in his basement.

A weird one for me, this. It's dark, atmospheric and stars genre hero AJ Bowen. The performances are great, it's well made and the story is intriguing... but it somehow just feels flat. All the ingredients are there but I don't believe it properly explores its own premise. There are so many strands to the narrative: Steve's declining mental health; The mounting paranoia as Matt and Karen get drawn further into the situation; the possibility that Scott is telling the truth and the devil is ACTUALLY in his cellar, but none of them feel fully realised. All that said, this has done very well with the critics and I have a notion that it'd be far higher up the list if I'd had the chance to watch it a couple more times. It could well be that this low placing is a reaction to it being SO different to what I imagined it would be.

This is one I would definitely recommend watching, as I'd love to know what other people think.

Best bit: Steve's room covered with press cuttings he's collected since he trapped the 'devil'. He presents Matt with a ton of evidence that the world is actually getting better in the absence of Satan, and it's a cool, unsettling notion which I'd love the film to have looked at in more detail.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
74. Holiday Hell (2019)
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A sinister shopkeeper (Jeffrey Combs) tells his customer four tales related to various holidays throughout the year.

Yay, an anthology, and by UNCORK'D no less :( To be fair, this one gets a pass because a couple of the stories are actually quite good. The first one is reassuringly shit and follows some teens having one of those boring horror parties where everyone pairs off for a bit of sexing and nobody gets drunk or has fun. Inevitably, they get killed by a woman who's wearing a doll mask for reasons I don't care to remember. The second short sees a young boy being given a magical Jewish doll which violently protects him from the evil babysitter trying to rob his house. Number three is the best of the lot, an alcoholic marketing exec tries the experimental drug he's promoting and goes on a killing spree while dressed as Santa. His targets are such sleazy, corporate dickheads that their executions are quite satisfying. The fourth film is a shitty pagan one I couldn't be arsed with.
The framing device in the shop is what really lets this film down. It's so hackneyed and nonsensical that it really drags everything else down a couple of pegs.

Best bit: Smacked up Santa bursts into his office and embarks on his massacre. The highlights are jugsy, recently motorboated Barb taking a hoe to the head, followed shortly by her motorboater Tom (Jeff Bryan Davis) getting shot repeatedly in the knackers with a nail gun.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
73. The Dorm That Dripped Blood (1982)
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Four students stay behind over the Christmas break to clean a dormitory, only to be picked off by a mysterious killer.

The Dorm That Dripped Blood (AKA Pranks AKA Death Dorm) can best be described as ‘one of the slasher films that came out in the early 80s'. The kills are surprisingly nasty and the ending’s a bit of a pisser but otherwise it’s a business as usual screaming teenagers affair. The killer is FAR too chatty and some of the characters make… unusual decisions, like trying to use a lift to reach safety when they know full well the power’s out. It’s quite enjoyable and certainly not one I’d entreat you to steer clear of, it’s just such a workaday affair I can’t really place it any higher than this. Director Stephen Carpenter went on to create the NBC TV series Grimm, which I’ve not watched.

Best bit: Debbie (Daphne Zuniga) is about to go home with her parents but all three of them wind up dead (Beaten to death, garrotted, run over) in the film’s best and most callous set piece.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
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72. American Exorcist (2018)
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On Christmas Eve, professional skeptic Georgette (Falon Joslyn) becomes trapped in a haunted office building after being hired to disprove the existence of g-g-g-ghosts.

Outside of a fun prologue involving an office massacre, and a few appearances by trash-horror icon Bill Moseley, most of American Exorcit is just Georgette wandering around abandoned offices having spooky encounters. Falon Joslyn really isn’t up to the job of carrying a film solo; emotional responses ranging from ‘mildly inconvenienced’ to ‘really rather inconvenienced’ with not much beyond either extremity. I also don’t like that her job is to ‘disprove the paranormal’, as that seems every bit as much of a con as being a professional medium. I could walk into a room where chairs are flying about and just go ‘yeah, that’s just faulty wiring’ – does that make me just as qualified as Georgette? Anyway, within literal minutes of arriving she finds incontrovertible proof of the supernatural and tackles it with the handy exorcism kit she keeps with her in the event of having to combat these ghosts that she gets paid to disprove the existence of.

The film is actually quite good fun, if wildly derivative (The best scare involves a light switch and is ripped wholesale from the short film Lights Out). There are a few tacky jump scares but, overall, it’s stupid and relatively enjoyable.

Best bit: The office massacre which opens the entire show (and which the decaying spectres are doomed to relive throughout the film).

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
71. Mrs Claus (2018)
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Sorority sisters (including one whose sister was murdered in that very house a decade earlier) hold a rubbish Christmas party and fall prey to a mental in a Mrs Claus suit.

A cheapo horror which stands apart from the others we’ve seen so far on the list as it actually tries to inject an element of mystery to proceedings, including a relatively decent stab at a whodunit. For such a meagre budget, the kills are actually pretty strong and there’s a shade more characterisation to these corpses-in-waiting than in your average low budget stabfest. Still, the usual problems persist – far too many characters introduced at once; meandering, pointless conversations which make it feel like they could only afford a screenwriter for every third scene; the absence of accepted human notions of logic which leads to some atrocious decision making… Still though, no h8 here – I can at least admire what it was trying to do.

Best bit: Tyler (Jace Greenwood) takes an impossibly sharp candy cane to the gullet in a solid example of the gore effects on offer here.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
70. All Through the House (2015)
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Rachel (Ashley Mary Nunes) returns from university for the Christmas break just as a demented killer in a Santa mask starts doing the rounds.

This one starts very well, with a stabbed tit, a blinding-by-shears and a severed winkie to its credit within the first few minutes. Sadly, it doesn’t manage to sustain this pace and drifts into generic retro-slasher territory soon after. It also reveals the killer’s identity far too quickly and tries to make up for this with some third-act twists which really don’t serve much purpose. On the plus side, the kills are dependably vicious and foul mouthed, wheelchair bound grandma Abby (Cathy Garrett) is an absolute HOOT. Go into this expecting absolutely nothing and you might end up enjoying it.

Best bit: Abby is tied to her wheelchair (with fairy lights, obvs) and pushed off a cliff. It’s such low hanging fruit but it really is hilarious.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
69. Christmas Slay (2015)
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A trio of young women decide to spend Christmas in Scotland – played here with impressive inaccuracy by Bulgaria – at the exact same time as a killer in a *gasp* Santa suit breaks out of the flimsy psychiatric hospital he’s being held in.

Let me start by saying this is a nonsensical, shoddy pile of old toot. Bulgaria looks NOTHING like Scotland and doesn’t even try to, and the studio logo is the most impressive effect in the entire thing. Still, though, this is perhaps my guiltiest pleasure on the entire list. Among the many magical moments are a police officer with the call sign Sierra Lima Alpha Yankee, off brand Christmas songs (including one in the end credits which I still can’t quite believe is real), characters walking around in shorts so unbelievably short they may as well just tie a bit of spaghetti around their waists, death by felt-tip pen, and some of the most aimless conversations you’re likely to hear. Also, most of the characters could quite easily survive but for their appalling decision making, although we do get a rare glimpse of tinsel being used as a murder weapon – brittle, stretchy tinsel. So yeah, it’s absolute bumflaps, but actually quite enjoyable in its ineptitude.

Best bit: Emma (Jessica Ann Brownlie) heroically saves herself from EVIL SANTA by stabbing him in the neck with a candy cane, but can’t muster such enthusiasm mere seconds later to save Sarah (Lydia Kay) from being slowly killed right in front of her. Instead, she decides the best course of action is to stand there with her hands over her mouth looking a bit sad about the whole unfortunate situation.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
68. Dismembering Christmas (2015)
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A group of high school types go to an isolated lake house for Christmas, only to be attacked by some nutjob.

I won’t lie, this gets so far up the list purely on the strength of the delightfully Christmassy landscapes and the odd inventive moment. The majority of the film is your generic stalk-and-slash featuring characters who only die because they’re too stupid to keep themselves alive in a crisis. The acting is ropey – characters literally just stand around until its their turn to speak – and the deaths just seem to happen as if they’d forgotten to include them in the first draft and had to hastily shoehorn them in. Also, Travis (Austin Bosley) has such an impossibly long face that I almost reported the film to the RSPCA because it looked like his missus was fucking a MULE.

Best bit: A ridiculously well-executed single-take scene which condenses an entire night of drunken antics into a couple of minutes. Seriously, if the rest of the film had been as ingenious as this it would be much further up the list.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
67. The Nights Before Christmas (2019)
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The sequel to Once Upon a Time at Christmas (Still to come on this list), a murderous couple styled as Mr and Mrs Claus (Simon Phillips and Sayla de Goede) go after the witnesses to their previous murder spree.

‘Brutal, bonkers and bloody good fun’ is how I’d describe this if I was Paul Ross and I’d been paid handsomely to provide a quote for the DVD cover. This is actually the newest film on the list, having only been released to buy in the last month, and it’s definitely not as memorable as its insanely stupid predecessor. Mr and Mrs Claus are unbelievably irritating, and the character notes for Sayla de Goede’s Mrs Claus seem to have been ‘did you see Harley Quinn in that Suicide Squad thing? Yeah, do that.’ The kills are decent – including an obligatory severed cock – and most of the victims are either laughably inept FBI agents or key witnesses who weren’t even in the first film.

Best bit: Mr Claus takes down an entire FBI convoy, because apparently Quantico doesn’t teach agents how to deal with an absurdly dressed, middle-aged man with a knife.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
66. Mother Krampus (2017)
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In rural Essex, the ghost of a murdered woman takes revenge on the community that wronged her.

Originally titled The 12 Deaths of Christmas, the film is actually based on the legend of Frau Perchta and has naff all to do with Krampus or his immediate family. It’s also completely unrelated to the sequel (no. 77 on this rate), the fact that this is a British film came as a total surprise to me given that the second film is set in Ohio. It actually feels authentically ‘Essex’ too – Colchester and the misleadingly-named Braintree both get a shout out – and the actors (of varying quality) mostly sport local accents. Continuity is all to cock, the script is cliché ridden and characters speak as if English is their third language and the whole thing takes itself WAY too seriously, but there are some decent ideas and fairly successful attempts at tension knocking about if you can be bothered to look. One flashback in particular has a mob of baying yokels lynching a cloaked hag whom they suspect of being a witch. So far, so period horror, until you realise the scene is set in 1992 :D. @Ag to confirm whether witch-hunts were a common occurrence in late 20th century Essex.

The lead child character is a vile fat bint called Amy (Faye Goodwin) who’s too old to be as thick and selfish as she’s portrayed. I really, really hate her.

Best bit: Jessica (Becca Hirani) summons Frau Perchta in a Candyman-esque way (which isn’t required for any of the other kills in the film). She’s later found crucified outside the house she’s babysitting at, Christmas lights shoved into her disembowelled torso. It’s mint, but the house is on an estate and it bugs me that it all happens without any of the neighbours noticing.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
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65. The Traveller (2010)
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A man calling himself ‘Nobody’ (Val Kilmer) walks into a police station on Christmas eve and confesses to six murders. Soon, the officers on duty start dying in ways that echo each of the murders he claims to have committed.

Poor Val Kilmer. Once the hottest prospect in Hollywood, his reputation as ‘difficult’ (and, from the looks of him, eating his co-stars) has left him flailing around in b-movie hell. To his credit, he’s okay in this as the character is supposed to be an emotionless void. The conceit of the murders happening while Mr Nobody describes them is pretty interesting, even if the majority are quite underwhelming. There’s some backstory involving the lead detective’s missing daughter (Who, in flashbacks, is wearing one of those ridiculous ‘missing child’ outfits (ribbons in hair, petticoat etc.) which is supposed to convey how sweet and innocent the victim was but actually makes them look like they’re off to a birthday party in prohibition-era Utah. This gets a lot of flak online, but I find it enjoyable and inoffensive enough to stick on in the background if there’s nowt else on.

Best bit: Sherwood (Nels Lennarson) is disembowelled with a shovel in the film’s most well-done and inventive kill.

Weihnachtstische out of ten: :tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch::tisch:
 
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