The Most Horror-ful Time of the Year: an analysis of Christmas horror

For me, Christmas is scarier than Halloween. Everyone knows that Halloween is scary, but Christmas we’re told is the jolly, which, of course, inspires the most twisted minds….

There is something terrifying about the prospect of Christmas because it is a time in which everything is supposed to be good. It is a time of happiness, togetherness, gifts, merriment. It’s one of the best holidays in that sense. The way Christmas horror movies get you is through the distortion of purity. You don’t expect something bad to happen in that context. That’s why Christmas horror movies are especially effective and unique.

Christmas Horror Aesthetic

Filmmakers know that sound design can make or break a movie.  Directors can take something—like “Carol of the Bells”—and contort it until it’s something out of your nightmares.

They also know that the absence of sound is as powerful as the use of sound, and they can use silence as negative space. On a normal winter night, the only noise you’ll hear is the crunch of snow, but the filmmaker knows the scariest part is not hearing a crunch, so you don’t know where the danger is coming from.

 One of the best examples of this is the original Black Christmas. Before Bob Clark directed A Christmas Story, the classic Christmas coming of age tale of 1983, he made Black Christmas in 1974. Black Christmas was one of the very first mainstream North American slasher films and was created on a very small budget. Bob Clark had to make due with anything he had, and lucky for him, he had Christmas.

When we look at stills from Black Christmas, we see a lot of negative space. That negative space is ominous and makes a regular Christmas scene scary.

In the first image, we see Peter, who is a red herring character and at this moment is being alluded to as a killer. So in your head, you see a killer who has been harassing these girls and ruining the Christmas spirit with all these acts of wrongdoing. And this disruption is visually shown through the juxtaposition of the Christmas tree and lights with the negative space with his body and the blackness of the night surrounding him.

The way the Christmas horror aesthetic works is through taking something innocent and contorting it until it becomes frightening.

Santa vs. Krampus

Santa as we know him was modeled and created in 1930 to sell Coca-Cola in the Christmas season. Because of this advertisement, the mainstream media portrays Santa as the embodiment of good, so we end up believing it. There are hundreds of movies where Santa saves the day because of this marketing, but Christmas horror upends what we see as good and what we see as bad.

In traditional Germanic folklore, Santa has a demon brother named Krampus and both figures embody justice, reward, and punishment. If you are good, Santa will give you the gifts you asked for. But on the other side of the coin, the risk with his brother is very high, and the reward is very low. If you are bad, Krampus will whip you with bundles of birch sticks and/or throw you into a bag and take you to a hellscape. In my view, Santa and Krampus are the same.

Traditionally Santa Claus was often depicted as a pope-like or clergy-like figure—indicating that he was close to God. And Krampus was depicted as a demon/devil. Now that Santa is not associated with religion, there is no need for a devil character. So now the Santa character that we have now both punishes and does good. It’s like Krampus and Santa have become one in our popular culture.

Now in modern Christmas horror, Krampus and Santa are interchangeable. They play the same role. You can look at this movie poster for Krampus (2015), you can see both iconography of Krampus and Santa to serve one purpose: to terrorize our imaginations.

What Christmas horror does is to strip the wolf of its sheep’s clothing—to reveal a darker truth: a Krampus inside the Claus

Conclusion

I’m not trying to deny the holidays are a good time, but the reason we see so many disturbing and scary stories told during this season is because of the reputation Christmas has. The choirs, the gifts, and the joy are all amazing things, but these things can also be exploited by creative minds. And that’s how you get a Christmas horror story, by twisted association.

Quarantine Binge List

In 2020, we need entertainment more than ever before because of the truly insane events occurring at this moment. We need entertainment to distract ourselves from the terrible things happening in the world and to inspire our creativity to get through these tough times. I want to give you an escape, so I edited together a quarantine binge watching list to help you escape and most importantly to entertain you in this time of need.

COMEDIES

Birdman: or the unexpected virtue of ignorance

An actor will try anything to revive his career

The Disaster Artist

The true story of the making of The Room—the worst movie of all time

Keanu

This comedy about a kitten kidnapped by a gangster ends up exploring cinematic stereotypes

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

A mockumentary documents the life of a popstar named Conner4real

Tropic Thunder

A group of actors film a movie, but when fact and fiction are blurred, they don’t realize if the bullets being fired are fake a real

The Truman Show

A child is adopted by a TV studio and realizes his life is a lie

HORROR

28 Days Later

A man wakes up after 28-day coma, and everything has changed

2001: A Space Odyssey

A mind-bending experience about human’s first real stride into space

The Alfred Hitchcock Collection

Five of Alfred Hitchcock’s most iconic films: Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds

Alien

Space crew stuck on a ship as an Alien takes them out one by one

Aliens

The remaining survivor from that ship leads a group of Marines to the theorized last pod of Aliens

Candyman

Someone investigating an urban legend gets lost between fact and fiction when her terrifying research subject materializes

Evil Dead

A cabin in the woods is invested by Deadites (zombies)

Evil Dead 2

A redo of Evil Dead except with slapstick humor

Get Out

A young black man goes to visit his girlfriend’s white family, and events take a turn for the worse

Halloween 1 & Halloween 2018

Babysitter survives a killing spree on Halloween, and she has been waiting for the killer’s return for 40 years

Jaws

A shark plagues the coast of Amity Island

The Lighthouse (2019)

How crazy would you go if you were quarantined on an island with someone you despise?

Midsommar

After something traumatic happens, a woman goes on a trip with her friends to Sweden, but events take a sinister turn, and the locals turn against her

Nightcrawler

A very productive and strange person gets hired by a news program to drive around LA with a camera with the motto, “If it bleeds it leads”

Nightmare on Elm Street

Don’t fall asleep, or dream demon Freddy Krueger will kill you in your dreams (and in real life)

Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

The one survivor of Freddy’s killing spree becomes an intern at a hospital, and when patients start talking about someone in their dreams, she finally comes to terms with her past

Ready or Not
Every time someone marries into this family, they have to draw a card, and, of course, our hero Grace draws the hide-and-seek card, which starts a hunt for her head

REC

A camera crew catches an outbreak in an apartment complex

The Sixth Sense

A kid has the ability to see dead people and develops a special relationship with his psychologist

Scream Franchise (sadly including Scream 3)

This meta franchise investigates whether or not the media is responsible for real-life violence

The Shining

The worst-case scenario for a family in quarantine

The Thing (1982)

My personal favorite movie. A research team is trapped in Antarctica, and suspense grows as anyone could be a shape-shifting alien

Trick or Treat

A set of stories on Halloween are strung together by a murderous entity named Sam

Unbreakable

A man survives a train crash and then finds out he is, in fact, Unbreakable

A family is going to santa cruz but a secret about the mother comes out and it ruins this vacation

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare

When the crew of a new Freddy film starts dropping like flies, it is back to the drawing board and a new script is drafted, but the scenes written start happening in real life

The Village

An entity stalks an old-timey village, but there is something more sinister at play

GUILTY PLEASURES

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare

Fully embraces the camp of the Freddy franchise. It’s not good, but it’s still better than Nightmare 5

Halloween 6

Takes everything good about the original Halloween films and replaces it with curses and cults. It’s still fun to watch. (The producer’s cut is bearable)

Killer Clowns from Outerspace

The highest quality film in the “Guilty Pleasures” section; the title says everything

The Room

The best worst movie of all time. This is a transcendent viewing experience

Spider-man 3

A convoluted story with three different villains, this movie is truly so bad it’s good

ACTION

The Dark Knight

The most mature Batman story that has ever been told

Django Unchained

The titular character, Django, is freed by a bounty-hunter and joins him to free his wife and get revenge. Amazing performances by Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz

Inglourious Basterds

Not a traditional action movie, this film focuses on an alternate timeline of WWII. It has Quentin Tarantino’s smart and witty dialogue and is very entertaining

Spider-man 1 & 2

These movies are entertaining, and they humanize Spider-man in a way that has never been seen before in an action movie

Spider-man: Far from Home

This is a self-aware commentary on fake news and how convoluted the Marvel cinematic universe has become. It’s the best MCU movie because it acknowledges how messy the timelines have become

Spider-man: Into The Spider-verse

Truly entertaining and a technical marvel, this film is a big step towards racial equality and representation in cinema

DRAMAS

12 monkeys

A man goes back in time to stop a virus

BlacKKKlansman

A true story of a black man going undercover as a member of the ku klux klan

Forrest Gump

America in the 60s and 70s, as told from the perspective of a disadvantaged man with big dreams

The Godfather 1 & 2

Deep insight into a crime family

Joker

A man shunned by society finally snaps.

La La Land

Two people with big dreams realize that it may be too late for them

Once Upon A Time In… Hollywood

The story of a washed up actor trying to rejuvenate his career

Parasite

A family is secretly living in the same house as one of the richest families in Korea

Pulp Fiction

Four stylized stories linked together by one nonlinear narrative

Reservoir Dogs

When a perfect crime isn’t so perfect

Whiplash

A student’s desire to be one of the great drummers of the 20th century turns into an unhealthy obsession.

TRIGGER WARNINGS

Clockwork Orange – Horror

A group of teenagers wreak havoc on the city of London until the consequences catch up with them

Deadpool – Comedy action

A fourth-wall-breaking superhero movie starring the titular character Deadpool

Horrible Bosses 1 – Dumb Comedy

Three friends really dislike their bosses (and attempt to murder them)

Looper – Action

An assassin goes back in time on a hit job only to find out the target is himself

Superbad – Comedy

Three bros buy alcohol for the last high school party of the year

This Is The End – Comedy

A Hollywood party gets interrupted by the apocalypse

The Wolf of Wall Street – Comedy

A true story of Jordan Belfort’s rise and fall to power

Breaking Bad – Drama

A chemistry teacher diagnosed with cancer starts cooking and selling meth

Brooklyn 99 – Dumb TV

Like the Office except goofier and set in a police station

Dexter – Horror dramedy

A serial killer that kills terrible people happens to work for the police department

Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond – TV Documentary

Shows how Jim Carrey outlandishly became Andy Kaufman in his Golden Globe winning performance

Key & Peele – TV

Keegan Michael Key and Jordan Peele star in this socially aware, Emmy-winning sketch show.

Killing Eve – drama

Explores the obsessive relationship between an M15 officer and a psychopathic assassin

The Office (unfortunately with Season 8) – TV

Shows how outlandish and crazy personalities react in a mundane place

Ozark – Drama

If you could disappear would you? This Netflix original series analyzes the new American Dream

Parks and Recreation – Comedy

The Office except from the perspective of bureaucratic idiots with big dreams

The Twilight Zone (Both 1959 and 2019) – Horror

Socially aware scifi/horror anthology

THE MASTERPIECE ZONE

Alien

The Alfred Hitchcock Collection

Birdman: or the unexpected virtue of ignorance

Get Out

Halloween

Inglourious Basterds

Key & Peele

The Lighthouse

Nightmare on Elm Street

The Office

Once Upon A Time In… Hollywood

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

Pulp Fiction

The Room

Scream

The Shining

The Sixth Sense

The Thing

Truman Show

The Twilight Zone

Unbreakable

The Wolf of Wall Street

A Study Of The Academy’s Bias Against Horror

When Louis B. Mayer founded the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1929, his goal was to create an unbiased, all-inclusive award show in the spirit of film. Unfortunately, the Academy Awards have not been inclusive and are political and biased. The Academy consistently votes for comedies, dramas and musicals, but the one genre they don’t recognize is horror. Year after year, countless dramas take home the big awards, but when a horror film wins, it is like a lunar eclipse. People have ignored horror because of its camp-filled roots and that precedent needs to expire because the horror genre has come a long way as an art form since the 1980s.

Horror has evolved, but the Academy has not

Many people think that horror is just an excuse for blood, but it’s actually a way to convey emotions, create allegory, and evoke the feeling of dread. A film like The Shining is truly a work of art and shows a deep understanding of important themes like privilege, domestic violence, and addiction. The Shining provides a different experience for everyone who watches it; it means something different to everyone because of how open it is for interpretation. However, the mainstream media tends to think of horror films as being uncomplicated stories of a killer murdering dumb teenagers for no reason until “the Final Girl” outsmarts the killer and ends up killing him. That preconception has its origins in cheesy 80s movies, but modern horror has evolved as a new way to tell stories in a metatextual fashion. In the last twenty years, filmmakers in this genre have proven their ability to shed light on issues that have been largely ignored by mainstream cinema. Issues like racism, sexism, and assault are depicted in these films in order to evoke terror in the audience by showing how twisted the real world is. Meanwhile, the Academy has shown no interest in even acknowledging these issues by instead honoring films like Green Book, in which a white man is portrayed as a hero and saves a black man. Horror has evolved, but the Academy has not. Moreover, when horror occasionally wins at the Oscars, there is always a catch.

When Horror Movies Do Win

When horror movies do end up winning, it is almost always for awards like “Best Costume Design” or “Best Visual Effects.” According to storiesforghosts.com, 10 horror movies have won effects or costume-related awards. Every single year dramas win other more prestigious awards, which reveals bias. The only horror movie to win an Academy Award for Best Picture was the 1991 classic The Silence of the Lambs. That was 29 years ago. We need to understand that this is a genre that has and will be used for telling masterful stories. In today’s society, a movie about a failing marriage (Marriage Story) gets nominated six times, but a movie about racial profiling told as a story of a family going to Santa Cruz (US) gets no nominations simply because it belongs to the horror genre.

What Was Snubbed

At the most recent 2020 Academy Awards, The Lighthouse (a horror film) was nominated for achievement in cinematography but lost to 1917, an action film. In my opinion, The Lighthouse was cinematically brilliant and deserved this award, but the real problem was that the 2019 film US was totally snubbed at the Oscars. The film entails the story of a family going on a vacation to Santa Cruz California. Once they arrive, a dark secret about the mother (Lupita Nyong’o) is revealed when doppelgangers of her family emerge hellbent to kill them. On the surface level, this film is a scary bloodfest, but on a deeper level, it serves as a story of distrust, acceptance, and guilt, and suggests that we are our own worst enemy. It appears that when it comes to horror, the Academy does not pay attention to the nuances and small details. US was not nominated for any Academy awards, even though the writing exceeds levels of metatextuality last tapped into in the silver age of horror back in the ’90s. Lupita Nyong’o’s performance is masterful and very impressive; she plays two different people: the mother and her doppelganger. These two performances are vastly different, and Lupita Nyong’o portrays these characters in such a brilliant way that it is unfathomable she was not nominated for an Academy Award. This demonstrates that an amazing performance in a horror movie will be overlooked for an award because of institutional bias. But the neglect of horror by the Academy does have some logic to it.

On the other hand

The Academy members are aging out, and this helps us understand their bias against horror. According to hollywoodreporter.com, the average member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is 62 years old. According to health.harvard.edu, the prime age of memory for a human being is your 20s. Why is this important? When the average member of the Academy was in their 20s, horror was sexually explicit, gore obsessed, and terribly written. With this in mind, it is easy to understand the Academy’s prejudice against the horror genre. Now horror movies have evolved, but the memory of films like The Slumber Party Massacre (which is objectively bad in terms of writing, direction, and acting) have understandably left a bad taste in the Academy’s mouth. Horror definitely has a bad reputation, but it’s the Academy’s job to keep up with the times and give awards to movies that deserve recognition and represent the changing culture of film and the world.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the horror genre has been neglected for too long and deserves more recognition from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the artform that it is. Using horror, filmmakers can tell inspiring and important stories that transcend the confines of traditional storytelling—movies that could not be made if it was not for the artistic brilliance of allegory. As an audience, we have to support independent projects because if the Academy won’t, then it falls on our shoulders to let storytelling be accessible to anyone who wants to say something important. In addition, the best way to get important ideas into the mainstream conscience is via the art of film. The horror genre does this in the most skilled way because audiences don’t realize they have received this message since it is so cleverly masked. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should give horror the attention it deserves, but in reality, it is not about the award, it’s all about the experience. In the immortalized words of Alfred Hitchcock, “Give them pleasure. The same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.”