There is nothing quite like horror to ring in the holiday cheer. While the holiday season offers your favorite formulaic rom-com that brings that feeling of joy to our cold hearts, Christmas-themed horror movies designed to scare audiences during the most wonderful time of the year have become more popular than ever.
While horror films—more specifically slashers—are often reserved for Halloween, Damien Leone’s Terrifier 3 paid homage to classic Holiday slashers Black Christmas and Silent Night Deadly Night, all of which make the season terrifying. But what is it about these movies that works? And more importantly—how do you write a Christmas horror movie?
While the holidays invite trope-heavy movies that evoke the spirit of the season like It’s a Wonderful Life or Elf, most people have an affinity for the holiday movies that blend another genre into its existing feel-good formula. Holiday action movies like Die Hard and pretty much any Shane Black movie are extremely popular because of their ability to blend holiday movie tropes into well-written action movies.
Holiday horror does the exact same thing, but adds an element that is missing from every other movie focused on the season.
These movies can comment on the unsavory elements of the holidays through the horror unfolding on screen. Whether they are focused on our obsession with consumerism, family dynamics, or, in Terrifier 3’s case, the iconography of religion embedded into the season. Even if the commentary of the movie doesn’t come from the horror, the uneasiness that the holiday season brings is enough to fuel the madness that unfolds on screen.
Beyond the intellectual reason why holiday horror works, these movies can help open doors for screenwriters. Horror is a genre that doesn’t gatekeeper in the same way other genres do, which means that they are easier to get made and distributed. When you make a genre-bending film that blends a holiday with horror, you have a novelty that can perform extremely well.
Terrifier 3 doesn’t have an award-winning screenplay, but the movie outperformed Joker: Folie a Deux and became the highest-grossing unrated film ever after earning $89 million at the global box office (and that’s before its re-release later this month). The novelty of over-the-top DIY kills mixed with Christmas is enough shlock to shock audiences looking for something outrageously entertaining.
This micro-genre has legs at the box office. It might be worth having a holiday horror spec in your screenwriting portfolio just to show off how well you can blend genres, create great horror, and have an option for a studio looking to make a low-budget horror that they can slate around a holiday.
Now that we’ve established why these movies work, let’s break down three elements that are essential to making holiday horror movies work.
Location is everything in a holiday movie. From the small town with festive quirks to the bustle of the city during the holiday shopping season, a snow-globe setting can do a lot of worldbuilding for the audience.
In Terrifier 3, the main story takes place in a family home decorated for Christmas. From the cookies baking in the kitchen to the presents under the tree, the audience already knows a lot about this family through the setting. This is a safe space primed to become a place of nightmares once Art the Clown arrives.
But the holidays are not just found at the family’s home. They are also on full display at the mall, where kids are taking photos with Santa and shoppers are more focused on their purchases than the creepy clown walking around dressed as a smelly Santa.
Every location in the movie establishes the time of year, the preoccupation that comes with it, and the baked in emotional stakes. Holiday horror is all about taking the familiar and twisting into something sinister.
Holiday horror movies are able to take the season’s more inviting elements and twist them into something deeply disturbing. A Christmas tree ornament is now a weapon. A string of lights are now used to tie a character to a chair. Don’t even get me started on what is actually under the tree. Writers can transform these wholesome items into something that can cause damage, and make audiences rethink how they decorate their homes.
Beyond the festive decor, there are other holiday elements writers can take into consideration when writing their horror movie.
There are certain expectations that audiences have when they sit down to watch a holiday movie, regardless of the genre it is blended with. There are tropes that you can use from holiday movies—the meet-cute, Christmas magic, braving a snowstorm—to elevate or reimagine classic horror tropes—final girl, jump scares, creepy clowns.
If you understand the expectations and tropes of each genre you are blending together, then you can use them to your advantage to craft an unforgettable holiday movie.
Every horror movie needs a villain that puts the characters in danger’s way, but it is how that character is infused with the horrors of the holiday that make them truly iconic.
Much like Silent Night Deadly Night, Terrifier 3 sees the villain in Santa’s iconic red suit only to subvert audiences’ expectations about a man dressed as Santa. There is something extremely memorable about a killer Santa—even writing the words feels wrong. But dressing your villain up isn’t the only way to make a memorable villain.
The classic slasher way to make a memorable monster is to make sure their kills are gorey and a bit outlandish. Whether that means making the angle at the top of the tree a loved one’s head or blowing up a Santa photo operation, creating an iconic villain is more about the kills than the looks. After all, your holiday horror villain could be a dad who snapped under the pressure of the holidays after being laid off.
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Holiday horror movies are a novelty that have a place in culture. There is always something a little off about the holidays. However you decided to spin that horror story, take these three lessons we learned from possibly the most successful holiday horror movie ever and craft a memorable horror movie that decks the halls with all the blood, guts, and glory audiences could want.
With the right mix of festive cheer and spine-chilling terror, your holiday horror could be the next cult classic that redefines the season.