Slasher movies have laid claim to pretty much every holiday one can think of at this point, but even though Halloween undoubtedly boasts the highest body count, Christmas isn’t far behind! From old classics like Black Christmas (1974), to newer sure-to-be classics like Krampus (2015), horror movies just love to spread some yuletide fear! Sorority House Stabbers! Killer Snowmen! Undead Elves! Grossly Culturally-Appropriated and Misinterpreted Asian Mythology aka Gremlins (1984)! The genre has something for everyone with a heart as black as the coal in their stocking. But there is one particular trope that has become synonymous with the seasonal scaries, and that is…
Serial Killer Santa Claus, of course! The big guy with a big sack stuffing himself down chimneys… okay, wait, let me start over… The, uh, completely family friendly Christmas icon has found himself the villain of a number of these hack-n-slash efforts over the years. And ghouls like you and I couldn’t be happier, am I right? So let’s keep this short and sweet, and dive into a few of the most notorious Santa-nic slay rides slasher films have to offer! This is…
Ten Santa Slashers!
10) Terrifier 3 (2024) dir. Damien Leone
Okay, so there is one, and only one, reason that this independent box office smash ranks at the bottom of the list, and that is… it’s not really Santa doing the slashing? The third film in the Terrifier franchise sees Art the Clown doing what he does at Christmas time. But he’s wearing a Santa outfit, so it counts! Five years after the events of the second installment, Art and the demon-possessed Vicky come out of a vaguely defined hibernation to wreak havoc on Miles County once again. Our heroine Sienna has been in and out of psych wards for trauma, and her brother Jonathan is at college where he has to deal with extremely annoying and insensitive Gen Z podcasters! That is, until the gruesome goings on are revealed, then it’s business as usual for the hyper violent series! It’s a seriously good film that delivers for fans of the humorously homicidal clown.
Holiday Roasts: Art cryo-freezes Santa in a bar to steal his suit! Chainsaws a couple in the shower! Blows up a mall Santa display AND the children lined up to meet the old codger! Also, Sienna gets her chance to do some more badass avenging angel swordplay!
Christmas Hams: The podcaster angle is just way too annoying, but at least they get what’s coming, right? Also, director Damien Leone still can’t quite muster up the whole “plotlines should go somewhere” thing…
9) Don’t Open Till Christmas (1984) dir. Edmund Purdom
Fresh off the success of Pieces (1982), actor Edmund Purdom thought he could replicate the success with a tale of Christmas run amok in London, this time as director. He was woefully wrong. But the movie is still a KFC 12-piece bucket fun! This time, Santa isn’t the killer, he’s the victim! Someone is targeting any and everyone dressed as ol’ Saint Nick and it’s up to… uh… the police and… and a street-busking flute player to stop them? Yeah, this one is weird. But it’s sleazy as can be and you should be able to get through it with a bottle of store-bought wine-based eggnog if you have the chestnuts for it.
Holiday Roasts: Santas are roasted on an open fire, slashed while going to a peep show, and speared through the head at an underground gay bar Christmas party!
Christmas Hams: Nobody can decide who the main character is. Caroline Munro has a random musical number. Also, the flautist tries to make his girlfriend do a nude photoshoot as a favor to a friend? Ew.
8) And All Through the House (1989) Tales From the Crypt, Season 1, Episode 2
This one doesn’t qualify as a movie, but it’s one of the best episodes ever to come out of the Tales From the Crypt television series. It’s a remake of the same segment from the original Amicus anthology film Tales From the Crypt (1972), but it manages to outdo it’s predecessor in almost every way. A disgruntled housewife has decided to do away with her annoying (read: poor) husband but makes the mistake of doing so when there’s a homicidal Santa roaming the neighborhood!
Holiday Roasts: Fire poker stabbing! Fire poker bludgeoning! Santa has an axe to grind!
Christmas Hams: The Crypt Keeper really is the definition of a ham. He’s like if Bernie Sanders wanted Dead-i-Care for all.
7) Christmas Evil (1980) dir. Lewis Jackson
This movie is essentially Taxi Driver (1976) with Santa Claus. Poor Harry has some childhood trauma regarding Christmas that has led him to be an obsessive worker at a toy factory. Well, this only meaning he has in life is snatched away from him when he’s fired just before his favorite day of the year. Naturally, he sets about becoming Santa with the ultimate goal of getting rid of all the naughty people.
Holiday Roasts: Snow globe self-mutilation! Axe murder! Sharpened nutcracker to the eyeball!
Christmas Hams: It’s really hard to sympathize with Harry when he keeps creeping around schools and spying on children. Not even Robert DeNiro did that.
6) Silent Night (2012) dir. Steven C. Miller
Normally I don’t include sequels or remakes on these lists, but this 2012 reboot of the infamous Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) is just different enough that I’m gonna let is slide. Jaime King (recognizable from another 80s slasher reboot My Bloody Valentine [2009]) is an X-Mas traumatized deputy in a small-town Sheriff’s Department. When a killer Santa starts weeding out the underbelly of her neighborhood, she must contend with both the villain and Malcolm McDowell as she tries to stop the seasonal slashings!
Holiday Roasts: Santa puts a porn actress through a woodchipper, flamethrowers an entire police station, and electric chairs some poor cheating bastard with a strand of jumbo Christmas lights!
Christmas Hams: Malcolm McDowell clearly doesn’t want to be here (does he ever?) And for a town supposedly in the Rocky Mountains on Christmas Eve, there sure is a lot of green grass and not a snowflake in sight…
5) To All a Goodnight (1980) dir. David Hess
This unsung gem has been tragically out of print on home video for years. David Hess (of Last House on the Left [1972] infamy) directs this mash-up of holiday and college campus stalk-n-slash mayhem. It’s time for Christmas break at a posh all-girls university, and the ladies staying at the sorority house for the holidays have conspired to bring some guys around for some good ol’ canoodling. The horny housemates are stalked by a creepy Santa intent on murdering his way through the coed cadre. But wait, there’s a twist!
Holiday Roasts: Santa uses axes, knives, and even private plane propellers to splatter his victims everywhere!
Christmas Hams: These ladies are so sexed up that the dudes practically have to fend them off with a stick. It’s classic “male gaze” weirdness. Also, the police would rather boink the vixens than fend off the killer, so…
4) Deadly Games aka Dial Code Santa Claus (1989) dir. René Manzor
In a topsy-turvy world that us Americans can only describe as a parallel universe, a single mother managing a department store somehow affords to live in a mansion with her preteen son and his grandfather. While she has to work on Christmas Eve, the Rambo movie-obsessed kid manages to get the unfortunate attention of a psychotic homeless man dressed as Santa Claus. When the nut busts into their unimaginably wealthy abode, the little squirt finally realizes the guy isn’t actually all that jolly and uses his 80s action toy tech know-how to fight off the homicidal hobo. Home Alone truly sucks compared to this festive French flick.
Holiday Roasts: Santa might off-screen murder the private security guard, but this kid comes after him with traps that would make Jigsaw proud! He even makes a bomb out of some firecrackers and a toy train!
Christmas Hams: There are no words to describe the absolute classist tone-deafness of this flick. What the actual fuuuuuuu….
3) Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022) dir. Joe Begos
Tori owns a retro record shop in Generic Mountain Town, California™. While she’s closing up for Christmas Eve, her employee inappropriately comes on to her and they get blind drunk while incessantly swearing and do some less-than-immaculate conception in the spirit of the season. Their revelries are interrupted by a corporate robot dressed as Santa Claus that has gone haywire and decided that it’s going to judge everything in its computerized sight as extra naughty. It’s the Terminator, but Santa with constant neon lighting, and it’s fantastic.
Holiday Roasts: Arnold Santa-neggar axes a family to death while our heroes are making the sign of the upside-down snapping turtle. He also interrupts other coital engagements in a similar manner… Oh, and he does his best Ah-nuld by thoroughly wrecking a police station!
Christmas Hams: The main character relentlessly argues that every terrible sequel is actually better than the original… It makes me want to root for the murderous robot.
2) Santa’s Slay (2005) dir. David Steiman
Okay, so, hand on heart, this is one of my favorite holiday movies. Period. Santa (played by wrestling star Bill Goldberg), you see, is actually the son of Satan. Well, a thousand years ago he lost a bet on a game of curling to an angel and was forced to stop killing people on Christmas and bring gifts instead. The problem is, those thousand years are up and he’s descending on Hell Township in Michigan in search of the haloed being who forced him to be nice instead of naughty. It’s up to an irritatingly clueless teenager and the girl who wants to be his girlfriend to stop him once and for all! Seriously though, it’s an impossibly fun and endearing time.
Holiday Roasts: Grandpa gets run over by a reindeer! Santa also scrubs down a dirty stripper pole before using it to massacre an entire titty bar. Ho, Ho, Hoes!
Christmas Hams: 2005 was a different time, and this movie shows it. So many gay jokes. So many Jew jokes. They’re so funny, and… so not acceptable… But still funny.
1) Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) dir. Charles E. Sellier Jr.
This is it! The quintessential Santa Slasher for the ages! When Billy is just six years old, he: has his supposedly catatonic grandfather tell him that Santa is going to punish him for being naughty, then watches a criminal dressed as Father Christmas murder his parents the same night. Then he gets sent to an orphanage where he is relentlessly abused by the Mother Superior for being naughty. Finally, he turns eighteen and gets his first job at a toy store where he’s forced to play Santa for the kids during the holidays. It’s too much for poor Billy to bear, and he snaps. Season’s Slayings, everyone! NAUGHTY! PUNISH! The film faced protests when it was released in 1984, being pulled from theaters after only two days! Santa’s watching, Santa’s waiting…
Holiday Roasts: Where to begin? Billy strangles with Christmas lights, disembowels with box cutters, hammers to the noggin’, practices archery, decapitates sled thieves, and impales a naked Linnea Quigley on the wall using trophy antlers! Oh, and he gives that bloody box cutter to a good little girl as a Christmas present…
Christmas Hams: Honestly, almost everything? But, if we have to nail down specifics, I suppose the constant shouts of “Naughty!” and “Punish!” rank pretty high. But at the top has to be the utterly ineffective police department murdering a deaf priest wearing a Santa outfit. Though, on second thought, that seems very believable if you think about American cops for even half a second…
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