James R | On 19, Dec 2022

Nothing says cold, dark winter nights like curling up under a blanket – or behind a sofa – with a good horror movie. Ever since A Christmas Carol, the likes of MR James have kept the festive spirit of spooky storytelling alive, and that tradition has continued on the big screen, from slashers and thrillers to vampire flicks, dark interpretations of Santa Claus and even musical comedies.

Looking for a dark delight in your stocking? Here’s our guide to the best Christmas horror movies on Netflix UK, Shudder UK, Amazon Prime and more – plus where you can watch them online.

The Advent Calendar

This Christmas chiller ratchets up the tension with clockwork precision. Read our full review

Await Further Instructions

A family’s Christmas takes a strange turn when they awake to find themselves trapped inside and begin receiving mysterious instructions through the television. Read our full review

A Christmas Horror Story (2015)

Evil children, haunted houses and a blood-thirsty Krampus collide in this enjoyably familiar anthology of festive frights. Read our full review

Anna and the Apocalypse

Endlessly appealing, this Christmas zombie musical is a true triple threat. Read our full review

The White Reindeer (1952)

A newly-married young woman, Pirita, becomes frustrated and lonely as her husband, a reindeer herder for a small Arctic village, spends much of his time away from home in devotion to his work. Desperate for affection, she visits a shaman who offers a potion that makes her an irresistible object of desire, but there is a terrible cost. Pirita becomes a bloodthirsty shapeshifter who lures men out into the barren wilderness where she consumes them…

Christmas Evil (1980)

Lewis Jackson’s Yuletide UFO puts the manic in Manichaeism. Read our full review

Black Christmas (1974)

Terror reigns inside a sorority house a few days before Christmas break as a series of menacing phone calls transform yuletide cheer into fear.

Gremlins

Joe Dante’s seminal horror comedy sees a young boy acquire a new pet, under strict instructions to never get it wet or feed it after midnight. He soon learns a festive lesson of responsibility – via a hilariously dark wave of twisted chaos, including one of the best uses of a chair-lift in cinema history.

Rare Exports

Think Santa Claus is nice? Think again. This Finnish horror comedy sees a small mountain village accidentally unleash the real Kris Kringle – and, from dead reindeer to old men running naked through the wild hills, ensures you’ll never look at a Coca-Cola advert in the same way again. Deadpan, dark and delightfully offbeat, Rare Exports deserves to be seen by everyone at least once. Read our full review

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Tim Burton’s stop-motion flick takes the festive charm of Christmas and twists it with the warped horror of Halloween – a combination that director Henry Selick whips up with visually breathtaking glee. Combined with Danny Elfman’s superb soundtrack (Elfman sings the part of Pumpkin Jack), this is one musical guaranteed to freak out the whole family. Best of all, you can watch it again in October.

Krampus (2015)

This sweet, cynical, scary horror-comedy is a dark festive delight. Read our full review

Better Watch Out (2016)

This relentlessly twisted Christmas horror is a darkly surprising ride. Read our full review

Red Snow (2021)

Sean Nichols Lynch’s Christmas-set comedy horror has a blocked writer of romantic vampire novels visited by the real thing in her Tahoe cabin. Read our full review

The Muppet Christmas Carol

The Muppets give Dickens a hefty injection of fuzzy humour without losing the ghost story’s dark edge. From Gonzo as Charles himself and Rizzo’s jelly bean-eating sidekick providing the post-modern narration to Michael Caine’s surprisingly moving turn as Ebenezer, this is not only a fantastic, family-friendly adaptation of A Christmas Carol; it’s arguably the definitive version.

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