Holiday Slashers to Paint the Snow Red [12 Days of Creepmas]

It’s all about the color red for the 7th day of Creepmas; blood red, to be precise. Bloody Disgusting’s 12 Days of Creepmas continues the holiday horror revelry, this time with holiday slashers that aim to paint the snow red with arterial spray and carnage. These holiday slashers demonstrate that there’s more to the realm of holiday slashers than killer Santas with a variety of Yuletide killers, from lonely security guards to mutated murderous snowmen. Save for one feel-good slasher to kick things off, today’s Creepmas offerings mainly capture the grimmer side of the holidays.

The 12 Days of Creepmas continues on Bloody Disgusting, this time with 7 holiday set slashers to paint the snow blood red.

Keep track of the 12 Days of Creepmas here.

It’s a Wonderful Knife

This It’s a Wonderful Knife meets Scream 2 Christmas slasher comes from writer Michael Kennedy (Freaky) and director Tyler MacIntyre (Tragedy Girls). The pair plunge their central characters into a bizarro snow globe of horrors, wearing their cinematic influences on their sleeves throughout. It’s a Hallmark holiday movie for outcasts and horror fans alike, delivering no shortage of holiday cheer perfect for this time of year. MacIntyre’s latest may not quite seamlessly nail its high concept genre mashup, but with some outstanding performances and a sweet gooey emotional center, it effectively tugs at your heartstrings and captures the spirit of Christmas. So you get the best of both worlds: holiday cheer and violent slasher kills.

Black Christmas (2006)

This remake doesn’t hold a candle to its predecessor, but it does up the ante on the gore and violence tenfold. Directed and co-written by Glen Morgan, Black Christmas 2006 brings its killer more prominently, fleshing out a gruesome backstory that’s, well, a bit silly. While the cast is winsome in this mean-spirited slasher update, it’s the kills that steal the spotlight. One of the most creative and grisly deaths sees Billy using cookie cutters to cut out the flesh from his victim before baking it up and eating it. While it won’t bring any cozy holiday feels, this slasher is for the gorehounds that adore inventive kills and catty sorority sisters.

Don’t Open Till Christmas

For those that love Silent Night, Deadly Night, but need a change of pace, this slasher from the U.K. should be right up your alley. Instead of a homicidal maniac dressed as Santa, though, this slasher has its killer targeting those who dress as Santa. It’s up to the Scotland Yard to stop him before Christmas is ruined. Fans of gory ‘80s slashers will recognize lead actor Edmund Purdom, who also directed this feature, from his memorable role as the Dean in wacky slasher Pieces. While Don’t Open till Christmas never quite reaches the same level of gore and insanity, there are still plenty of inventive deaths to various Santa Clauses.

To All a Good Night

This slasher marks the feature debut by The Last House on the Left actor David Hess. It’s a familiar slasher setup with a yuletide spin. A sorority prank turns deadly, and karma comes two years later when the sorority sisters host a party that gets crashed by a killer. It’s pretty standard fare, and Hess doesn’t get nearly as brutal as you might expect though it does have a sleazy, Video Nasty feel. But To All a Goodnight does offer some fun kills and an entertaining enough holiday slasher perfect to put on while trimming the tree.

Jack Frost

A car accident transforms serial killer Jack Frost into a mutant snowman, free to enact revenge on the man responsible for his death sentence. This December-set holiday slasher is for the crowd that prefers their horror-comedies to get over-the-top on the goofy mayhem and carnage. Cheesy one-liners are only matched by holiday themed deaths. How do you stop a killer snowman? The solution is just as tongue-in-cheek as the movie. This is for the horror fans that like a big glass of schlock with their holiday cookies.

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This horror-thriller will make you think twice about devoting too much of your life to work. Rachel Nichols’s Angela is a corporate workaholic, the last to leave the office on Christmas Eve. That makes it the perfect time for a psychopath to hold her hostage in the parking garage. While the body count may not rise to expected slasher levels, the constant chase sequences more than deliver. This one’s intense, effective, and pretty savage, though that shouldn’t come as any surprise considering it was co-written by Alexandre Aja and directed by Frank Khalfoun (2012’s Maniac).

Deep Red

Opening with a scene set at Christmas, in a family room decorated with holiday trimmings and a tree, the shadows of two people entangled in a struggle fill the empty spaces on the wall until one is stabbed to death. It’s that traumatic event that drives the central mystery in Dario Argento’s bloody giallo film. Violent demises, one memorable creepy puppet, and a delightful killer twist offsets that the holiday-lite theming. The film also marked the first time the director worked with progressive rock band Goblin, who would subsequently compose music for several other Argento films. A visual showcase of style and gore, the death scenes in this film are fantastic.