Tra-lala-lala… lala-la-la
If you know me well, you’ll know I don’t ‘do’ Christmas – and you’ll know why. If you don’t, it’s because Christmas is a religious festival and I’m not just a non-believer, I also have a very strong dislike of religion in general, with a particular distaste for Christianity and its variations – the very religion that Christmas is a key part of. As such, for me Christmas is a period where the society in which I live becomes very annoying, and I like to switch off from it as much as possible.
The only thing about Christmas I do like is that it affords me a little time off work – which makes it a little easier to shut myself away and avoid some of it towards the end, though while some time off is always welcome it also means my earnings take a hit. C’est la vie.
This year, however, is going to be a little different, because during this December I am very much going to be thinking about Christmas.
Why?
While browsing for something to watch on Amazon the other day, I spotted this:
The idea of horror films set at Christmas is nothing new to me – indeed, I’ve watched a couple in recent months, and have seen a few others over the years. I may even have one or two on DVD. Spotting those two together, though, caused me to wonder: There are easily enough Christmas horror movies to be able to watch a whole run of them in the weeks leading up to Christmas Day – but could I find enough on Amazon and/or Netflix?
Yes, I could.
I’ve found and added more than a month’s worth to my Amazon watch-list, and there are probably more. Some of the ones I’ve added I’ve seen before, and not all of them are available within the price of my Prime subscription, which means I’d have to pay a small amount to watch them, but I could watch a film a night from 1st December, and have myself a sort of advent calendar of Christmas horror films. An advent calendar usually has 24 doors (I’ve just looked up that number), so if I did that I’d have some left over for another time. There’s always next year, right?
Listing the ones I found alphabetically, this is what the initial selection from which I can choose over the next few weeks:
- 12 Deaths of Christmas (2017)
- 12 Slays of Christmas, The (2022)
- A Christmas Horror Story (2015)
- Advent Calendar, The (2021)
- All the Creatures were Stirring (2018)
- All Through the House (2015)
- Bad Santa (2003)
- Bad Santa 2 (2016)
- Better Watch Out (2016)
- Black Christmas (1974)
- Black Christmas (2006)
- Black Christmas (2019)
- Children, The (2008)
- Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022)
- Christmas Evil (1980)
- Christmas Spirit, The (2023)
- Fatman (2020)
- Fright before Christmas, The (2020)
- Krampus (2015)
- Krampus Unleashed (2016)
- Mean One, The (2023)
- Mercy Christmas (2017)
- Nights Before Christmas, The (2019)
- Once Upon a Time at Christmas (2017)
- Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)
- Saint (2011)
- Secret Santa (2018)
- Silent Bite (2024)
- Silent Night (2012)
- Silent Night (2021)
- Silent Night, Bloody Night 2 (2015)
- Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)
- Violent Night (2022)
- Werewolf Santa (2023)
I said that I’ve seen some already, but that was before I decided to watch seasonal horrors in the run up to Christmas – so I’ll probably disregard that I’ve fairly recently watched (for example) Krampus, and watch it again.
Going the other way, when having another run through the list last night I noticed that one – Silent Night (2021) – was scheduled to leave Amazon (or stop being available as part of my Prime sub – not sure) by the end of today. I won’t be able to watch anything tonight, and it’ll be gone by tomorrow, so I opted to get that one out of the way last night. I enjoyed it, but I’m not sure it fit the ‘horror’ bill, even though it does seem to be flagged as such. Ho hum.
While transferring the list here and adding the links, I spotted that a couple of others aren’t horror films either – Bad Santa and Bad Santa 2 – though ‘violence’ is mentioned. It’s possible there are others, too. When I added them on Amazon, I was just going by the cover image and title, without looking into detail, so I made an assumption that was clearly wrong. They do look fun, though, so I don’t know if I’ll watch them as part of this, or keep them on my watch-list for another time.
I’ve also spotted that there are sequels to some – for example, Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) has a number of them, but I haven’t looked (yet) to see if any are on Amazon. it’s also clear that at least one of the films I’ve found and listed is a sequel itself – the clue is the ‘2’ after the title Silent Night, Bloody Night.
My advent calendar of Christmas horror films watch-list may very well grow – which will be handy for next year!
Another thing I haven’t done (yet) is look on Netflix – the other subscription I have. There may be more on there, and it’s possible that some of the films I’d have to pay for on Amazon will be available on Netflix.
I won’t be able to watch a film every night from 1st December, but where I don’t I’ll aim to make up for it by watching an extra one another night – so I will have watched 24 films by the 24th December, thus matching the number of doors in an advent calendar. I looked up that number, you know – I might have mentioned it earlier. 🙂
What I definitely won’t be doing – certainly not on a day by day (or film by film) basis – is writing about my progress; there aren’t going to be 24 blog posts over the coming 24 days. After all, I often go many months without posting anything at all, so expecting that much in one month? (Wags finger) Not going to happen, pal!
At best, I might follow-up this post at a later point to say whether I did what I aimed to do – and perhaps list the ones I watched, with a note at that point about what I thought of them? Maybe.
But either way – and even though some of those films will probably be terrible – I’m going to enjoy December and the run up to Christmas this year in a way I’ve never done before!
I suppose it says something about my psyche that while other people are enjoying the Christmas season because ‘peace’ and ‘love’ and ‘presents’ and so on, I’ll be enjoying it because ‘violence’ and ‘gore’ and ‘ghouls’ and ‘monsters’. With that in mind, I’ll leave you with one last thought:
Look back at the title of this post. It’s not the original version I came up with, but I decided to tone it back a little. The original was ‘Kill some people and be jolly’
Tra-lala-lala … lala-bloody-la. 😉