Thursday, December 10, 2009

The Good and Bad of Holiday Horror

So I decided to continue my holiday post-a-thon by making a good and naughty list of Christmas horror movies. I thought this would be a good idea, since there are a lot of them and I hope this list helps many horror fans to pick and choose what holiday horror flick they want to watch. I made my list, I checked it twice and pouting is not tolerated! The ranking goes like this.

Presents = How good a movie is. The more presents, the better it is.
Coal = How bad a movie is. The more coal, the worse it is.

So, let’s begin.

GOOD

Black Christmas (1974) – This was one of the first few slasher movies ever to hit the big screen and with a great tone and some really clever scare tactics, this movie builds up an atmosphere that is both scary and haunting. I had a blast watching this and it truly is a memorable horror film.
9 presents out of 10.



Christmas Evil
(1980) – This was actually a really good movie and even though it had a very slow build-up to a climactic ending, the movie built character development and made you feel for the antihero. It had some great kills and some pretty disturbing scenes but you can’t help but feel sorry for Harry.
7 presents out of 10.

Gremlins (1984) – Though, I wouldn’t call this a horror; it’s a great creature feature. It has all the conventions of any monster movie, mixed with some violent cartoon humor and of course the Gremlins… this is a holiday treat that cannot be missed. It’s so wacky and it has some amazing puppetry and physical comedy.
9 presents out of 10.



All Through the House
(1989) – Now this was a good Christmas themed slasher. It had the Christmas atmosphere of Black Christmas and it was really tense and scary. Even though it was from "Tales form the Crypt," Zemeckis proves that he can do a great horror flick.
8 presents out of 10.

Jack Frost (1996) – At first, I wasn’t much of a fan of this movie but then I realized that it had a pretty dark sense of humor and some pretty nifty ways to kill somebody. The story is also interesting and I really enjoyed the puns that the massive amounts of gore. A true diamond in the rough for the winter season.
7 presents out of 10.

BAD

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) – Though, out of the ‘Bad’ list, this movie isn’t really that bad but it is plagued with shitty acting, some continuity errors and little to no scare value. I do credit the movie for being really controversial but that’s the only thing this movie has going for.
7 lumps of coal.



Black Christmas (2006) – This was one of the worse remakes of the 21st Century and took a beloved Christmas slasher and glossed it up with an unnecessary back story and it had one of the worse twist endings in horror history. There was nothing likeable about this, not one single thing.
9 lumps of coal.

P2 (2007) – The concept for this movie was really good and I thought it would be a good movie but it turned into a crap fest that kept getting shittier. I hated the protagonist and the killer was just idiotic. I think they could have really done some new things by abusing the setting of a parking lot but they didn’t and it turned out bad.
8 lumps of coal.



Well, there is my list of the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ Christmas horror films of all time. It wasn’t really that difficult but I did notice that I did not see that many Christmas horror films and there were a bunch of films that I have missed. Below are a list of ‘undecided’ films that I have not seen but want to:

UNDECIDED
Silent Night, Bloody Night (1974)
Santa Claws (1996)
A Christmas Nightmare (2001)
Santa’s Slay (2005)

1 comments:

S said...

Good stuff, Freddy. Gives me a hankerin' for some 1974 Black Christmas now...

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