The Kat Files

Merry Christmas Horror! I successfully completed my 12 Days of Christmas Horror movie marathon a couple of days before Christmas. What a thrilling experience! This movie marathon was part of my Christmas fun list for the month of December.

Out of the twelve horror movies I watched this month, three of them revolve around Krampus, the half-goat/half-demon who is believed to have emerged from German folklore. His role is basically to punish the naughty children. The first time I had heard of Krampus was back in 2015 when the film Krampus, starring Toni Collette and Adam Scott, hit the movie theaters. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see it in the theater and essentially tucked it away in the back of my mind until this year. Out of all the Christmas horror movies that I watched for my marathon, this was my absolute favorite. The movies are ranked in the order of how much I liked them and the stars represent my rating.

My top six movies all received 5 STARS from me with my first three favorite films featuring Krampus. Out of my top six movies, five were new watches with one being a superb rewatch (Gremlins) that I had not seen in decades. Better Watch Out is a rollercoaster of a ride with many twists and turns and an ending that keeps you wondering long after the ending credits. Anna and the Apocalypse was a pleasant musical zombie surprise. Think High School Musical meets Shaun of the Dead. I would highly recommend all six movies to anyone who is a fan of horror or dark comedy.

Out of the remaining six movies on my list, five were new watches with one being a rewatch (Scrooged) that I had not seen in decades. The Children and Black Christmas were both wonderful surprises. They were disturbing in their own right and left you, the viewer, to decide the ending. Scrooged was surprisingly a bit of a disappointment because I recalled liking it much more when I first watched it. Wind Chill was slightly dull, Christmas Evil was moderately creepy and somewhat over the top, and Saint was simply awful.

I would highly recommend The Children and Black Christmas (1974 version). Even though I was a little disappointed with Scrooged, I would definitely recommend it. It is more of a dark comedy/fantasy than a horror movie; however, it features the delightful Bill Murray in the role of Scrooge and the hilarious Carol Kane as the Ghost of Christmas Present. As for Wind Chill, I would bypass it unless you are a fan of Emily Blunt and want to see her earlier work. I half-heartedly recommend Christmas Evil (Kelsi would disagree), and I definitely do NOT recommend Saint. Shockingly, the last two movies were recommended on Christmas Horror movie lists and rated well on Rotten Tomatoes. 

Not only did I get to watch horror movies related to the Christmas season, but I also had the opportunity to talk about them with my good friend Kelsi. We had an entertaining conversation about our likes and dislikes, surprises, my introduction to Krampus, and much more. While we generally have similar tastes regarding the horror genre and agreed for the most part on many of the films we mutually watched, there were a couple of films that we did not see eye to eye. I invite you to watch our conversation to learn more about the horror movies we watched this season. And, if you have any suggestions for future Christmas horror movies that we should watch next year, please share in the comments of our chat or this blog post.

Finally, I teased in my “12 Days of Christmas Horror” post back in November that I was working on a piece of writing to complement my Christmas Horror movie marathon. Well, I wrote a song called “The Twelve Days of Christmas Horror” using the music from “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” It features many of the elements in the horror movies that I chose to watch this month. On a whim, I contacted my voice coach Laura to see if it was even possible for me to sing it, much less record it. We only had three sessions together to practice and record it in the midst of work, commitments, and Christmas hullabaloo. Laura graciously edited it for me, so I could include it in today’s post. While it’s not perfect, I am pretty proud of it. And, I can always tweak it. After all, I am a work in progress.

I hope you had a Merry Christmas, dear reader. As you can see, I thoroughly enjoyed my 12 Days of Christmas Horror. The rest of my holiday festivities for the month of December have been less creepy and more classically Christmas. I am wrapping up my Classic Christmas movie marathon and reading my last Christmas related book which is all about Krampus. Soon, Kelsi and I will have a conversation discussing all of the other items we completed on our Christmas fun lists, and I will post a recap after the first of the year. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your weekend. Happiness!

“Moments later, from the orphanage roof, a creature made of Christmas nightmares and holding a bulging sack that looked to hold doll-shaped toys made its escape through the silhouette of the city, not to be seen for another year.” ~ Sebastian Gregory