The 10 Most Shocking Holiday Horror Movie Moments

December 12, 2012

#5 CHRISTMAS EVIL

After donning his home made Santa Claus suit, super gluing a beard to his face, and repurposing his van as Santa’s Sleigh, Harry heads to a neighborhood church on Christmas Eve where he is hassled by a couple of dickheads. Rather than taking it in stride and moving on, Harry gives them a nutcracker through the eye and a hatchet to the head. This one scene is able to succeed in denigrating Christmas, Santa Claus, and the church in one swoop. Fine holiday fun.

#4 JACK FROST

The fact that a movie about a homicidal snowman possessed by the spirit of a death row inmate was even made is shocking [editor’s note: Not to mention ridiculous]. However, the carrot bathtub rape/death scene is even more shocking. Jill’s entire family was just murdered, so naturally she and her boyfriend break in to the sheriff’s house for some underage drinking and to engage in premarital sex. Jill thinks that her boyfriend has kindly drawn a bath for her, however, her boyfriend is dead and the bath water is a trap laid by Jack Frost. As Jack begins to re-materialize, we see his “carrot” floating around the tub and soon thereafter, he rapes Jill to death. After he has his way with Jill, Jack says “Looks like Christmas came a little early this year.”

#3 BLACK CHRISTMAS (2006)

Two of the last survivors, Kelli and Leigh, make their way up to the attic and find that one of the films killers, Agnes, has a collection of “family” sitting around the tree with their eyes removed from their heads. The missing eyeballs are being used as Christmas ornaments and a decapitated head as the tree topper. This is a brutal, shocking, and highly effective scene. When I saw the film during its theatrical run, this scene made me sick to my stomach in the best possible way.

#2 SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT

Early on in the film, Billy’s mother is raped and killed by a man dressed as Santa Claus. This is one of the hardest sequences for me to watch in any horror film. To see a child have to stand by while his mother is raped and then brutally murdered by a man dressed as Santa Claus is unsettling, even for the most seasoned viewer of ultra violence.

#1 BLACK CHRISTMAS (2006)

Picking a most shocking moment in holiday horror film history was a tall order, but this scene shocked the hell out of me when I first saw it for the first time. Even when re-watching the film, this scene still stands out to me as absolutely outrageous. During the retelling of the murderous brother-sister duos back story, we see Billy stab his father in the eye with a Christmas decoration and strangle his mother with a strand of lights. Billy then beats his mother repeatedly with a rolling pin and makes Christmas cookies out of her flesh. The 2006 remake of Bob Clark’s classic is chock full of shocking and disturbing imagery, but this sequence of events took the (holiday) cake.