5 Christmas Horror Movies That I Have Watched

The Lodge (2020) : This movie doesn’t have a ton of Christmas cheer — no Santa, no elves — but it is incredibly chilling. Riley Keough stars as a woman who is going to take her fiancĂ©’s kids to his vacation cabin for a few days over the Christmas break before he can join them. When she starts to experience supernatural events, seemingly connected to her past, she has to figure out if it’s her mind playing tricks on her, or if the scares are real.

Black Christmas (2019) : You can actually choose between three versions of Black Christmas: There’s the (excellent) 1974 original with Margot Kidder and Olivia Hussey, the 2006 remake directed by X-Files alum Glen Morgan or the most recent take on the material, the 2019 remake, with a female writing/directing team of Sophia Takal and April Wolfe. All versions of the film follow a group of sorority girls as they’re stalked by a terrifying stranger during their Christmas break. I’ve only watched the 2006 version which is ok.

Saint (2010) : What if instead of a kindly old man, Santa Claus was blood-thirsty, murderous bishop? That’s the reimagining you can expect from this Dutch horror-comedy, also subtitled, which says that  Sinterklaas turns evil when St. Nicholas Day coincides with the full moon. I got a bit bored watching this movie. It promised a lot more but fails in the end. I actually watched this on Christamas Eve 2011.

Dead End (2004) : A family tries to take a shortcut on the way to their Christmas Eve dinner — which turns out to be a grave mistake. Some supernatural/paranormal things seem to happen, but the true horror might be the extended time spent in close quarters with family. I remember feeling very uncomfortable as the mother, played by Lin Shaye, loses her mind.

Gremlins (1984) : Don’t be fooled by Gremlins’ seemingly warm and fuzzy exteriors — these little creatures are not as sweet as they look. (If you’ve seen this 1984 Joe Dante classic, you know.) Gremlins is a Christmas movie the way Die Hard is a Christmas movie, where the holiday is mostly a backdrop for a lot of mayhem. Of all of these films, Gremlins is my favourite and it also falls in my list of favourite films and nostalgic movies. I’ve watched it many times and watched it with my cousins as well. Gizmo is so cute!

Three Horror Movies Set Around American Thanksgiving

Escape Room (2019)

Thanksgiving is a time to think about what you are thankful for. For the characters in Escape Room, they are tricked into participating in a deadly game that, in a way, should make them feel thankful for their lives (if they manage to escape with them). Escape Room takes place in late November during Thanksgiving break for college student Zoey Davis (Taylor Russell). At first, Zoey and five other people think they are playing an escape room for a cash prize, but they quickly realize that losing means death. They also realize that they were picked for a reason because the trapped rooms each represent a moment in one of the players lives when they were probably incredibly thankful to be alive.

Kristy (2014)

Justine (Haley Bennett) is a college student who spends the Thanksgiving break almost entirely alone on campus, with the only other two humans who haven’t gone home for the holiday being a security guard and a groundskeeper. Justine suddenly finds herself targeted by a cult of killers who are obsessed with murdering religious people, whom they refer to as “Kristys”—with “Kristy” being derived from a Latin phrase meaning “follower of God.” In the face of constant cyber-harassment and real-life threats, Justine is forced to battle the cult single-handedly.

Black Friday (2021)

The day after Thanksgiving, popularly known as the shopping holiday Black Friday, is awful. You have to get up way too early and fight crowds of people in stores for limited merchandise when you should really be sleeping and resting after a hard day of eating turkey and stuffing (or dressing). Instead of participating in Black Friday, why not stay home and watch the Bruce Campbell horror comedy Black Friday? You’ll witness shoppers turned into zombie-like monsters by alien parasites which is way better than anything a real store has to offer.

Scariest Movies Ever According To Rotten TOMATOES : 1 To 5

Rotten Tomatoes held a little poll on the site to try and determine the Scariest Movie Ever. Based on other lists and suggestions from the RT staff, they listed together 40 of the scariest movies ever made and asked people to vote for the one that terrified you the most. Here is their list 10 Scariest Horror Movies Ever, 1-5

1. THE EXORCIST (1973)

You may not agree that The Exorcist is the scariest movie ever, but it probably also isn’t much of a surprise to see it at the top of our list — with a whopping 19% of all the votes cast. William Friedkin’s adaptation of the eponymous novel about a demon-possessed child and the attempts to banish said demon became the highest-grossing R-rated horror film ever and the first to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars (it earned nine other nominations and took home two trophies). But outside of its critical and commercial bona fides, the film is well-known for the mass hysteria it inspired across the country, from protests over its controversial subject matter to widespread reports of nausea and fainting in the audience. Its dramatic pacing and somewhat dated effects may seem quaint compared to some contemporary horror, but there’s no denying the power the film continues to have over those who see it for the first time.

2. HEREDITARY (2018)

Writer-director Ari Aster made a huge splash with his feature directorial debut, a dark family drama about the nature of grief couched within a supernatural horror film. Toni Collette earned a spot in the pantheon of great Oscar snubs with her slowly-ratcheted-up-to-11 performance as bedeviled mother Annie, but the movie’s biggest shock came courtesy of… Well, we won’t spoil that here. Suffice it to say Hereditary struck such a nerve with moviegoers that it instantly turned Aster into a director to watch and shot up to second place on our list.

3. THE CONJURING (2013)

James Wan has staked out a place among the modern masters of horror, directing films like Saw, Dead Silence, Insidious, and this inspired-by-true-events chiller based on the experiences of real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. The Warrens, best known for their work on the strange case that inspired the Amityville Horror movies (which played a part in The Conjuring 2), were portrayed by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, who grounded the effective jump scares and freak-out moments with a believable world-weariness. Together, Wan and his co-leads found fresh terror in familiar genre tropes, and the end result is a sprawling cinematic universe that only continues to grow.

4. THE SHINING (1980)

Literally dozens of Stephen King’s novels and stories have been adapted for the big screen, and several of those films are considered classics today, like Carrie, Misery, and Pet Sematary (and that doesn’t even account for non-horror stuff like The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me). But the mother of them all is easily Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining. A marvel of set and production design and a genuinely unnerving take on the traditional haunted house story, The Shining features a host of memorable images and an iconic Jack Nicholson performance. The film’s relatively few jump scares are still absolutely chilling, but its true power lies in the way it crawls under your skin and makes you experience Jack Torrance’s slow descent into madness. It’s rightfully considered one of the greatest horror films ever made, and it ranked fourth in our poll.

5. THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974)

While the top four movies on this list collectively garnered 42% of the total votes counted, they were followed by six films that all earned around 3% of the vote each. In other words, these last six films were separated by no more than 60 votes. The first of them is this low-budget slasher directed and co-written by Tobe Hooper, very loosely inspired by the crimes of Ed Gein. Texas Chainsaw’s grimy aesthetic helped lend it an air of authenticity, which made it all the more frightening (“This could actually happen, you guys!”), and the massive, menacing presence of Gunnar Hansen’s Leatherface paved the way for other brutes like Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees. Multiple attempts have been made to breathe new life into the franchise, but none have equaled the original in sheer, over-the-top, power tool-inspired terror.

Scariest Movies Of All Time According To Rotten Tomatoes : 6 To 10

6. THE RING (2002)

It’s always a tricky proposition to take something that works well for one culture and try to translate that formula successfully for another, but Gore Verbinski managed that with The Ring. A remake of Japanese director Hideo Nakata’s acclaimed thriller about a cursed videotape, Verbinski’s take kept the original film’s striking visual imagery — the ghost of a young girl in a white dress with long black hair covering her face — and found that it scared the hell out of audiences no matter where they were from. While the film wasn’t as well-regarded as its predecessor, it features a committed performance from a then up-and-coming Naomi Watts, and for many, it served as an introduction to East Asian horror cinema.

7. HALLOWEEN (1978)

Coming in at the seventh spot on our list is the film that introduced the world to all-time scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis and put John Carpenter on the map. Halloween is frequently cited as one of the earliest examples of the slasher genre as we know it today, and while it may not feature the same kind of realistic gore we’ve come to expect of films in that category, it packs a lot of tension and some inventive thrills in a relatively small-scale package. The film’s legacy is also fairly untouchable: Michael Myers’ mask has become the stuff of legend, and the giant, unstoppable killer and the “final girl” have become ingrained in the horror lexicon. There’s a reason the franchise is still going after more than 40 years.

8. SINISTER (2012)

For those who didn’t read the “scientific study” mentioned at the top, we’ve finally come to the film it crowned the scariest. Before he joined the MCU with 2016’s Doctor Strange, director Scott Derrickson had racked up a few horror films, a couple of which earned cult followings. One of them was this small-scale haunted house/possession story about a true-crime writer (Ethan Hawke) who moves his wife and kids into a house where a family was murdered, only to discover the new place might already have a rather evil tenant. Writer C. Robert Cargill was reportedly inspired to pen the script based on a nightmare he had after watching The Ring, and the story does share a minor similarity with that film, what with the creepy snuff film angle. But for many who saw it, the dramatic reveals and creepy set pieces far outweighed any recycled genre tropes that might have been present. Plus, there’s at least one report out there that says it’s the scariest movie ever made, so that has to count for something.

9. INSIDIOUS (2010)

James Wan has already appeared higher on this list, but before he and Patrick Wilson made The Conjuring, they worked together on this supernatural thriller about a young boy who falls into a coma and begins to channel a malevolent spirit. The bare bones of the story weren’t the most groundbreaking, but frequent Wan collaborator Leigh Whannell infused it with a compelling enough mythology that it spawned four more installments. Wan also stated that Insidious was meant to be something of a corrective to the outright violence of Saw, which compelled him to craft something on a more spiritual level, and the end result is an effective chiller featuring what is frequently regarded as one of the best jump scares ever put on screen.

10. IT (2017)

The fear of clowns is a very real thing, even if it’s become so commonplace to announce it that it feels disingenuous. If you needed any further evidence, we direct you to the box office haul of 2017’s IT, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, which went on to beat The Exorcist’s 44-year record as the highest-grossing horror film ever. Oh, and of course, its 10th-place finish on this list. Andy Muschietti’s big-budget adaptation drew on nostalgia to tell its story of children scarred by trauma, while Bill Skarsgard’s take on Pennywise the evil, shapeshifting clown was bizarre and unsettling in all the right ways. Add a healthy dose of jump scares, a handful of impressive set pieces, and some top-notch CGI, and you’ve got a recipe for a horror film that’s both fun and full of scares.

My Top 5 Horror & Supernatural Themed Tv Shows Of All Time

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is an American supernatural drama television series created by writer and director Joss Whedon. It is based on the 1992 film of the same name, also written by Whedon, although they are separate and otherwise unrelated productions.  The series narrative follows Buffy Summers (played by Sarah Michelle Gellar), the latest in a line of young women known as “Vampire Slayers”, or simply “Slayers”. In the story, Slayers, or the “Chosen Ones”, are chosen by fate to battle against vampires, demons and other forces of darkness. Buffy wants to live a normal life, but as the series progresses, she learns to embrace her destiny, aided by her watcher & close friends.

Angel is an American supernatural television series, a spinoff of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The series was created by Buffys creator, writer and director Joss Whedon, in collaboration with David Greenwalt. It aired on The WB from October 5, 1999, to May 19, 2004, consisting of five seasons and 110 episodes. Like Buffy, it was produced by Whedon’s production company, Mutant Enemy. The show details the ongoing trials of Angel, a vampire whose human soul was restored to him by a Romani curse as a punishment for the murder of one of their own. After more than a century of murder and the torture of innocents, Angel’s restored soul torments him with guilt and remorse. Angel moves to Los Angeles, California, after it is clear that his doomed relationship with Buffy, the vampire slayer, cannot continue. During the majority of the show, he works as a private detective in Los Angeles, where he and a variety of associates work to “help the helpless”, restoring the faith and saving the souls of those who have lost their way.

Supernatural is an American dark fantasy drama television series created by Eric Kripke. It was first broadcast on September 13, 2005, on The WB, and subsequently became part of successor network The CW’s lineup. Starring Jared Padalecki as Sam Winchester and Jensen Ackles as Dean Winchester, the series follows the two brothers as they hunt demons, ghosts, monsters, and other supernatural beings. With its eleventh season, Supernatural became the longest-running American live-action fantasy TV series. he series was renewed for a fifteenth and final season that consisted of 20 episodes, and premiered on October 10, 2019. The series concluded on November 19, 2020, with 327 episodes aired.

The Walking Dead is an American post-apocalyptic horror drama television series based on the comic book series of the same name by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard—together forming the core of The Walking Dead franchise. The series features a large ensemble cast as survivors of a zombie apocalypse trying to stay alive under near-constant threat of attacks from zombies chiefly known as “walkers” by the other characters. With the collapse of modern civilization, these survivors must confront other human survivors who have formed groups and communities with their own sets of laws and morals, sometimes leading to open, hostile conflict between them. The series is the first television series within The Walking Dead franchise.

American Horror Story is an American horror anthology television series created by Ryan Murphy  and Brad Falchuk for the cable network FX. The first installment in the American Story media franchise, seasons of AHS are mostly conceived as self-contained miniseries, following a different set of characters in a new setting within the same fictional universe (which the show occasionally utilizes for crossovers between seasons, and shares with episodic spin-off American Horror Stories), and a storyline with its own “beginning, middle, and end.” Some plot elements of each season are loosely inspired by true events. Many actors appear in more than one season, usually playing a new character though sometimes as a returning character, and often playing multiple characters in a season.

My Top 10 Scariest Horror Movie Characters Of All Time

So I saw this list in several online blogs and websites that centers about movie and horror in particular and since it is October, I thought I would make up my own list and also happened to see this prompt on another blog. I looked at a few lists and then I made up my top 10. If you look at it, I have chosen all characters that have a supernatural aspect to them. But I haven’t added a single human villain/horror character as I thought that list deserves to be a separate list in itself. I also haven’t added the classic monster either.

I have been a huge horror fan for a very long time. The first horror movies that I watched was when I was 5 and snuck in behind the sofa to watch a couple of movies that my parents didn’t want me to watch at that age, but I still did and got scared shitless. I also remember watching a few horror movies with my cousins and across my teenage years and my 20s. However for a few years I didn’t watch any until 2011 when I watch a couple late at night and then started going on a spree for a long time. So anyways, here are my top 10 horror characters.

  • The Lipstick-Face Demon – Insidious
  • Jason – Friday the 13th
  • Valak – The Nun
  • Pumpkinhead – Pumpkinhead
  • Chucky – Child’s Play
  • Michael Myers – Halloween
  • Pinhead – Hellraiser
  • Pennywise – IT
  • Freddy Krueger – Nightmare on Elm Street
  • The Creeper – Jeepers Creepers

Prompt from 31 blog prompts and ideas perfect for October and blogtober at Booknest.co.uk

Classic Scary Movies To Watch This October

Five Classic scary movies to watch this October

Evil Dead (1981) : The Evil Dead is a 1981 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Sam Raimi (in his feature directorial debut). The film stars Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DeManincor, Betsy Baker, and Theresa Tilly. The story focuses on five college students vacationing in an isolated cabin in a remote wooded area. After they find an audio tape that, when played, releases a legion of demons and spirits, four members of the group suffer from demonic possession, forcing the fifth member, Ash Williams (Campbell), to survive an onslaught of increasingly gory mayhem.

The Exorcist (1973) : The Exorcist is a 1973 American supernatural horror film directed by William Friedkin from a screenplay by William Peter Blatty, based on his 1971 novel of the same name. The film stars Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Jason Miller, and Linda Blair. The story follows the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother’s attempt to rescue her through an exorcism by two Catholic priests.

The Omen (1976) : The Omen is a 1976 supernatural horror film directed by Richard Donner and written by David Seltzer. An international co-production of the United Kingdom and the United States, it stars Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Harvey Spencer Stephens (in his film debut), Billie Whitelaw, Patrick Troughton, Martin Benson, and Leo McKern. The film’s plot follows Damien Thorn, a young child replaced at birth by his father, unbeknownst to his wife, after their biological child dies shortly after birth. As a series of mysterious events and violent deaths occur around the family and Damien enters childhood, they come to learn he is in fact the prophesied Antichrist.

Friday The 13th (1980) : Friday the 13th is a 1980 American independent slasher film produced and directed by Sean S. Cunningham, written by Victor Miller, and starring Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, Laurie Bartram, Mark Nelson, Jeannine Taylor, Robbi Morgan, and Kevin Bacon. Its plot follows a group of teenage camp counselors who are murdered one by one by an unknown killer while they are attempting to re-open an abandoned summer camp with a tragic past.

Halloween (1978) : Halloween is a 1978 American independent slasher film directed and scored by John Carpenter, co-written with producer Debra Hill, and starring Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis (in her film debut), with P. J. Soles and Nancy Loomis in supporting roles. Set mostly in the fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois, the plot centers on a mental patient, Michael Myers, who was committed to a sanitarium for murdering his teenage sister on Halloween night when he was a child. Fifteen years later, having escaped and returned to his hometown, he stalks teenage babysitter Laurie Strode and her friends while under pursuit by his psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis.

Prompt from 31 October Blog Post Ideas For Fun Fall Inspiration (2023)