Creepy Christmas

Well, it's almost that time again everyone! Only 6 days left! 'Tis the season to be bankrupt and to deck the halls with drunken relatives.

But, if the thought of your in-laws and your relatives' children isn't quite enough to fill your soul with horror, perhaps these seven gifts from Satan's Grotto may be just the thing...

Black Christmas (1974)
Argued by some to be the first slasher film, certainly it was the model for many which followed. Margot Kidder stars as a foul mouthed sorority girl in this festive killing spree.

Gremlins (1984)
Little furry creatures can be so much fun to give as pets for Christmas, but not when you feed them after midnight.

The Legend of Hell House (1973)
In the week before Christmas, a group of psychic researchers investigate the most haunted house in the world.

The Toymaker (1991)
A little mute boy is terrorized by his Christmas presents in the best of the "Silent Night, Deadly Night" series.

P2 (2007)
A businesswoman is pursued by a psychopath after being locked in a parking garage on Christmas Eve.

The Children (2008)
A relaxing Christmas vacation turns into a terrifying fight for survival as the children begin to turn on their parents.

A Christmas Carol (1971)
An old bitter miser is given a chance for redemption when he is haunted by ghosts on Christmas Eve. It's a cartoon but Alistair Sim plays Ebenezer Scrooge and it's really not suitable for young children.

Yes, I know I recommend the same Christmas horror films every year but apart from the "And All Through The House" section of "Tales from the Crypt" (1972) there really aren't all that many good horrors set at Christmas anyway.

Crappy Christmas horrors that I don't recommend are:
Silent Night, Bloody Night (1974)
Night Train Murders (1975)
Christmas Evil (1980)
Don't Open Till Christmas (1984)
Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)
Santa Claws (1996)
Santa's Slay (2005)
Black Christmas (2006)

I hope everyone in the UK enjoys the new BBC version of "Whistle and I'll come to You" as the latest "Ghost Story for Christmas". There's nothing like that in America so we have to make do with the 1968 Michael Hordern version or watch "Scrooged" and the absolutely awful "A Christmas Story" over and over again. American Christmasses are weird. You can't even buy Warnink's advocaat or those cheesy footballs with earwax in the middle here so pity me as I try to dunk pretzels into Marmite to make DIY Twiglets and wash them down with my own alcoholic version of eggnog.

I've already got my Christmas present to myself anyway, an old Apple iBook (only because it was just $40 on ebay) which I'll be playing with all day while browsing the bargains in the post-Christmas sales.

Leave me a comment below and let me know what you are planning for Christmas.

2010 - The Year In Review

It wasn't the worst year for horror films but it was far from the best either. Looking back over the releases for 2010, the best were "A Serbian Film", "The Loved Ones", "The Collector" and "Frozen" (even though it shouldn't really be classed as a horror film at all).

From the others, "Daybreakers" was more enjoyable than I thought it would be, "The Human Centipede" almost lived up to the hype, and "Splice" was another entertaining if not entirely successful sci-fi romp.

I didn't like "Carriers" or "The Crazies", pretty much hated "Case 39", "The Descent: Part 2", and "Paranormal Activity 2", and, as usual, was indifferent to all the comedies such as "Lesbian Vampire Killers", "Neighbor", and "Vampires Suck".

Some of the standout straight-to-DVD movies which I enjoyed were "The New Daughter", "Triangle" and "Sick Girl" although they were all made last year so shouldn't really count.

The torture porn subgenre finally died completely with "Penance" and the final "Saw 3D" and everything else was just average especially the "Predators" reboot, remake of "The Wolfman" and the latest "Resident Evil: Afterlife" which some people claim was fantastic in 3D.

It's pretty sad that the best theatrical experience I had was watching "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" but that says more about the current state of distribution rather than my personal taste.

I've had a year of watching a ton of non-horror genre DVDs from Netflix plus using their online streaming services and I'm sure that I'm not the only one. I also really liked watching "Dead Set" on IFC and "The Walking Dead" on AMC.

According to various news sites, DVD sales have fallen significantly over the last year and even blu-ray isn't making much of an impact. Everybody is watching streaming movies now and the movie companies just aren't getting enough money back to invest in new features. With another year of remakes just around the corner, I doubt that we are going to going to see anything outstanding now since nobody is going to take any risks anymore.

Hopefully there'll be something good from Europe again in 2011 and handycam movies will finally cease to exist. If I ever get back into regularly reviewing on this site, I will just be going through my existing collection from now on.

There's only a couple of weeks left to panic buy all your Christmas presents so I'm going to take yet another break and do the same myself. I'll be watching all the BBC's "Ghost Stories for Christmas" on the big day itself and drinking copious amounts of Harvey's Bristol Cream. I've asked Santa for a Panasonic Toughbook CF-31 but I haven't been a good boy so I'll probably get a ZX-81 instead.

Anyway, have a creepy Christmas and a bloody good New Year!