Ten Days of Terror!: Silent Night, Deadly Night

Film: Silent Night, Deadly Night
Format: Streaming video from Amazon Prime on Fire!

The more I think about it, the more the idea of holiday-themed horror movies makes sense to me. I don’t mean those movies that are built around a holiday (New Year’s Evil, Halloween, My Bloody Valentine, etc.) but ones that are specifically about the Christmas season. Like it or not, horror is often about the subverting of innocence. It’s why movies with evil children are so effective. Christmas is a holiday of joy and childlike wonder. What could be more evil than ruining that? And so, we get a movie like Silent Night, Deadly Night. This is not just a slasher that takes place around Christmas, but one that dresses up our murderer like Santa Claus himself.

And really, that’s the selling point here. There are a number of horror and slasher films that play on the idea of an evil Santa, but none are more infamous than Silent Night, Deadly Night. It is an extremely transgressive film in that respect, even if the main plot takes about half the movie to get going. We’re going to get some nudity and violence right away, a building of trauma, and then our slasher goes hog wild while dressed as Saint Nick.

Ten Days of Terror!: Better Watch Out

Film: Better Watch Out
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on Fire!

I have to make some real decisions with Better Watch Out when it comes to what I want to actually write about. This is a movie that very much trades on having a shock moment. More than that, the shock moment is one that appears about a third of the way into the movie, which (in my mind), is the right place to put the twist. Put the shock at the end, and often it will work and the audience will love it, and might even watch again to see any clues. But, frequently, this means there won’t be anything for the audience after that second watch. Put the twist early, though, and while the movie turns on it, the conclusion doesn’t, and the movie is a lot more rewatchable.

What this means is, like it or not, I have to make a choice. I can either talk about 25 minutes or so of the film or I can put most of this review under a spoiler tag. The thing of it is is that there’s a lot here I want to talk about, so I’m going with option 2. I’m going to talk about this whole movie, spoilers and all. You should consider everything after this paragraph to be potentially in spoiler territory, although the real spoilers probably won’t show up for a bit. You’ve been warned, and you proceed at your own peril.

Ten Days of Terror!: Krampus

Film: Krampus
Format: Streaming video from AMC+ on Fire!

Halloween is the holiday most clearly associated with horror, but there’s a definite connection between holidays and horror in general. Aside from Halloween, no holiday connects to the terrifying as readily or as often as Christmas. That being the case, it seems surprising that it took until 2015 for someone to come up with the idea of Krampus. The ancient Krampus mythology is both clearly horror-connected and Christmas-themed. In a world of Santa’s Slay and Christmas Evil and Silent Night Deadly Night, a Krampus story seems like low-hanging fruit.

The Krampus legend is of a dark Santa Claus who punishes naughty children in December. According to folklore, Krampus shows up on December 5 and beats bad children with switches and sometimes kidnaps the more poorly-behaved kids. His appearance is demonic—horns, cloven hooves, and chains. As a pagan creation, more than a little of the creature has been incorporated into Christian folklore as Satan. Regardless, a giant Christmas monster is a natural choice for a horror movie.

Ten Days of Terror!: Haunted

Film: Haunted
Format: Streaming video from Tubi on Fire!

I sometimes wonder why there aren’t more period horror movies. There are certainly some, of course, but the idea of the Gothic horror sadly went away decades ago. I think in general modern horror fans are much more about seeing what they can see—the gore and the brutality. Modern horror is about transgression in a lot of cases, but people not aware of the history of the genre don’t realize that a lot of those Gothic stories were just as transgressive. This feels like the reason that a film like Haunted slid under the radar of horror fans.

Haunted has a solid cast and is beautifully filmed and has fewer than 2,500 ratings on Letterboxd. To put that into perspective, the passable Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight from the same year has almost 8,500 4-star ratings on Letterboxd. Admittedly, it’s not a terrible movie, but it doesn’t have to scope, cinematography, or cast that Haunted does.

Ten Days of Terror!: Dust Devil

Film: Dust Devil
Format: Internet video on Fire!

For whatever reason, there are movies that I get a little obsessed with when I can’t find them or struggle to locate a viewable version. Such a film is Dust Devil, and I’m not sure why. My guess, though, is that on first glance it looks like an American Western that is also a horror movie, some sort of supernatural creature plaguing settlers and gunslingers. There’s an appeal to me in that, and also a familiarity to the pen and paper RPG Deadlands, which is exactly that. Turns out Dust Devil not only takes place in modern times, it takes place in Namibia, not the American West.

Still, I finally found a viewable version of the film that has been a minor obsession of mine for a few years. Watching the equivalent of a YouTube video is always my last resort; traditional streaming or a physical copy are my preferred methods. Still, at some point, you have to go with what’s available. Dust Devil has never been streaming that I recall, I’ve never seen a physical copy of it, and it doesn’t exist in any of the libraries in my library system. If only I’d have known years ago—when I was a college student, I might have been able to get this through WorldCat.

Ten Days of Terror!: Pyewacket

Film: Pyewacket
Format: Streaming video from Amazon Prime on Fire!

I like folk horror. There’s always a sense, at least to me, of people meddling in the primal evils of the world that feels like it is touching on just how small we are in the universe. Touching on the deeper, darker underlying horror of the world is akin to our own insignificance in the universe. Calling up primordial horrors, at least to me, is no different in terms of story structure to films like The Vast of Night or Aniara, just with a more Lovecraftian vibe. When I come across a movie where people are performing rituals in the middle of nowhere, I’m going to be interested, even if the movie isn’t highly acclaimed. Thus, we have the oddly named Pyewacket.

Leah Reyes (Nicole Muñoz) is a high school student who leans a bit darker in the things that garner her interest. She’s become increasingly interested in the occult since the death of her father, an event that has pushed her away from her mother (Laurie Holden). The final straw for Leah happens when her mother decides that the house they are living in is too filled with memories of her husband, and she decides to move them to a remote house, away from Leah’s friends. The fact that Leah can’t drive makes this feel like both a prison and a punishment.

Ten Days of Terror!: The Dark and the Wicked

Film: The Dark and the Wicked
Format: Streaming video from AMC+ on Fire!

Sub-genres can be useful ways to look at films, but they can be frustrating as well. Take The Dark and the Wicked as an example. Is this a folk horror tale? Kind of. And it’s also a possession story and a haunted house story all at the same time. This is also one of those movies where nothing good happens to anyone. Evil happens and is not so much defeated as endured for as long as possible. Honestly, the title kind of gives that away.

Louise (Marin Ireland) and her brother Michael (Michael Abbott Jr.) return to the family farm in Texas as it appears to be near the end for their father’s (Michael Zagst) chronic illness. He is bed-ridden and there feels like a pall over the house. Their mother (Julie Oliver-Touchstone) seems disturbed and detached, wanting the kids to leave. That night, while preparing dinner, she cuts off the fingers on her hand and dices them and then hangs herself in the barn.