Happy Holidays, Horror Press reader! Whether you’re sitting down to celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or just flat-out enjoying the winter season with friends and family, chances are some of you are doing that through horror films. After all, what goes better with milk and cookies than a television playing your favorite holiday horror movies to share with your people? It’s cold out, so cozy up!

Today, we’ve assembled an assortment of gifts for you: a comprehensive list of the best holiday horror movie kills, and the films they come from, for you to watch. Needless to say, a good deal of these kills are spoilers for the movies they’re from, so spoilers ahead.

Honorable Mention: Everything In Treevenge

Jason Eisener, you absolute madman. What would we do without you? Treevenge is a now infamous short film by the V/H/S veteran and Hobo With A Shotgun director you all know and love. It follows Christmas trees getting their vengeance on an unsuspecting public after years of abuse. However bloody you’re expecting it to be, expect more.

You might be thinking, “It’s a Christmas Tree exploitation short film! How bad could it be?” My answer is you have NO idea how much worse it gets. Proceed with caution, as the squeamish will squirm and the faint of heart might just faint with how bad the climax of this is! Like all those Christmas tree fire safety PSAs, you have been warned!

12. The Mason Family Dinner (Santa’s Slay)

Santa’s Slay is a horror film that proves first impressions are everything. While David Steiman’s feature about Santa Claus’s demonic origins is weak in many places, its action is not one of those, and the opening scene lets you know upfront.

The sleazy Mason Family’s Christmas dinner is interrupted by the arrival of an enraged Santa Claus (played by the wrestler Goldberg of all people), who proceeds to go to town on all the misbehaved and money-hungry family members. He does this via carving forks, turkey legs, and in one of the most realistically gross kills I’ve maybe ever seen, a massive bowl of eggnog. His thousand years of servitude are up, and he’s going to get his revenge, even if it means taking out a few cameo appearances by James Caan and Fran Drescher.

11. An Explosive End To Christmas Eve (P2)

Given it takes place in a location that is 90% concrete and asphalt, it’s easy to forget it’s a Christmas film in the first place. But the tale of sadistic security guard Thomas (played by Wes Bentley) and his victim Angela (played by Rachel Nichols) is capped off with a much more satisfying result than just wishing all a good night.

Wes Bentley is a character actor at the top of his game when he plays a weasely, nasty villain, so his death here is just beyond cathartic. As he whines and begs Angela to forgive him for the nightmare before Christmas he put her through, Angela ignites a trail of gasoline to the car he’s handcuffed to, resulting in a fiery end to her insufferable enemy. She even wishes him a Merry Christmas while doing it. Come on, that’s classic!

10. A Very Chipper Christmas (Silent Night, 2012)

Silent Night is a very loose remake of the original Silent Night, Deadly Night, which has gotten a lot of flak over the years. Following the aftermath of a mad Santa going on a spree with a flamethrower, a new killer rises to take his place decades later as a cop hunts him down. The killer certainly isn’t as memorable as our good old Billy Chapman was (with or without his transparent skull), and the film is much meaner than the previous five films.

Perhaps the best example of how well that meanness works is its use of a woodchipper during the film’s second act, where a chase into a grove of Christmas trees spells an untimely end for one of Santa’s victims.

9. Santa, Is That You? (Christmas Bloody Christmas)

Between Bliss, Jimmy and Stiggs, and Christmas Bloody Christmas, Joe Begos remains on the nice list here at Horror Press…even if the content of his films are particularly naughty with their foul-mouthed scripts and the grisly ends he puts his characters through. Christmas Bloody Christmas is no different, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

For the approval of the Christmas Society, Begos presents a three-part kill that shows what he can do when he has a budget: our killer robot Santa goes after the neighbors of our main character, Tori, before he goes after her. What results is a heavy metal murder spree (pun slightly intended), with the youngest member of the family discovering that being naughty or nice doesn’t really matter when the man giving out the presents is a malfunctioning military android who is willing to throw your dad through a window.

8. Santa’s Least Favorite Cookies (Black Christmas, 2006)

Smack dab in the middle of the Black Christmas franchise, Black Christmas (2006) is an odd duck of a remake just like Silent Night (2012). In a just and honest world, Black Christmas’s spot on the list would be the teased “Christmas lights dragging someone into a snowblower kill” from the trailer for the film (left on the cutting room floor for reasons no one knows).

Instead, the film delivers on a much grosser visual: after Billy gets revenge on his abusive family, he makes meaty Christmas cookies out of them. How that even works, nobody knows! But what we do know is that the effects by Steve Collins and Co. are absolutely sickening and too gooey to erase from your brain.

7. No Tree Topper For You (Sint)

A gift from the Netherlands to the rest of the world, Sint is how director Dick Maas (of Amsterdamned fame) spreads the joy of the Dutch saint Sinterklaas to us all, albeit, this rendition is a burnt, undead monster who leads an army of zombie black peters, and wields a crosier that is more Dark Souls weapon than it is staff. Maas makes a horror comedy for the holiday season that most people don’t know about, but that more should. So, consider this spot a showcase if we don’t get around to reviewing it on the website.

That crosier Sinterklaas uses throughout the film, by the way, grants us one of the best moments in the movie, where our Sinterklaas uses its razor-sharp edge to take the Christmas tree topper (head) off an unfortunate pine (SWAT officer who never stood a chance). It’s a simple death, but the way it happens is one of a kind.

6. The Home Alone Theory (Better Watch Out)

I’m going to take the coward’s route here and let you know once more: Better Watch Out is an instant cult classic for a reason, and its reputation mostly comes from viewers going in blind on your typical home invasion horror film. If you haven’t seen it, SPOILERS AHEAD once more.

The big reveal of Luke’s villainous intentions and conniving ways was only the beginning of making him a villain you love to hate. But what really punctuates his seedy character’s transformation going into the latter half of the film is the absolutely brutal kill he has planned for Ashley‘s boyfriend: testing whether or not Home Alone is scientifically accurate in its brutalities against Marv and Harry. And how does he do that? By swinging a filled paint can like a pendulum, and smashing it directly into Ricky‘s head. Its mostly offscreen nature is surprisingly subdued but still incredibly effective.

5. Open Your Presents! (Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker)

The fifth entry in the Silent Night series is one of my yearly mandated watches at Christmas time, simply because of how strange it is. A bizarre story that follows a disgruntled toymaker is carried by the good if not kind of weird performance coming from aged movie star Mickey Rooney, which makes this movie a must see. That’s not even mentioning the ending, which is equal parts creepy and hilarious it has in store.

The film’s best kills come in a pair, as a couple are attacked by a swarm of automated toys, with nasty surprises ranging from buzzsaws to bullets. The practicals by horror effects royalty Screaming Mad George still hold up to this day as bloody fun.

4. A Messy Christmas Meal (Gremlins)

Gremlins’ spot on the list is certainly the best effects-wise, thanks to the work of the legendary FX master and creature designer Chris Walas. A gateway horror for many of us, and likely the first Christmas horror movie you ever saw, Gremlins has its most memorable kills in the demise of its creatures rather than its protagonists.

We are of course talking about the very slimy kitchen confrontation, the climax to a scene in which Peltzer matriarch Lynn takes out a trio of attacking Gremlins who have transformed in her home. While one is taken out by blender, and another via kitchen knife, it’s the last one that explodes in the microwave and leaves its impact. Gooey, nasty chunks splattering the inside of the oven is a visual many fans will carry with them forever.

3. Rudolph’s Big Moment (Silent Night, Deadly Night)

You might be annoyed there is no mention of the iconic “Garbage Day” kill from Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 yet on this list. It’s a scene-turned-meme that tore through the internet in the 2010s like wildfire. But given that movie is mostly a clip show of the first film, I needed to give love to the actual most iconic kill from the franchise: Billy Chapman hoisting the unlucky Denise onto a pair of deer antlers mounted on the wall, spine first.

Denise’s demise isn’t just the most iconic kill in the Silent Night, Deadly Night franchise, it’s an all-time great horror movie kill in general. And in horror history terms, it’s the kill that made Linnea Quigley a scream queen icon, in a role she believes got her a spot as Trash in Return of the Living Dead. Who would have known a pair of antlers could do so much with so little?

2. The Shower Scene (Terrifier 3)

Look. We all knew this would be here on this list. It couldn’t have been anywhere else. It’s the scene that shocked people in theaters across the world, and that’s saying something given it’s the Terrifier films; people are to expect the complete depravity of Damien Leone, and every time he outdoes himself. You might even be mad that it’s not at number one, given how iconic the scene became by virtue of Terrifier 3’s firestorm of a release.

Rivaling Terrifier 2’s bedroom scene is no easy feat, but Art the Clown’s work with a chainsaw in the shower scene of Terrifier 3 manages to do it. If you haven’t seen it, you want to know if it’s really that bad. If you have seen it, you know how legendarily gory it is. Ending with Art making snow angels in the blood of his targets, it is an irreverent and wild scene that goes on and on, displaying some of the best practical effects in slasher history. The Shower Scene is a grotesque and unending sequence that will shock any crowd, large or small.

1. The Glass Unicorn (Black Christmas, 1974)

One of the most iconic, if not one of the best slashers of all time, Bob Clark’s Black Christmas is an eerie holiday mystery that burns itself into your brain. From the iconic voice of our killer on those harassing phone calls, to the slow and frightening point-of-view shots that will send more shivers up your spine than a winter wind, it’s a film you can’t forget.

And the most iconic kill from the film is that of the unfortunate Barb (Margot Kidder). A collector of glass figurines, the mysterious killer Billy wields her glass unicorn and uses it as a weapon to take her out. Only seen framed in shadow with one maniacal eye in the light, it’s the scene that defines the film. The sequence is shot in slow motion and intercut with a group of carolers who drown out the attack by singing an incredible rendition of “Come All Ye Faithful”, adding an eerie calm to things. While most of the entries here are plainly entertaining, few horror movie kills have ever been able to match this kind of chilling tone as well.

And that’s our list! Do you agree with the rankings? Do you think there are more deserving kills we’ve left behind that should have been highlighted? Let us know on Twitter and Instagram, @HorrorPressLLC! And for more of everything horror, holidays and otherwise, stay tuned to HorrorPress.com!