When you think of all the Christmas holiday seasons you have lived through, what do you remember the most? What do you associate the holiday with? Most of us would say ‘Santa’ or ‘Christmas trees’ and especially that combination of red and green.

What you probably don’t think of is the dark side of Christmas, the side that for most of the present has remained pretty dormant. Just because it is dormant does not mean that it doesn’t have any strength, because every few years the dark side of Christmas comes out in society.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about Christmas-based horror movies! Yes, the classics with names like Silent Night, Deadly Night; Black Christmas; and Jack Frost, just to name a few. These films were released right during the holiday season, and caused a huge amount of controversy. What else would you expect from free speech?

Personally, I don’t care too much for x-mas slasher films, but they are a very interesting and unique sub-genre of horror movie. It’s always good to have some variety in an otherwise very uniform holiday across much of the world, and that variety is the Christmas horror movie.

My favorite Christmas movie with a horror/creepy twist is Tim Burton’s A Nightmare Before Christmas. Not really a horror movie per se, but it is still a slightly dark montage of Halloween and Christmas. Another great and slightly twisted tale is The Grinch who Stole Christmas.(original version, but the remake was ok)

Patrick and I wanted to do a Silent Night, Deadly Night movie marathon, but we don’t have the entire series in the archive nor the time to film and have the footage ready. We plan on having another surprise instead this year.

Do you like the Christmas horror classic, or do you like to snuggle up to the yearly re-run of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? Comment below!

• Tags: christmas, controversy, debate, scary