Bundle up, my spookies—this week’s This Week in Horror History digs into Christmas horror movies, winter ghost stories, and festive frights from December 15–21. We’re hanging the stockings and turning off the lights as we revisit the classics that made the holidays just a little more terrifying.

We kick things off with Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein (1974), a black-and-white horror-comedy love letter to the Universal Monsters era. It proved that audiences were happy to unwrap creepy laughs during the holiday season, turning a modest budget into a massive hit and cementing itself as a cozy winter comfort watch for monster kids everywhere.

From there, we head into the snow-choked terror of Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (1974)—the grim, stalker-in-the-attic slasher that helped invent the blueprint for holiday horror slashers. Killer POV shots, obscene phone calls, sorority sisters in danger, and a cozy Christmas setting turned sinister make it a must-watch Christmas horror movie for anyone who likes their tinsel tangled with blood.

We then unwrap some Christmas horror gaming with the PS1-style indie nightmare Christmas Massacre, where retro graphics, a whispering Christmas tree, and a deeply disturbed killer turn nostalgic winter vibes into something nasty and unforgettable. If you’re into indie horror games, lo-fi visuals, and brutally mean Christmas horror, this one belongs on your December playlist.

For fans of analog horror and late-night weirdness, we shine a frosty spotlight on Local 58’s Real Sleep—a fake infomercial that slowly mutates into something cosmic, invasive, and deeply wrong. It’s perfect for those long, cold nights where the TV glow is the only light in the room.

Our Deep-Cut Spotlight settles on Ghost Story (1981), a wintry ghost tale about regret, buried secrets, and a haunting that refuses to stay in the past. Legendary performances and snow-dusted atmosphere make it an ideal December ghost story to curl up with while the wind howls outside and the Christmas lights flicker.

Along the way, we celebrate horror icons with birthdays this week, revisit the seismic impact of Wes Craven’s Scream (1996) as a late-December slasher staple, and build you a Christmas horror watchlist loaded with slashers, ghost stories, analog nightmares, and cold-weather horror comfort films.

Where to watch this week’s picks (U.S.):

• Black Christmas (1974) – Currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, Shudder, AMC+ and more, and also free with ads on platforms like Tubi and The Roku Channel. 
• Ghost Story (1981) – Streaming on Amazon Prime Video (including Prime with ads), with digital rent/buy options on Amazon, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home. 
• Christmas Massacre (Game) – Available digitally on Steam, GOG, PlayStation, Xbox, and directly from the Puppet Combo store for PC collectors. 
• Young Frankenstein (1974) – As of this week it’s not on major subscription services in the U.S.; your best bet is grabbing a digital copy or Blu-ray from retailers like Amazon and other disc shops. 

Hit play on this episode of This Week in Horror History for a Christmas horror history lesson you can turn directly into a holiday horror movie night—plus the details on our sponsor’s special seasonal deal.

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