I thought I’d seen it all for this season with my 2020 Christmas horror roundup blog, but SyFy and Shudder came through at the last minute with more Christmas horror to get us through the season and to add to the holiday horror page. Let’s get right to them.
TOYS OF TERROR (2020)
The director of the Halloween film Boys in the Trees goes for a much more mainstream film with this killer toy Christmas movie.
When a family comes to live at a big mansion, the kids find a box of contemporary toys in the attic–including a video game system. Pretty soon, these toys are coming to life and causing the young kids to act like the little devils from the Addams Family.
Meanwhile, the teenager daughter doesn’t seem to realize that the horror video game cartridge she starts playing features characters that look like her family…and that the ways in which characters die in the movie start becoming reality.
Sure it’s a silly, predictable killer toy movie, but it’s got plenty of Christmas spirit (the Christmas tree scene is the best), and when the toys break into a stop motion song and dance number that would make the Misfit Toys feel even more inadequate, the true campiness comes through…especially silly considering how detached the toys look from the scenery behind them.
A CREEPSHOW HOLIDAY SPECIAL (2020)
After that atrocious “animated” Halloween special comprised entirely of still artwork, it’s so good to get a live action Christmas special.
Adam Pally of the popular, prematurely canceled sitcom Happy Endings comes to a support group for shapeshifters, because he’s convinced he is turning into something, he just doesn’t know what.
Support group leader Anna Camp and the other members help him out…just in time for them to discover that Santa knows that they’ve been naughty.
It’s campy, there are plenty of winks to classic horror, the cast is fun, and although it takes a while, the episode finally delivers a blast of Christmas and a bunch of monsters. But perhaps the greatest gift of all is this hunk.
LETTERS TO SATAN CLAUS (2020)
This is possibly the holiday horror winner of the year for me. Although it premiered as a SyFy original, hopefully it will come to DVD so I can add it to my collection.
A spoof on Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas movies, it stars actress Karen Knox, who rox in the leading lady role. I found her very reminiscent of Jessic Rothe of Happy Death Day fame.
She’s a Grinchy news reporter sent to her hometown to cover a family holiday festival even though she hates Christmas, hates religion, and hates the thought of being a mother.
Unfortunately, when she was a child she accidentally misspelled the most important word in a letter to Santa and summoned Satan. Now, she mockingly writes to Satan again…and does the same thing.
This time Satan, who looks like Krampus and laughs like Phyllis Diller, comes to kill off all her friends in festive ways. This film totally delivers on the holiday spirit and the campy kills.
It also delivers on a revolving door of gorgeous guys that are hot for our leading lady. Not to mention, she has a cute gay BFF, and most importantly, he gets the guy and they make it to the end of the movie, landing this funny festive fearfest on the holiday horror page and the does the gay guy die? page.
