HORROR TEN SPOT: Top 10 Santa's Best Slays!

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Well folks, the yuletide season is upon us once again, so you know we’re taking the opportunity to revel in a little Christmastime chaos. Last year we had a blast singling out our favorite Sadistic Santas…so much fun in fact we have no intention of straying too far from the topic this year. Only this time out, we want to focus more on the gruesome handy-work of ol’ Jolly Saint Nick than the actual portrayal itself, a distinction I think we’re going to have a really good time with. So if decapitation, face melting, castration, eye gouging, throat slashing, brain bashing, strangulation and bodily impalement all sound like a merry way to spend your holidays…by all means, feel free to unwrap our Top Ten list of Santa’s best Slays!

#1. ANTLER IMPALEMENT (SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT)

Maybe it’s the soft spot hit with an homage to THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE that does it for me, but for my money, Santa never let his PRESENTS be felt more than when he hoists that poor broad on the wall in SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT. You know what it is…when a topless blond gives him too much lip, he does what any miracle man would. He picks the chick up and slowly forks her naked torso with the sharp deer antlers hanging on the wall. The best part about the impalement for me is the way Sellier cuts to the wall shadow right before the incision, as to give us a suggestive image in our brain. The shot is immediately followed up with probably the most visually graphic of any in the film…the antlers slowly dig and carve into the girl’s back, piercing all the way through to her stomach. We see it all, intercut with shots of the girl shrieking, drooling blood. We also catch maddening close-ups of Santa, sweating maniacally. Nearly three decades old, ’tis the gift that keeps on giving!

#2. ALL THROUGH THE HOUSE – (TALES FROM THE CRYPT)

True, the masterfully crafted “All Through the House” segment Freddie Francis achieved in TALES FROM THE CRYPT does not end in an actual death, but as far as the whole sadistic Santa element goes, here’s our progenitor. Not only the first, it still might be the best! Even when Bob Zemeckis recreated the short story in the inaugural stint of the “Tales From the Crypt” TV show, as off-putting as it is, it’s really a much more campy and stylized rendition. The original is solemn, sincere, and at the time, flat out shocking. What works so well for me, aside from the superb direction, is how the Christmas music is used throughout the sequence. Warm, familiar, soothing…these sounds are quickly subverted with a much more hellish context when Santa sneaks into the house. The inclusion of a child also plays to the notion of innocence, and when that becomes compromised near the end, we’re left feeling as vulnerable as the unknowing child. Brilliant stuff!

#3. SLED DECAPIATION (SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT)

Again, as reprehensible as SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY night is as a whole, let’s not overlook how fun it is that our maniacal murderer brings Christmas paraphernalia to the party. Christmas lights in one scene, and now our man’s going sledding! Okay, so not really…but when a teenager gets his jollies by hitting the slopes for a little sleigh-ride, he doesn’t expect to be met with Kris Kringle’s sharpened axe-head at the base of his run. Old Nick leaps from the shrubbery to the side in a single swipe, decollates the kid at once…his head flying off backwards, his body continuing to glide down the mountain. Cut to…a friend’s POV, waiting intently to see his pal’s finish. Instead, the sled carries a headless corpse slumping down the hill, a bloody stump of a neck jutting from the top. Moments later homey’s chopped dome comes a rollin’ behind to meet its disembodied torso. His friend sprays the shorts.

#4. CHRISTMAS LIGHTS STRANGULATION – SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT

Here’s a festive way to get the job done! In what still holds up as the best example of the sadistic Santa subgenre…namely for its unapologetic nihilism and merciless violence…the killer Claus in SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT commits a rash of impressive murders. The first we feel like mentioning? How about when Santa uses the yuletide decor to snuff the life out of one of his victims. That’s right, when Santa finds resistance from a young punk, he wastes nary a second before grabbing a strand of Christmas lights, wrapping it around the kid’s throat, and with one hand, lifts the dude off the ground…slowly strangling the life out of him. In front of his lady no less! I love what I refer to as the Coen Brothers shot, where all we see is the quaking boots, dangling in midair, punctuated by the gargle of the man’s last breaths. When the legs suddenly halt, we cut to the man’s face…blood leaking from his throat where the cord penetrated skin.

#5. TURKEY-LEG SLAM DOWN (SANTA’S SLAY)

Seriously, how badass is Bill Goldberg’s opening assault in SANTA’S SLAY…where he skillfully, almost artistically, shreds through a chimney and marauds a family eating dinner? That shite rules! And just as the scene itself is a perfect way to jumpstart the film, the final death knell in the scene is a perfect way to cap the opener. Don’t front, you all know what I’m talking about. Before waylaying the entire room, Bill jams a blade through each of Jimmy Caan’s hands, in effect nailing him to the table. He then goes about decimating everyone else in his way, only to come back and give Caan a final deathblow. The method? With Caan’s hands still pinned to the table, Bill crams a turkey-leg into Caan’s mouth, wedging it deep so he can’t breathe. Not enough? Bill then takes the back of Caan’s head and in one fell swoop slams it down on the table, turkey-leg first, basically achieving an AMERICAN HISTORY X curbside effect. Ruthless business!

#6. EYE GOUGE/HATCHET BRAINING (CHRISTMAS EVIL)

Here’s a sweet two-pronged bout of butchery…done so in a public square no less. When our deranged madman in CHRISTMAS EVIL finally cloaks himself with the ostensibly “safe” red and white uni, he takes to a church to find his transgressors. When a cadre of young punks come out and start giving Santa shit at the foot of the steeple, the jolly fat man ain’t having it. So what does he do? He pulls out a Santa doll, replete with ice-pick like instrument, and jams the spike plum through one of the punk’s eyes…blood and yellow puss oozes out. Not to be outdone, Santa produces a hatchet from somewhere on his person, and in four long windups, jousts the axe-blade in the cranium of not just the first punk, but one of his snotty pals as well. Droves of witnesses gasp in terror, as the two victims fall gorily to the snow. Santa jumps in his sleigh-painted van and burns the f*ck out of dodge.

#7. CASTRATION (DON’T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS)

As far as gritty realism is concerned (at least for ultra low-budget), it’s hard to top the castration scene in DON’T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS. The sequence kicks off with the opening of a latrine door, all we see is a straight-razor unfolding. Next we see the back of Santa-suited innocent taking a piss in a urinal. Suddenly, a hand with the straight-razor pierces the frame, and from behind, we see the blade lop off the dude’s junk…massive amounts of blood spurting all over the porcelain. No doubt lightheaded, Santa clutches the bathroom walls, smearing even more blood all over the place. Moments later a cleaning lady enters and we see what she does: Santa Claus sodden in grue, left lifelessly (and dicklessly) to bleed out all over the floor. As a man, this scene is an obvious cringe-inducer…and even though we don’t see the actual incision, like in PSYCHO, our imagination fills in the blanks and a queasy wince ensues.

#8. FACE MELTING/COMBUSTION (DON’T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS)

Okay, so we’ve got a paradigm shift with our next two entries…as the 1984 British shoestring slasher DON’T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS flips the script entirely. Instead of a murderous maniac in a Father Christmas suit going around offing people, this time our killer-culprit skulks through the night, in effect slaying any and everyone he can find WEARING a Santa costume. A slight but awesome distinction! And in one particular instance, our killer finds a hobo Santa squatting in a back alley. He approaches from behind, chokes the dude out with a tight-wire before shoving his face on a smoldering makeshift fire-grill. He pulls the man’s face from the cinder, charred and blackened, then slumps the man’s body over, placing his face right back on the grill. Moments later, the hobo’s entire head explodes into a fan of flames. The camera holds for a few ticks as the hiss of the man’s cooking flesh cries out.

#9. CHRISTMAS STAR THROAT SLASHING (CHRISTMAS EVIL)

Even more than starring Fiona Apple’s dad (Brandon Maggert), Lewis Jackson’s grimy low budget tale in CHRISTMAS EVIL stands out for its ability to balance slasher tropes with that of psychological horror. As we see a sick man spiral into an eddy of insanity, there’s a late stint of slaughter I’ve always appreciated. While encroaching on the house of man who is sleeping in bed next to his wife, Old White Beard tries to snuff the man out with his overstuffed gift bag. A struggle ensues, the wife is awoken, and when her hubby gets free and tries to make a run for it, Santa simply snares a Christmas star ornament from atop the nearby tree and right in front of the wife, slashes the man’s throat from ear to ear…leaving the poor sap on the bed to bleed out all over his better half. Killing your husband for Christmas…you should all be so lucky!

#10. NUN DECAPITATION – (SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 2)

I’m not sure you can get more sinful and blasphemous than decapitating a nun while decked in a ratty Santa suit, so even if comported in chintzy low-budget fashion, such a sequence in the hilariously awful SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 2 has won rank. Besides, it’s one of the only deaths scenes in the film whereupon our psychotic-sicko actually dons the red threads and stocking cap. Unfortunately, being made on the cheap in 1987, this kill is of the cutaway variety…utterly bloodless…and it isn’t until a shot later when an innocent comes to check on the nun that her freshly chopped head comes bowling balling into the frame. My favorite part though? Just as we remember the epic “GARBAGE DAY” line-reading, right when Santa raises a blade on the nun, he shouts “NAUGHTY THIS!” just as ridiculously as he did the former. Love it!