Santa Claus has made more appearances in films than Batman, Jason Voorhees, James Bond, and Elvis combined. People love their Santa Claus. Especially in the horror genre. But think about it for a second. This is a guy who spends the entire year isolated in the North Pole with an entire army of tiny elves to do his bidding and keeps tabs on our children throughout the year. Whether they are naughty or nice. Whether they are sleeping or awake. Then, once a year, he hovers over our homes like a New Jersey UAP and slides into our chimneys with middle-of-the-night gifts for our kids. It’s pretty frightening when you think about it. This is probably why on Tubi alone, you’ll find twenty-five or so different films that feature Santa Claus slicing and dicing his way through the night. It’s inherently creepy. So with that being said, welcome to “Best of the Bad Guys”, where we celebrate the best of horrors worst villains. On today’s episode, we’ve combed through hundreds of Santa Claus horror movies to bring you our five favorite moments where either Santa or someone impersonating Santa kills with yuletide glee. Here, in order of release date, are five of our favorite Santa Claus slayings:
In 1980’s Christmas Evil a toy factory employee becomes mentally unstable after walking in on his dad dressed as Santa about to go down his mom’s chimney. Which, to be fair is a stain on your memory you wouldn’t be able to scrub out with highly concentrated bleach. But no excuse for what comes next. After a lifetime of obsession with becoming Santa Claus himself (The last thing you would think you would want to do after witnessing him pleasing your own mother. But I’m no psychologist!), Harry ends up cracking up, believing he’s Santa Claus, delivering toys to sick children, and going on a teensy tiny little murder spree. This particular kill comes when Harry is standing outside as Midnight Mass releases dressed as Santa with a bag full of toys he stole from his factory. A group of major buttholes bully him. He reaches in his bag and tells the guy from The Purge “I have something for you”. The timing could not be more perfect as the uber douche responds, “I have superlative taste” right as Santa plunges the pointy part of Soldier Steve right into his eyehole. The replica head somewhat resembles the one from eye-pop scene in Friday the 13th Part 3D, or that one scene in Terminator but with the added wonder of this goo squirting out of it. So gross! He then pulls out a small toy hatchet and… wait a second… who is making these toys for children to play with? He pulls out the Chucky-sized, actually sharp hatchet and hacks the skulls of several others right in front of the entire church audience before pulling off in his van which may or may not turn into an actual sleigh flying off into the night sky later in the film.
Next up, the trophy kill in 1984’s Silent Night, Deadly Night. Once again we’re dealing with a psychotic Molotov cocktail of childhood trauma and sex that leads Billy to go on a murder spree dressed as Santa Claus. In this particular scene, two youngsters are about to be naughty on a pool table when a cat at the door interrupts them. So, Denise and Tommy are making out on a pool table. Or more so he is making out with the left side of her chin. Seriously dude, what in the Mark Wahlberg are you doing? As Denise checks on the cat, Billy pops into the frame, tells her he wants her punished for having those things out and making this video hard to edit and starts chasing her around the house. After a couple of misses with the axe, Santa picks her up and spots some extremely, sharp deer antlers on the wall. He lets her know what he thinks about her boobs one more time before picking her up as if he’s about to perform a powerbomb but instead slowly impales her on the antlers. You just know that deer is like “What the hell even is today?” The scene is equally cool and anguishing to get through as the antlers go in slowly, one on each side of her lower spine and we watch them painstakingly protrude through her skin. It’s dark. So dark, that it literally changes the filter of the film into a darker, grainier situation. It’s gnarly.
In 2012, a nasty little pseudo-remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night released titled just Silent Night. I won’t speak on the quality of the movie as a whole but there are multiple Santa kill moments here worthy of the list. One in particular is one of the nastiest and coolest axe-to-head scenes ever. Today, however, we’re going with the wood chipper kill. In the scene, a porn shoot is interrupted by our Santa who proceeds to stab a dude in the miscle-taint before chasing an of course topless woman down the street and into a Christmas tree farm. Excellent Christmas atmosphere and setting for a brutal kill. Even if some of the chase scene was filmed like one of those camera-on-meth moments from the Saw franchise. The topless wonder sees a gigantic wood chipper and in all of her mental prowess decides to hide close by. Santa pops out and chops her leg off, sending it flying into the air like a goddamn field goal attempt. Seriously, I fell in a Lowes once. Not my proudest moment. And my flip-flop went flying across the room just like this. Only this was a god-forsaken leg! Crazy business. Finally, Santa dumps her feet first into the stripper chipper so she can feel every moment of it. The guts shooting out violently from the other side was a lovely touch and I’m not sure how scientifically correct this kill is but my god did it have a strange realism to it. Horrible way to die.
Much like our next kill, which takes place in 2022’s Violent Night. This film sort of asks the question “What if John McClane were Santa Claus in a Die Hard film with more gore?” and ends with a final fistfight between David Harbour’s Santa and John Leguizamo’s Scrooge. Scrooge has Santa half crucified with a knife in his hand against what’s left of a building’s chimney when Santa grossly rips his hand free. He taunts Scrooge with the idea that he still believes in Santa, giving him the magical power he needs to grab a hold of Scrooge and suck them both up a chimney. Only, Scrooge doesn’t HAVE Santa’s powers, and if-so, fact-o, doesn’t fit through the chimney. So, he comes out the other end merely an abdomen as blood bursts through the winter night sky in an awesome fashion. All capped off with Santa laughing like John McClane and even throwing a subtle little “Ho, ho, ho” in there.
Finally, there was no way this list was going to exist with Art the Clown and Terrifier 3 being on it! To be honest, you could take just about any kill from Terrifier 3 and it would make this list because no one kills like Art. The mind naturally goes to the shower scene because Art takes a chainsaw and shoves it inside a man’s rectum. HOWEVER shamelessly promoting it, we’re leaving that kill out today because we covered it in this last episode of Best of the Bad Guys. Also, because this next kill includes Santa on Santa crime.
Art hilariously stumbles into a bar that includes the great Clint Howard, the Bartender Eddie, and a Santa Claus impersonator played by Daniel Roebuck (Who you might remember as the nasty strip club owner in Rob Zombies Halloween 2). After the gentleman buys Art a shot, thinking he is a fellow entertainer, Art spits it back in Santa’s face. It’s hilarious because you can tell that this very well may be a natural reaction from Art here. In his childlike way, he looked like he had no idea that the liquor was going to taste so bad and was genuinely shocked and pissed. He then follows this up by pissing in Santa’s lap and laughing at him. Art then unceremoniously shoots both Clint and Eddie but takes his time with Santa. He strips him down to his skivvies and proceeds to use a liquid nitrogen tank to freeze his limbs bit by bit before hammering away at them like some sick game of whack-a-mole. The special effects here are hauntingly amazing and it leaves you to wonder exactly what it would feel like to have giant chunks of your body frozen and removed by blunt trauma. Not a pleasant headspace. Speaking of heads, Art then goes to town on his face and in a most heinous moment rips his beard off, skin included, and mocks him with it. Art rips half of his face off before finishing his masterpiece by turning him from a monogamous, kind-hearted, if not half-drunk Santa Claus into the world’s most messed-up snowman.
Keep in mind, though these are the five Santa Claus murder moments that we chose to focus on today. There is a never-ending plethora, a buffet if you will, of the depraved, disgusting things that Santa Claus has done throughout film. In Silent Night, Deadly Night alone, the movie opens up with Billy’s mom being murdered by Santa Claus in a very traumatic moment that sets the stage for everything to come after. Later in the film, there’s an awesome sledding beheading that takes place. Throughout the rest of the franchise, there are several other notable kills as well. Including in Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 with the famous “It’s garbage day!” kill. Even if he wasn’t dressed as Santa Claus, it‘s still great all the same. There’s an entire film where Bill Goldberg goes through and murders folks dressed as Santa Claus. Don’t forget the insane amount of Santa Claus movies available on Tubi right now. There’s something sick and dark inside of all of us that wants to see this jolly creature go through and heinously murder folks. I’m here for it. So are you. Let’s stop pretending.
I’d love to leave you on a more positive note than Santa having his extremities turned into an ice sculpture of f*ck. But that’s what you came here for now, isn’t it? So, let me recommend a couple of movies that may not have made this list but feature some amazing Santa Claus murder, death, kill moments. There’s A Christmas Horror Story where we see Santa slay a bunch of zombie elves and are eventually welcomed to an even more haunting truth. And Christmas Bloody Christmas, a punk rock Christmas film where Santa Claus is the Terminator. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did and that you all have an amazing holiday season where the only thing getting dismembered are your bank accounts. Like the rest of us.
A couple of the previous episodes of The Best of the Bad Guys can be seen below. To see more, click over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!