It’s the most wonderful time of the year... for Christmas ghosts to haunt the yuletide. As heartwarming holiday movie classics and television Christmas specials are dusted off and re-visited for the 100th time, it’s also the perfect time of year to snuggle up to some of television’s scariest Christmas-themed hours. Packed with iconic villains, including a deranged Santa Clause, running amok amongst New York City and a couple of Christmas ghosts floating down the chimney to wreak havoc, the holidays really can bring out the worst in people. This December, ditch the sugar plum fairies and catastrophic Christmas party at Dunder Mifflin for seven scary Christmas episodes that conjure up menacing creatures with coal-smeared souls.
American Horror Story: Unholy Night (Season 2, Episode 8)
Nobody does the holidays like American Horror Story. Mostly known for its yearly Halloween episodes, American Horror Story: Asylum boldly tries its hand at holiday cheer. Taking place at a run-down mental institution in Massachusetts during the 1960s, the great Ian McShane (Deadwood, Game of Thrones) guest stars as Leigh Emerson, a man who suffers a mental breakdown which then leads him to dress up as Santa Clause and murder families on Christmas Eve. Eventually arrested and sent to the asylum, McShane has a ball as the wickedly violent Emerson, and after being locked up in an isolated cell for a long time, he’s finally allowed to join in on the holiday festivities and even dress up as Santa again. It's a very ill-advised decision, and things of course take a bloody turn as soon as Emerson dons the red suit. “Unholy Night” is a standout episode from season 2, and joyfully builds up to Emerson’s inevitable descent into violence while also flashing back to days of Christmas past when he was a robbing, murderous Santa Clause.
NOS4A2: The Shorter Way (Season 1, Episode 1)
The first episode of the AMC horror series, NOS4A2, kicks off with a bang in its first few terrifying minutes as it follows a boy getting lured out of bed and onto the summer streets during the night, thanks to a mysterious man in an old Rolls-Royce playing 'O Christmas Tree' while driving down the block. Come morning time, the boy has disappeared, and the only trace of evidence left behind is a lone candy cane that litters the freshly mowed lawn outside his house. Based upon the 2013 novel under the same name written by Joe Hill, son of Stephen King, NOS4A2 turns Christmas into a terrifying symphony of dread and death. Starring Ashleigh Cummings as Vic, an 18-year-old motorcycle riding Bostonian, she takes it upon herself to hunt down the man responsible for all the kidnappings that begin piling up. The man in question is Charlie Manx (Zachary Quinto), a vampire-like monster inexplicably obsessed with Christmas who drives around in his Rolls-Royce feasting upon the souls of children before taking them to Christmasland, a place where it's Christmas all year long. Manx is like a twisted Captain Hook, and the episode is a chilling entryway that speeds onto a snow-filled road full of Christmas carols and blood-soaked snow angels.
The X-Files: How the Ghosts Stole Christmas (Season 6, Episode 6)
Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are once again investigating the paranormal as they enter a haunted house on Christmas Eve with sinister ghosts living inside. Guest-starring some of the series best actors, the legendary comedians Lily Tomlin and Ed Asner, the pair play two ghosts that torment and provoke Scully and Mulder as they explore the mansion. Following up on a famous ghost story about two-star crossed lovers who died in the house many years before on Christmas Eve, Mulder and Scully find themselves trapped in a gothic horror nightmare as the ghosts and the old rickety mansion itself play tricks on them. It’s one of the series funniest episodes thanks to Tomlin and Asner as two-old timers at the top of their game, and it also highlights the friendship between Mulder and Scully, as they decide to spend their Christmas Eve together hunting ghosts rather than wrapping presents under the Christmas tree.
Happy: Saint Nick (Season 1, Episode 1)
The Syfy original series, Happy, takes place over the course of the holiday season in New York City, but it’s anything but the most wonderful time of the year. Christopher Meloni stars as Nick Sax, a disgraced cop turned alcoholic hitman, and he hands out death like candy canes amongst the gritty streets of The Big Apple. In its premiere episode, “Saint Nick,” Sax unwillingly gets sucked into a kidnapping investigation when a seriously disturbed man dressed up as Santa Claus begins kidnapping New York City children. With Meloni in the lead, the episode has plenty of darkly comedic moments, including the fact that he sees an imaginary animated horse named Happy (Patton Oswalt) that no one else can see. Together they go on a dangerous mission to save the children, and Sax does many, less than honorable deeds as he hunts down good old Saint Nick in the city that never sleeps.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: A Midwinter’s Tale (Season 1, Episode 11)
The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina episode, “A Midwinter’s Tale,” is a whimsical, stand-alone Christmas special that anyone can enjoy. Wrapped in mistletoe and Christmas lights, the magical town of Greendale is preparing for the Winter solstice, the longest night of the year in which the veil between the world of the living and the dead is at its thinnest. Teenage witch, Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka), is more than excited for the Winter solstice and decides it’s the perfect time to perform a seance, which then leads several dangerous monsters to come knocking at her door. The perfect spooky story to cozy up to on a winter’s night, "A Midwinter's Tale" checks off all the holiday trademarks with lavish Christmas decorations and otherworldly creatures shimmying down the chimneys baring nightmares and curses.
Grimm: Twelve Days of Krampus (Season 3, Episode 8)
He’s making a list and checking it twice, and Santa have mercy on those who’ve been naughty this year because his evil twin brother, Krampus, is coming to town. In the fantasy cop procedural, Grimm, Krampus has arrived in Portland just in time for the holidays. Clad with horns and a Santa costume, he begins seeking vigilante justice by kidnapping juvenile delinquents who steal Christmas presents. Equipped with a beating stick and claws, Krampus stuffs the devious teens inside his gift bag with the intention of devouring them on Christmas Eve. How’s that for holiday spirit? A goofy, over-the-top episode, “Twelve Days of Krampus,” could easily be stretched into a campy, 90-minute B-horror movie following a demonic Santa handing out mounds of coal and fear.
Black Mirror: White Christmas (Season 2, Episode 4)
The Netflix original horror anthology series, Black Mirror, has often been hailed as one of the most innovative series of the past decade, and many consider the episode “White Christmas” to be its finest hour. Rid your mind of the 1954 musical film White Christmas starring Bing Crosby and Vera-Ellen, because this interpretation of the beloved holiday is a bleak depiction of humanity at its worst. Starring Jon Hamm, there is no Christmas cheer to be spread throughout the episode's spawling, 74-minute run time as it tells three tragic stories that occur around the holidays with Hamm as the tie that binds all the events together. In Black Mirror's typical take no prisoners approach, “White Christmas” warns of all the humanity that's at stake when modern-day technology allows us to escape into made-up realms that are as fake and fragile as a snow globe.