While most people celebrate the Christmas season with things like ugly holiday sweaters, It’s a Wonderful Life, and the dulcet baritone of Frank Sinatra, others — those of us who celebrate Gay Christmas (Halloween) until the end of December — look for something a little darker to cut this yearly dose of wintery sweetness. And Hollywood knows it. So every year, those of us who’d rather rewatch The Nightmare Before Christmas than catch the latest Hallmark offering are rewarded with a fresh batch of Christmas horror films (though to be fair, Hot Frosty could and probably should have been a horror movie). Movies like The Mean One (murderous Grinch), Christmas Bloody Christmas (slasher robot Santa), and Silent Night (apocalypse Christmas) consistently deliver holiday horrors that twist the formulas of chipper Hallmark stories with efficient, usually unimpressive but nonetheless amusing non-scares. There are, of course, Christmas horror classics that stand the test of time: titles like the original Black Christmas; Krampus; Silent Night, Deadly Night; and even Eyes Wide Shut are perennials of this subgenre whose merits I’d unironically laud. This year when December 1 rolled around, though, I felt something was missing. I realized that while serious queer films like Carol scratched my gay Christmas movie itch, and movies like Gremlins satisfied my need for some good holiday-themed carnage, I didn’t know of any films that combined these two categories really well. I wanted to find a queer Christmas horror classic.
To be sure, if one quality ties the Christmas horror subgenre together, it’s an oddball, camp sensibility that almost always feels at least a little bit queer. Christmas horror movies bring holiday joy for many of us through their gruesome irreverence: They disrupt one of the most familiar symbols of the Christian heterosexual nuclear family, bringing joy by poking fun at the season’s sweet perky exterior and revealing the tensions that lurk underneath through violent excesses like Grandma getting run over by her scheming lesbian granddaughter — I mean, a reindeer. John Waters’ seminal Female Trouble, exemplifies this well, opening with an excellent dismantling of the joys of Christmas morning as Dawn Davenport (Divine) comes tearing downstairs wailing for a new pair of cha-cha heels and toppling the tree onto her sainted old mother before beginning her reign of murderous terror. Home Alone’s sadistic slasher-lite ruckus brings this dynamic to mind even with its touching family values message to the point where Roger Ebert compared the film’s “scary nostalgia” and Saw-trap style contraptions to The Last House on the Left. This year, Terrifier 3’s gonzo premise (undead killer in a clown suit with a Santa suit over it goes on a supernatural, child-killing rampage) and buckets of blood give the film even more explicitly horrific and undeniable appeal on this score.
Others in the Christmas horror subgenre blend this seasonal strangeness with queer subtext that almost comes with the territory. John Waters’ own favorite Christmas movie, the delightfully bizarre Christmas Evil, has another off-kilter and incidentally queer premise. A deranged toymaker who thinks he’s Santa decides to dole out vigilante holiday justice based on his own homemade naughty/nice list. The film’s main character Harry (Brandon Maggart), a bachelor and old school mamma’s boy obsessed with Christmas, is the odd man out in his family. He’s despised by his brother for his disruptive presence during the holiday. Where he, his wife, and their children can enjoy some Christmas cheer together, Harry’s “strange” singleness and juvenile love of the holiday (even before they get an inkling of his murderous ideation) is framed as alarming. Of course, the film’s pedophilic undertones (Harry spends most of his time spying on kids) bring this reading into conversation with harmful stereotypes around queer people and sexual abuse; nevertheless, Harry’s strained place in his broader family during the holidays has a clear analogue for queer people whose families don’t accept them. The killer in the first Silent Night, Deadly Night is imbued with a similar tacitly queer position in the story. Like Jack Skellington’s earnest love of Christmas — a stark contrast to his goth looks and moody personality — this kind of character can evoke a similar feeling for viewers who fall firmly into the “gay cousin” slot at the family holiday party. Simply put, these kinds of strange, “dark” holiday films and characters just have a queer vibe.
I watched a broad range of gay Christmas horror movies on my quest for the next queer Christmas classic. Alas, many explicitly “gay” horror films for the holidays lack the irreverent spice required for a true queer sensibility, presenting their queer characters as underwritten afterthoughts. In Anna and the Apocalypse for example, a film with a promising holiday zombie musical premise, the title character’s lesbian best friend has very little to do. Her girlfriend is away for the holidays, sidelining her romantic dramas in favor of the friend group’s PDA-prone straight couple and making her the least prominent, least developed character in the ensemble. While a few of the film’s musical numbers and scare scenes are commendably performed by its pleasantly game cast (a bowling alley killing spree, a chipper singalong through a zombie infested cul-de-sac), it’s played generally too straight for its own good, lacking either the camp appeal or the gore to merit even a movie night with friends.
It’s a Wonderful Knife — a mystery about a series of yuletide murders in a small town whose richest family hopes to open a new mall — similarly falls flat. While several of its main characters are queer, including a pair of curmudgeonly aunts (one of whom is played by fabulous horror veteran Katherine Isabelle of Ginger Snaps and American Mary), its romances feel half-baked, and its central slasher mystery is underwhelming, bogged down by flat acting and creaky plot contrivances. The film’s dry style and tone undercut even jokes meant to appeal directly to a queer audience. The movie’s style of representation is exemplified by a scene in which a gay character is gifted a rainbow-shaped ornament by his supportive but clueless mother. I’d almost lost hope.
Though ostensibly a rom-com, the controversial and broadly unpopular ending of Happiest Season, Clea Duvall’s directorial debut about a couple who try to pull a The Birdcage for the holidays, brings that deeply stressful film far closer to true queer Christmas horror classic than any of the actual genre films I’d watched this year.
So it was with real joy that I sat down to watch Alice Maio Mackay’s excellent Carnage for Christmas. Debuting this year at the Salem Horror Film Festival, 20-year-old cult director Mackay’s fifth feature (her other credits include Satranic Panic, T Blockers, and So Vam) is in essence a scrappy Nancy Drew mystery. This low-budget, down and dirty Australian slasher follows trans true crime podcaster Lola (Jeremy Moineau) as she reluctantly returns to her rural small town for the holidays only to find a murderer dressed like Santa Claus mysteriously and elaborately picking off the town’s lesbians. When she quickly realizes no one is going to investigate these less-loved members of the conservative community — and that she’s become a suspect — she takes matters into her own hands. The film, unlike more mainstream gay holiday genre films, is playful and direct in its queerness, riffing explicitly off of early John Waters, ‘50s melodramas, Columbo, and House of 1000 Corpses according to Mackay. Its stylish, ultra-stylized experimentation with form amplifies a series of deliciously grizzly and creative death sequences, and its diverse ensemble of strong women attacks the material with energy and humor. Mackay and her co-screenwriter Benjamin Pahl Robinson also manage to weave thoughtful and nuanced commentary into the film’s central compelling mystery, indicting transphobic police, chasers, and TERFy lesbians in its tight hour-and-ten-minute runtime.
Carnage for Christmas’ balance of jokes, scares, and kills is note-perfect, modulated nicely through Moineau’s cool, adroit performance as Nancy Drew (all grown up with a penchant for Doc Martens and forensic analysis) alongside Mackay’s signature over-the-top, punk rock directorial style and quick editing by Vera Drew, whose own debut feature, The People’s Joker, achieved tremendous critical acclaim this year. The film’s personal touches, freeform creativity, sly humor and DIY aesthetic make it a bona fide, feel-good queer holiday horror classic in the making. I can’t wait to make watching it an annual tradition.
