The Scariest Movie Santas Ever

But then Santa loses a bet with the angel that’s sent to stop him, and having won, the angel binds Santa to deliver toys to children for a thousand years. Which is the precise opposite of what any sensible person would do upon binding a demon, but there we go.

This is… not a great film, all things considered. Santa’s slaughter has little rhyme or reason to it—he just barges in on families having dinner, or strip clubs, or the local police station, and kills a bunch of people with the goriest slapstick he can manage, less of a dark myth than a homicidal Bugs Bunny.

But it does have some good moments, including a Chekov’s Nutcracker, and the line “I’m Santa Claus, not fucking Dracula!”

The Santa Clause (1994)

Marketed as a heartwarming, child-friendly family movie, this version of Santa Claus is incredibly dark if you think about it for even a moment. This is Santa Claus as a vampire or werewolf. First, there is the body horror, as you are transformed against your will to fit the role—right down to spontaneously growing an insta-beard. But it alters your mind too, infecting you with an insatiable hunger for cookies and an irrepressible need to make toys.

Now, you might consider that a just punishment given Tim Allen startles the previous Santa to his death in order to earn this curse, but that’s not what does it. It is putting on the suit—and failing to read the sinisterly small fine print—that seals his fate. From that moment on, death is his only release (or, apparently, failing to get married, but let’s not get into the sequels).

Fatman (2020)

This one is on the list less because of the film itself (a Santa-led action movie in the same vein as the David Harbour-fronted Violent Night) than because the idea of Santa Clause being played by an abusive, racist homophobe is pretty terrifying.