Behind the Couch

“It always is Christmas Eve, in a ghost story.” Jerome K. Jerome, Told After Supper (1891)  The peculiar British tradition of sharing ghost stories at Christmastime is an old one. Historically, December 25th has a close link to pre-Christian solstice festivals that regarded mid-winter as a significant time when the light dies, the nights grow longer, and (similarly to Samhain) the veil between the world of the living and the dead becomes wispy. The earth sleeps, ready to reawaken in spring. Early Christian beliefs held that souls in purgatory ‘were most active on the day before a holy day, and thus more likely to intrude into our world’ (Kirk, p7, 2020). During the dark nights of Yuletide, Christmas Eve is one of the longest nights of the year in the northern hemisphere. The tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas, particularly on Christmas Eve, dates to the Victorian period, a time of great scientific and technological advancement. Perhaps the more people came to underst...

1980 Dir. Lewis Jackson AKA You Better Watch Out When he sees his mother canoodling with someone dressed as Santa on Christmas Eve, something snaps in little Harry Stadling’s head. Years later, when he’s all grown-up, Harry has developed an obsession with Christmas, and with being Santa Claus. Intent on delivering presents to those he deems ‘good’, Harry sets off into the night with toys stolen from the factory where he works, determined to bring joy to the hearts of children - whether they like it or not - and vengeance upon his bullying co-workers. Part psycho-on-the-rampage narrative, part character study, Christmas Evil is many things; most of all surprising. To begin with, it really taps into the arguably inherent creepiness of the notion of a man who leaves presents for children by entering their house in the dead of night via their chimneys. Many of the moments in the film - such as when Harry (a brilliantly unhinged Brandon Maggart) spies on his neighbour’s children ...

Despite all the associations of cheer and joviality, Christmastime also has a dark side to it. Pre-Christian solstice festivals regarded mid-winter as an important time, when the nights grow longer, and (similarly to Samhain) the veil between the world of the living and the dead becomes thinner. There's a strange British tradition of reading ghost stories at Christmastime that dates back to Victorian times. There's also many a ghost story connected to Christmas, such as A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and many ghoulish tales by MR James were actually written specially to be read at Christmas. Even the idea of Santa Claus coming into your house through the chimney has a few creepy connotations. This notion certainly hasn’t been wasted on a few filmmakers who set out to sabotage the ‘seasonal cheer’ of Christmas with violence, blood on snow and all kinds of savage ‘slays.’ Below are a few of the best Christmas themed shockers to check out if you fancy giving yourself a fr...

1974 Dir. Bob Clark Black Christmas is one of the earliest slasher films and strongly contributed to the blueprint, visual grammer and codification of the sub-genre. It tells of the residents of a sorority house who begin receiving unsettling and obscene phone calls during the run up to the Christmas holidays. Someone then breaks into the house, hides in the attic, and begins killing the young women one by one. The tale unfolds at a stalking-through-the-snow pace, ensuring the tension builds steadily to a genuinely shocking and chillingly bleak climax. The characters of Black Christmas are certainly more fleshed out than many other slasher film characters, and several are even quite complex, with rich inner lives. While the film is lauded for establishing various slasher movie conventions, it also addresses social issues such as women’s safety on campus, abortion, alcohol abuse, parental neglect, and domestic violence. With the characters already living with all these perso...