Horror Movies for Every Holiday?

The other night I was flipping through the horror movies in my Amazon Instant Video queue and came across one I’d forgotten I’d saved to my list: Thankskilling.

It reminded me of something I’d thought when I’d first seen it: is it possible they now have a horror movie for every holiday?

I decided to explore it. Here’s what I came up with: Yes, for just about every major holiday there is a horror movie to celebrate it. In fact, in most cases there’s more than one horror movie per holiday.

Check it out…

NEW YEAR’S

New Year’s Evil

Lonely women wanting to celebrate New Year’s Eve become easy prey for a maniacal murdering misogynist whose New Year’s resolution is to kill women at every stroke of midnight.

Terror Train [DVD]

Fresh off a four-year stint in a mental institute, the victim of a fraternity prank boards a train to exact grisly revenge on his tormenters during their New Year’s Eve costume bash. It’s a non-stop ride to death in this chilling slasher that stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Ben Johnson, Hart Bochner, D.D. Winters (aka Vanity), and magician David Copperfield.

GROUNDHOG DAY

Okay, there isn’t a horror movie equivalent of the comedy Groundhog Day, but there is a movie where the protagonist is caught in a Groundhog Day-like cycle of repeating her day over and over again until she can figure out how to make it stop. It’s called Haunter. (FYI, it’s also one of the topics over in the Screening Room part of the Forum.)

Abigail Breslin stars as a young girl who must unravel a decades-old mystery to save her family in this haunted house thriller.

However, speaking of Groundhog Day…there is a trailer remix that sells it as a horror movie. Clever! (If you didn’t know what it was really about, it looks like it might be pretty intense. lol)

VALENTINE’S DAY

Love is a deadly affair. Look at all the horror movies revolving around this lover’s holiday. (Yes, the list includes a remake, but I included it because it was different enough to count as it’s own movie. Maybe even the rare case of where the remake was better than the original?)

My Bloody Valentine (1981)

There’s a big Valentine’s day party planned in the little mining town of Valentine’s Bluff. It is the first Valentine‘s party in 20 years, because then there was an accident in the mine, and the accident happened because the men responsible for the security were at the party. The sole surviving miner killed them, and told the town NEVER to arrange a valentine party again. The party begins, and so does the killing.

My Bloody Valentine

Ten years ago in the town of Harmony, an inexperienced coal miner caused an accident in the tunnels that trapped and killed five men and sent the only survivor, Harry Warden, into a permanent coma. But Harry Warden wanted revenge. Exactly one year later, on Valentine’s Day, he woke up…and brutally murdered twenty-two people with a pickaxe before being killed. Now, after years of peace, something from Harmony’s dark past has returned. Wearing a miner’s mask and armed with a pickaxe, an unstoppable killer is on the loose. And as his footsteps come ever closer, the townspeople realize in terror that it just might be Harry Warden who’s come back…

Valentine

Four friends start to receive morbid Valentine’s Day cards. Someone out there is stalking them … someone they all spurned when they were younger.

MARDI GRAS

Mardi Gras Massacre (Maria’s “B” Movie Mayhem)

Maria Kanellis a former WWE Diva WWE 2008 Diva of the year cover of Playboy magazine April 2008 voted #53 on 100 sexiest women by FHM Magazine celebrity contestant on CELEBRITY APPRENTICE with Donald Trump! She now tackles a new deadly arena hosting B films! MARDI GRAS MASSACRE is a nasty horror film which centers in New Orleans as a killer pick up prostitute and sacrifice them to the Wind Gods. This nut stop at nothing to make is killing as he pulls out the hearts from his victim. Only two rogue cops is hot on the trail as they go to the seedy side of Boubon street to find him. Banned in U.K. for being too violent now it can be seem on dvd un-CUT!

ST. PATRICK’S DAY

The most iconic film for this holiday has to be Leprechaun.

A horrific Leprechaun goes on a rampage after his precious bag of gold coins is stolen. He uses all of his magical destructive powers to trick, terrorize and kill anyone who is unlucky enough to hinder his relentless search. In a frantic attempt to survive the wrath of the Leprechaun, Tori and her friends scramble to find the only weapon known to kill this Irish monster…a four-leaf clover.

However, this was apparently a popular franchise. More popular than I realized because besides spawning Leprechaun / Leprechaun 2 / Leprechaun 3 / Leprechaun 4: In Space, it also spawned Leprechaun: In the Hood.

A few year’s ago Syfy released a TV movie called Leprechaun’s Revenge, which also went by the name of Red Clover. This list would be remiss not to include it under this holiday.

Sixty-six years ago the town of Irish Channel in Louisiana was the site of a horrible massacre on St. Patrick’s Day. Some blame a terrible storm that blew through the town, but those that were there don’t speak of the truth. Due to petty superstitions St. Patrick’s Day festivities were banned for the last 66 years, but now the new Mayor wants to tempt fate and celebrate.

APRIL FOOL’S DAY

Okay so this isn’t a major holiday, but it can make for a rather fun day. I saw this theater in friends when it was first released and we all loved it. It’s a fun horror movie.

April Fool’s Day

EASTER

Amazingly, yes, there are Easter-themed horror movies, most of them involving killer rabbits.

Peter Rottentail

On a dark and stormy night, Peter Rottentail was born. Part man, part rabbit… all evil. James and Lenny thought they were fixing up a relatives newly purchased house but what they got was a weekend of horrors!

Kottentail

When two animal rights activists set free a lab rabbit, they unknowingly release a bloodthirsty beast which is hungry for human flesh.

Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill!

From Chad Ferrin, the acclaimed director of the cult hit Someone’s Knocking At The Door, comes this twisted and frieghtening low-budget shocker, a stylish and totally original confection where gore, violence, suspense and humor all intersect for a creepy and shocking good time. It’s Easter, sixteen-year-old Nicholas’ favorite holiday. When the mentally and physically disabled youth’s mother, Mindy, begins a relationship with a psycho killer, bizarre events begin to unfold – especially after Nicholas takes a seemingly normal rabbit into the house. But when home intruders, prostitues and street trash are murdered in bizarre gruesome ways, just who is the bunny-masked killer committing these horrendous crimes?

MOTHER’S DAY

Oh, yeah, even these kinds of holidays where we celebrate our cherished parental figures aren’t safe from horror movie makers.

Mother’s Day

Loving sons always do what their mothers tell them to… even if it’s to kill! A mad matriarch and her two maniac sons kidnap and torture three women in their backwoods cabin!

Mother’s Day

Rebecca DeMornay is terrifying in this brutal gorefest. When her sons break into a home and take the owners hostage, she teaches them what real torture is all about. Costars Shawn Ashmore.

MEMORIAL DAY

Memorial Day

Rachel hasn’t slept for a while. A few years back, her brother was mysteriously killed while she and a group of friends partied by the lake side. Three years later, she and her friends must return to the same lake to finally put the nightmares to rest. To come to grips with what happened. To admit that it was just an accident. But someone is waiting for them. Someone who knows the truth. Someone who wants revenge. As night descends on their Memorial Day getaway, each individual must face an unstoppable killing machine with a serious hatchet to bury. As the body count rises, Rachel must discover whose face lies behind the murderous mask. Is it just a stranger in the woods? Or is it someone she already knows? This Memorial Day, the screaming doesn’t stop until the last body drops.
– Written by Marcos Gabriel

FATHER’S DAY

If there’s a horror movie for Mother’s Day, stands to reason there’d be one for the dads too, right? Yep.

Father’s Day

Ahab is a revenge-crazed psychopath/hero fresh out of prison for mistakenly slaughtering the ruthless monster who raped and murdered his father. But fathers are still being violated, dismembered with hacksaws and then set on fire. A teen hustler and a hot young priest search out the reclusive Ahab, determined to finish the job he started years ago and send this degenerate demon back to Hell, literally.

 

4TH OF JULY

Independence Day

On July 2nd, communications systems worldwide are sent into chaos by a strange atmospheric interference. First thought to be meteors, they are later revealed to be gigantic spacecraft, piloted by a mysterious alien species who have set out to launch an attack throughout the globe.

Uncle Sam

Desert Storm vet who was killed in combat rises from the grave on July Fourth, to kill the unpatriotic citizens of his hometown, after some teens burn an American flag over his burial site.

Additionally, here are a couple more that don’t have anything patriotic in their titles, necessarily, but they all do revolve around the July 4th holiday weekend and resulting festivities.

Jaws

Cape Fear (1991)

I Know What You Did Last Summer

LABOR DAY

Huh. Found one I can’t list any movies under.

HALLOWEEN

There are a lot of horror movies centered around Halloween. In fact, there’s even a whole article listing them on Wikipedia. My faves? Halloween and Halloween II
(the originals). Another popular one that didn’t really do anything for me, but that always seems to make most other people’s Top 10 list of movies to watch at Halloween is Trick ‘r Treat. I wanted to like it but it just didn’t do anything for me.

ALL SOULS’ DAY

All Souls Day

In 1892, Vargas Diaz, a murderous greedy villain, looted an Aztec tomb belonging to the goddess of death located in the town of Santa Bonita, Mexico. The many that died at Diaz’s hands cannot rest and continually demand human sacrifices. Today the town of Santa Bonita is a ghost town, and those who stumble upon the village never leave. A young couple, Joss and Alicia, are unfortunate enough to get stranded there and discover the town’s secret history. The only way to save themselves and let the dead rest lies with Diaz himself, but there’s no earthly way he could still be living today…

VETERAN’S DAY

It hasn’t been released yet, but IMBD lists a movie by the same name as this holiday with the following description:

Kevin Houser is a US Marine that is very patriotic and has a loving family. When he goes on a mission in Iraq, his squad gets ambushed and Kevin gets taken POW. A year goes by and he escapes and returns home. During his R&R, Kevin’s PTSD gets out of hand and he becomes violent and goes around killing people. His father, Carl, is sheriff of the town and has to end his sons rampage.

And here’s the cover art so far:

Sign of our times? This one I can see really happening with all the servicemen and women and all they’ve endured fighting for our country over the last decade.

THANKSGIVING

Already covered this one. See very first sentence of this post. But here’s the movie cover and synopsis to go with it.

Five college kids on Thanksgiving break stumble across a 386-year-old, necromanced turkey in the woods – and he’s one bloodthirsty, fowl-mouthed bastard!

CHRISTMAS

Halloween by far has the most horror movies centered around it, but Christmas is a close second.

Black Christmas (1974) (There was also a remake of this one, which most aficionados claim was, surprise, not as good as the original.)

Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder star among an ill-fated houseful of sorority sisters celebrating the holiday season. But the festivities turn fatal when obscene phone calls break the serenity and it becomes clear that a psychopath is stalking the house.

(The remade version)

Silent Night, Deadly Night: Parts 1 & 2

Silent Night Deadly Night- After his parents are murdered a young tormented teenager goes on a murderous rampage dressed as Santa due to his stay at an orphanage where he was abused by the Mother Superior. Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2- Ricky the brother of the killer in the first film talks to a psychiatrist about how he became a brutal killer after his brother died leading back to Mother Superior.

Christmas Evil (1983)

Emotionally scarred as a boy when he learns that Santa Claus isn’t real, a man grows up to become a toymaker and his life and home demonstrates an obsession with Christmas.

Gremlins (Special Edition)

A man buys a Mogwai as a Christmas present for his son. The young boy is told to keep the pet away from water, out of the light and never to feed it after midnight. Inadvertently, the creature is dampened and almost instantly, produces half a dozen furry replicas of itself –which continue to multiply and turn the small town upside-down.

Don’t Open Till Christmas

Somebody with very little Christmas spirit is killing anyone in a Santa suit one London holiday season, and Scotland Yard has to stop him before he makes his exploits an annual tradition.

Dead End

Christmas Eve. On his way to his in-laws with his family, Frank Harrington decides to try a shortcut, for the first time in 20 years. It turns out to be the biggest mistake of his life.

Jack Frost (Which is sometimes confused with the more family-friendly Jack Frost movie of the same name starring, Michael Keaton.)

He’s got ice in his veins and he’s giving cold-blooded a whole new meaning? his name is Jack Frost. After five years of terror and 38 bodies in five states, serial killer Jack is on his way to execution. Bu a freak accident with a truckload of genetic material in the middle of a snowstorm mutates Jack into a killer snowman. Now only an army can stop the slayride of terror from this frosty monster with icicle fangs. Hell has just frozen over… he’s the abominable Jack Frost.

Santa’s Slay

It turns out that Santa Claus (WWE Superstar Bill Goldberg) is not really the sweet old fellow that we all know and love.

The Gingerdead Man

The Gingerdead Man kills his way around Sara Leigh’s bakery, slicing, cutting, stabbing, shooting and terrorizing all who enter.