Christmas horror

[5] M. R. James wrote ghost stories in the early 1900s which he read aloud to friends at Christmas time as part of a tradition of such holiday entertainments.

[7][8] In 1954 the American EC Comics published an edition of Vault of Horror titled "...And All Through the House" which featured a killer dressed as Santa.

[4]: 3  Early examples include Wladyslaw Starewicz's Christmas Eve (1913), Victor Sjostrom's The Phantom Carriage (1921), and Christian-Jaque's Who Killed Santa Claus (1941).

[4]: 3 [2] 1974's Black Christmas is considered an influential classic of the genre[11][2][12] and according to Stephen Thrower generally regarded as an influence on the 1978 Halloween.

[4]: 5 Christmas horror novels and films are sometimes based on horror elements from a variety of Christmas storytelling traditions, including Krampus and Perchta of Central Europe and Icelandic folklore's Gryla, who punish miscreants, sometimes in cooperation with Santa Claus, and Kallikantzaroi of Southeastern Europe, who create general mayhem during the season.

[14][2] Paste connected the popularity of the genre to the juxtaposition of violence and fear with a season that is commonly regarded as a time when people are expected to treat one another with unusual kindness, saying that "Setting a bloodbath against the pristine, jealously guarded specter of Christmas, on the other hand, has always been angling for a certain level of purposeful offense, because there have always been folks who take the defense of the holiday’s image very seriously.

"[11] The Hollywood Reporter speculated that the genre's appeal was a reflection that "Christmas isn’t the happiest time of the year for everyone" and that it provided "a means to conquer and control some of the less delightful aspects that seep into the holiday".

[2] NPR said the relatability of the genre seemed obvious: "It's not too hard to make the case that Christmas stories can be scary ... that large man sneaking into your home at midnight after watching you all year.