12 best holiday horror movies

7. Jack Frost (1997)

Depending on who you ask, this movie either suffers or benefits from its proximity to 1998’s Jack Frost, a heartwarming movie about Michael Keaton learning to be a good dad while living as an animated snowman. It’s also terrible. If you ever meet Mr. Keaton at a dinner party, you should probably just ask him about Birdman instead.

At least 1997’s Jack Frost knows that it’s bad. It is, after all, a horror movie about a serial killer whose consciousness is transferred into a snowman’s body. Hopefully, no one on the production team thought they were going to be nominated for an Oscar or anything with similar prestige.

It all begins on a snowy December evening, in the sleepy little town of Snowmonton. Serial killer Jack Frost (yes, that really is his name) is being transported for execution. Jack manages to kill the guard and takes control of the transport vehicle, but quickly crashes into a truck. That’s bad enough, but it turns out that this particular truck is carrying genetic material for research. Somehow, Jack is exposed to this leaking material, which causes him to melt into the snow. Probably, it’s best if you don’t think about this part too much.

Local sheriff Sam Tiller, who arrested Jack, is haunted by his threats against the sheriff and the town. After a series of strange murders, the appearance of some FBI agents, and a young boy’s testimony stating that a snowman committed the killings, Tiller is pretty convinced: Jack’s back.

Later, when a group of townspeople is trapped in the police station by the killer snowman, one of the agents confirms that it is indeed Jack in snowman form terrorizing the town. He goes on to explain that the human soul is really a kind of chemical and the material that initially turned Jack was to be used in case of a nuclear holocaust. They finally defeat him with antifreeze, of course. Seriously, you need to turn off your brain for this one.