Here are Cinephile Corner’s 10 recommendations for movies like Silent Night, Deadly Night:
Violent Night
It’s easy to see the influences that Violent Night wears on its sleeve. The splatter core holiday thriller has finally hit movie theaters after months of highly anticipated promotional material promising a throwback, grindhouse experience that cinemas across the country are dying to have screening in their auditoriums. There’s one part simple-minded Tarantino, one part John Wick, and one part You’re Next-style home invasion. As you’d imagine, it’s a bonkers thrill-ride, even if it’s uneven and incongruent between its two halves.
In a Violent Nature
In a Violent Nature didn’t blow me away, but it’s creative enough to have me intrigued with where Chris Nash will set his sights next. The movie is made specifically for the hardcore sickos out there that love to see how far a creative can go to make an audience feel queasy.
Scream 6
Despite a nearly complete turnover of legacy characters, the Scream franchise keeps on rolling – and it may be as good as any since the original hit theaters in 1996. Scream 6 gets bolder and better, and the movie builds on the best aspects of Radio Silence’s last installment of the franchise.
Thanksgiving
Eli Roth, a significant figure in gnarly genre filmmaking, takes a stab at the holiday horror subgenre with Thanksgiving, a movie that successfully balances gore, satire, and a twisted sense of humor. Roth, known for his unapologetically brutal style, delivers a horror-thriller that not only embraces the conventions of the genre but also winks at them, creating an entertaining if not entirely groundbreaking Thanksgiving slasher.
Halloween
John Carpenter’s Halloween is one of those films that is so baked into horror DNA that it can be hard to look at it with fresh eyes, but even almost 50 years later it still works like gangbusters. You can trace nearly every slasher you love back to what Carpenter did here. The masked, wordless killer in Michael Myers. The suburban setting that looks safe until it is not. The calmly unraveling psychiatrist in Donald Pleasence’s Dr. Loomis. The smart, alert, deeply sympathetic final girl in Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode. All of that starts here, and very few of the imitators matched its patience, its clarity, or its eerie sense of watching something evil drift slowly toward you from across the street.
Sick
Sick is the latest action/horror picture from director John Hyams. It’s his follow-up to the 2020 film Alone and feels like a natural successor for the filmmaker. In both movies, protagonists are quickly pushed into a battle to save their own lives from relentless attackers that feel just shy from being the boogeyman reincarnated. While Alone takes place mostly in the outdoors wilderness, Sick opts for a luxurious remote cabin secluded from neighbors and the outside world.
Heart Eyes
Heart Eyes delivers a clever and blood-soaked twist on the slasher genre, taking a cue from classics like Scream while putting a Valentine’s Day spin on the formula. Directed with a knowing wink and just enough bite, this seasonal horror-thriller finds a solid rhythm early on—thanks in large part to its lead duo—and mostly rides that momentum until the final act falters under the weight of an undercooked reveal.
M3GAN
Don’t mistaken M3GAN as another Child’s Play. Yes, it does have a similar narrative pattern and killer doll, but aspects of M3GAN beyond that separate it from an idea done numerous times in Hollywood before. James Wan and Gerard Johnstone team up for a relatively fun start to 2023.
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2
Blood and Honey 2 capitalizes on the infrequent highlights of the first Winnie the Pooh horror movie, and improves around the edges where the original flopped. But despite an infusion of new ideas and kills, the core premise can only go so far. A schlocky, unique time at the movies doesn’t translate into an objectively good film.
Christmas Bloody Christmas
Joe Begos’ Christmas Bloody Christmas offers much that his first two films offer – retro colors that are intoxicating to look at, dialogue that oozes with acid and crassness, and a few kills with excellent practical effects. While the elements are pieces that I prefer quite a bit, the film loses me in forgettable character arcs and an overall sense of purposelessness.
READ MORE: Silent Night, Deadly Night (2025)
