You better watch out: The traumatizing box art of Christmas horror films

In this oh-so post-modern world, nothing is sacred: All of your favorite movies will be poorly remade, your most treasured songs will be turned into ironic covers, and some anonymous Internet bozo has already turned your Saturday-morning-cartoon memories into his Sunday morning whack-off material (which is to say, be careful when Googling the names of certain ThunderCats). Of course, we weren't always so numb to these various inversions and deconstructions, so when the "slasher Santa" flick Silent Night, Deadly Night was released in 1984, it was greeted by outraged parents' groups and the tongue-clucking of critics, whose argument against the film was largely, "Think of the children!"

But these protesters weren't entirely thinking of the children themselves, because while they could get Silent Night pulled from theaters and its ad campaign dropped from the airwaves, by the time the film made its way to home video, the fresh terror of seeing an axe-wielding Santa awaited any bright-eyed moppet unfortunate enough to take a wrong turn down the "Horror" aisle at the local Blockbuster. Take The A.V. Club's bloody mitten as we walk through a winter horror-land of video art featuring suffocating decorations and evil stuffed animals. There, we'll cope with the trauma the only way we know how: with sarcastic suggestions of what the distributors should have put on the box.
            

Black Christmas (1974)
Before helming the seasonal TV staple A Christmas Story, director Bob Clark created a different kind of holiday classic with this proto-slasher, which set the precedent for genre conventions like "the last girl" and ironically juxtaposing grisly murders with festive celebrations. 

The box art: Continuing on that note of irony, the classic VHS art ports the film's spoiler-rific theatrical poster to cardboard, framing its most iconic image—Lynne Griffin, asphyxiated by a plastic bag—in a holly wreath. This is why they print, "Keep out of reach of disturbed children who grow up to be perverted crank-callers" on those things.

Alternative art suggestions: To up that gallows-humor factor, why not cut Griffin into other traditional Christmas scenes? Opening presents, say, or collecting donations for the Salvation Army. Or, because she looks like she's singing, put a robe on her and stick her in the church choir.

Christmas Evil
Accidentally walking in on your parents in flagrante delicto is one thing, but what if dad's wearing a full Santa costume? Why, that's enough to drive a kid to a life of extreme moralism, manifested through a "naughty and nice" list where the good boys and girls get weird, homemade toys, while all the greedy adults get straight-up murdered.

The box art: This movie has shuffled around to a few distributors, so it has a whole workshop full of images that will leave you with an impression of a Santa as warped as the one played by star Brandon Maggart. There's Santa knifing his way through a window, Santa with a magical floating knife hand, and this lovely Norman Rockwell parody, where Kris Kringle appears to have shoved a chopped-up body into his sack.

Alternative art suggestions: For all the slaying going on, nothing makes the skin crawl quite like that steamy opening sequence. Recreate that one Rockwell style or, in a bid to spook neoconservatives (and extend the marketing efforts of the film's most recent distributor, Synapse Film), do some meta-art with Christmas Evil-endorser John Waters unwrapping a DVD copy of the movie in Nat King Cole-esque surroundings.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker
Eschewing the serial-killing Santa antics of the franchise's first three entries and the ritual sex and witchcraft of the fourth, Silent Night, Deadly Night 5 casts Mickey Rooney as titular toy-maker Joe Petto. Rooney's playthings have ill intentions for young William Thorne, who, given his subsequent appearance in Full Moon Features' Demonic Toys, was apparently the go-to child actor for straight-to-video killer-toy movies in the early '90s.

The box art: In a classic case of misdirection, Thorne is made to look like he's in control of the toys, who are legitimately menacing—save for Raggedy Ann, who's just upset about being stuck behind the kid. Still, malevolent toys are scary, and malevolent toys with glowing red eyes are even scarier. Sleepless nights accomplished.

Alternative art suggestion: Scarier than that: An extreme close-up of Rooney's weathered, sagging face, frozen in an expression that says, "The royalties from those Rankin-Bass specials don't keep the electricity on."

Jack Frost (1996)
Predating the family comedy of the same name by two years (and featuring an eerily similar plot and character design), Jack Frost tears a page from Child's Play's book, transporting the mind of a vicious killer into the body of something seemingly innocuous: a snowman.

The box art: A snowman that, it should be noted, actually never transforms into the terrifying hellbeast portrayed in the film's lenticular box art. 

Alternative art suggestions: More of a failed horror-comedy than its packaging lets on, the film could show its true nature through a cover plastered with the sub-Freddy Krueger quips slung by the killer snowman. ("What are you?" "World's most pissed-off snowcone!") Or it could go straight for the prepubescent male audience that kind of joke appeals to and use a toned-down representation of the Shannon Elizabeth-starring "carrot rape" sequence (NSFW, duh).  

The Gingerdead Man
Not to imply these films are devoid of original ideas or anything, but The Gingerdead Man also concerns a transfigured killer, here reincarnated as an unreasonably large (the film is set in Waco, so, you know, everything's bigger…) gingerbread cookie with the voice and teeth of Gary Busey. 

The box art: Just your standard knife-wielding gingerbread cookie, who brings the chills via the Uncanny Valley and not the threat of stabbing.

Alternative art: The bakery where this film is set has a walk-in oven. How do you not use that on the cover of the DVD?

Everybody's Fine
Robert De Niro, a deranged taxi driver and former mobster (who also spent a brief period as the tyrannical dictator of a small, moose-and-squirrel-hating European nation) systematically stalks his three grown children after they all cancel their plans to visit him for Christmas

The box art: When it comes to DVD and Blu-ray just in time for the holidays next year—talk about joy to the world!—expect to see this PhotoShopped family portrait, which portrays the final moment before De Niro finally snaps. 

Alternative art: De Niro dressed as Santa, holding a novelty-sized check made out to "Tribeca Film Festival" in his right hand and stabbing Martin Scorsese to death with his left.