We have a special holiday episode for you this week! Rumor has it that Charles Dickens used to do public readings of A Christmas Carol every year. Now, we’re going to do our own Christmas Carol for you -- A Sandman Slim Christmas Carol. Join us in taking a sip from the Aqua Regia flask, lighting up a Malediction, and seeing what fresh mess Stark gets himself into this holiday season.

If you're -- like us -- hanging around with some time to kill this holiday season, you've probably noticed that holiday horror new releases are slim pickings this year. We feel your pain! Here are some of our holiday horror streaming reccomendations to help find something to watch that might make the outside world look not quite so bad for a minute:

Netflix: Blood Red Sky, You're Next, The Ritual, There's Something In The Barn, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities Episode 4 (The Outside)

Peacock: Krampus, Inside Look: Nosferatu, Black Christmas, Better Watch Out

Prime: The Legend of Hell House (takes place just before Christmas Eve), Violent Night, Christmas Bloody Christmas

Shudder: It's A Wonderful Knife, all the BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas, The Sacrifice Game, Rare Exports

Need some Sandman Slim ephemera? Check out Richard's Sandman Slim shop. Find all podcast links on our Raised By Horror Linktree (including YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and more). Theme song: Pop Goes the Weasel by Kevin MacLeod [Wikimedia Commons].

About: Richard Kadrey. About: Violet Blue. Support us on Ko-Fi!

Why do so many of us love – and even look forward to – holiday horror films? Is it because we’ve always known there was something off about Santa? Maybe we’d rather scream than sing a carol, or boring feelgood Christmas films make us feel stabby?Or is it because the holidays are horrific all on their own?

In this special episode we talk about why people love holiday horror, especially us, and why we see holiday horror as much entertaining and enlightening as it can be a form of self-care. We’ve been looking forward to this show all month, we got all dressed up for you, and we handpicked a selection of films to keep you creeped out long after the creatures stop stirring. Enjoy!

EPISODE FILMS

RICHARD: Hosts, You Better Watch Out, A Christmas Horror Story

VIOLET: Rare Exports, Christmas Bloody Christmas, Violent Night

And we had to add: Anna and the Apocalypse

Find all our links on our Raised By Horror Linktree (including YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and more). Theme song: Pop Goes the Weasel by Kevin MacLeod [Wikimedia Commons].

About: Richard Kadrey. About: Violet Blue. Support us on Ko-Fi!

In a previous episode we talked about movies and TV that seared some of the scariest onscreen moments into our heads as young horror fans. Here we talk about a few (but not all) of our top-tier scariest film and TV we've seen as adults.

Some are new titles and some are older, but either way these managed to do something most horror can't -- they scared us. And we loved it!

EPISODE FILMS

VIOLET: The Haunting of Hill House (Mike Flanagan; 2018), HOST (2020), Talk to Me (2023), Hereditary (2018).

RICHARD: Audition (1999), Wolf Creek (2005), Martyrs (2008), Haze (2005).

Find us on Ko-Fi, iTunes, YouTube, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Libsyn, and Raised By Horror dot com. Now go smash those subscribe buttons -- and don't blow out the seance candle! Theme song: Pop Goes the Weasel by Kevin MacLeod [Wikimedia Commons]. About: Richard Kadrey. About: Violet Blue.