Out of Fantasia Film Festival, Michael Gabriele’s Unholy Night twists together the campiness of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, the cheery terror of Krampus, and the sobering aftertaste of Camille Griffin’s Silent Night. In recent years, the pool of well-made Christmas/holiday horror films has expanded—Silent Night Deadly Night (2025), Christmas Bloody Christmas, and Advent Calendar among the standouts. With his new film, the writer/director throws his proverbial hat into the ring with a pure melodramatic delight that gets the audience in the mood for Christmas in July. Gabriele explores toxic family dynamics, regret, shame, and unfinished business in the afterlife.
Gino (Marc Bendavid) and his parents prepare for the arrival of family for Christmas Eve dinner. It’s your typical family gathering with some lighthearted ribbing and general chaos. But it’s the first holiday without the family’s matriarch, and there’s a dark emotional cloud hovering overhead. Her presence is certainly felt and deeply missed. When Gino heads into the kitchen, he spots a newly reanimated grandmother hunched over the sink. He calls the rest of the family, and they all look on in shock. She’s long been buried, so how could she possibly be alive? Magic? Zombie apocalypse?
Unholy Night unleashes, well, unholy torment on the family. Gino’s ex-girlfriend Rene (Shailene Garnett) undergoes her own fresh hell across the street. Together, she and Gino combat a horde of reanimated dead people, and oddly enough, they learn a thing or two about missed opportunities, bad decisions, extinguished flames, and connection. Michael Gabriele uses a zombie-like scenario to tell a heartfelt tale about blood relationships and chosen family. As the night escalates, it becomes clear that the grandmother, as well as the other many walking dead, have something they need to do.
Michael Gabriele’s Unholy Night carries plenty of intensely cutting notions you may not expect from a deliciously campy zombie flick. But the writer/director makes sure you rally behind Gino and his family and root for their survival. While tragedy eventually befalls them, there’s a surprising amount of soul radiating from its insides. From the visual style to the strong lead performance from Bendavid, the scrappy little indie does things better than most tentpole theatrical releases. Gabriele and his team creatively rearrange the zombie genre, forged in iron by I Walked with a Zombie and Night of the Living Dead, to deliver something tremendously sincere and compelling.
Themes of forgiveness, redemption, and compassion weave through the horrifying elements of the dead, as well. Unholy Night makes a great reminder that Christmas horror is alive and kicking, and perhaps always has been. While you stay glued to your screen for the pure pulsating fear of it all, Michael Gabriele teaches you important lessons about what it means to love even when the world seems to be going down in flames. In 2026, it’s perhaps a lesson we all could use right about now.
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