#a nasty piece of work

[weirdlookindog]

Terry Oakes - A Nasty Piece of Work, 1985

[maroonghoul]

Ranking of all the Christmas Horror Movies I’ve seen (as of 2024)

I'm sorry I never finished summer of slashers. Real life got in the way.

At least I can update this for the year.

43.Nekrotronic- This probably shouldn't even count. Sure, it's got horror elements (zombies, demons, ghosts) but it doesn't try anything scary with them. It's more of a stupid action comedy most of the time.

Literally the only part of this that even has anything to do with Christmas is one scene when at the villains board meeting where she has her human underlings wear Santa hats...for some reason. Do we even confirm if this was set at Christmas? I can see why it would be, but I don't remember anyone actually saying it. I might have lost track.

Yeah, it's at the bottom because it's neither scary or festive. But it was kinda entertaining. For what a cheap genre film from Australia could be. It didn't make me angry.

42.Alien Raiders

41.Anna & the Apocalypse

40.Better Watch Out

39.Good Tidings

38. Silent Night, Bloody Night- So even Black Christmas wasn't the first holiday slasher, huh? Actually, this is more of a giallo, given the cast and tropes, but it's got the body count.

This movie is way more about mood and dread then actually characters to latch onto, for better or worse. Once again, it uses the "dangerous mental patient" trope I don't care for, especially for a critical bit of the backstory that's motivating the killing in the movie's present day. But I sorta give it points over Good Tidings in that we're told it about it rather then seeing it, and the source of exposition isn't too reliable anyway. Plus, it's a bit impressive that some of these patients seemed to have integrated back into society without murdering anyone else, so there's that.

37.The Wolf of Snow Hollow

36.The Mothman Prophecies-Assuming you're someone who doesn't know anything about the Mothman of Point Pleasant urban legend, like I was before seeing this movie, you would think this a creature feature. In actuality, this has more in common with The Dead Zone then say, Cujo. With a dash of cosmic horror given these predictions are coming from something definitely not human but whose true morality is unknown.

It's low because it's a story that's more concerned with existential horror then any other. Dealing with an unjust and nonsensical world and chasing something that might provide answers but only raising worse questions. What a fun thing to match with the holiday season.

I suppose the lack of satisfaction is the point, but then it just makes it look like the movie ends without a clear point. Maybe they should have gotten David Fincher to help with that.

35.Jack Frost

34.I Trapped the Devil

33.Slay Belles

32.P2

31.The Advent Calendar

30 Silent Night, Deadly Night V: The Toymaker killer toys plus Rankin Bass's own Santa Claus, Mickey Rooney, in a villainous role? sounds fun.

In fact hot take, but killer toys makes way more sense as a weapon of choice for a killer Santa to me then an axe. I never got the axe. Is it connected to firewood? The toys are pretty cool too. Make me think this was more what Puppet Master 1 was going to be like.

Okay, actually the bad Santa in this movie is the deadbeat baby daddy who can't just approach the mom like a normal person because we need a red herring and something to pad out the film.

And Mickey's not even the final boss too. (His character's called Joe Petto. Meant as foreshadowing but comes off as something much darker then just about anything else) That'd be his android/mannequin son. You can keep your poohinverse Pinocchio horror movie. THIS is what Pinocchio as a horror movie should be like. A man-child of a puppet who uses his fellow toys to murder to get what he thinks he's owed. Could've done without him dry humping his desired "mommy".

So yeah, bottom line, little scary things works well for Christmas.

29.Cronos

28.All the Creatures were Stirring

27.Sint

26.The Lodge

25.Black Christmas (2019)

24.Body

23. A Nasty Piece of Work Not entirely sure what trying to get a promotion at work has to do with Christmas, but being stiffed your bonus and wanting to tell your out-of-touch boss how you really feel; the Clark Griswolds in all of us are pretty sure.

This is a fun, mean movie where you come away not liking anyone on purpose. Everyone has sold their soul in some capacity if not before the movie then certainly at the end. It's a bit cathartic.

Also, It's interesting seeing how this movie handles the reaction to the murder of a CEO at the end, especially given current events. Sweep it under the rug, not even the fellow executives are broken up at all at his passing? Everyone moves on? Ouch, guys. And no, being a literal girlboss solves nothing!

22.Red Snow

21.Pooka

20. The Sacrifice Game - Like if The Blackcoat's Daughter got interrupted by a slightly more capable version of the satanist cult from the Babysitter.

Honestly the first half of this movie was mostly what I thought it was going to be. A bleak movie where a lot of nice people suffer and die at the hand of a gang of psychopaths. Though the students were way younger than I thought they were going in, which was alarming.

Then the turn happened a little over halfway through and this became a very different movie. Yeah, when a demon is cooped up in the same place for literal decades, I can see it not caring as to who's loyal and who's not. Good child actor, too. And this movie kinda more or less had the ending I was expecting (hoping?) the Blackcoat's Daughter would have. So maybe I have a bias. Found family ftw?

19.Dead End

18 Terrifier 3 oh, you might be surprised how low the most recent movie is on here. Let's be real; these movie's mostly exist to show off the bloody effects. At least at the start. I do appreciate David Allen Thornton even now giving Art the Clown little bits of depth where he can. I genuinely believed he was super excited to meet Santa Claus. Also, hey sometimes if you're going to be mean, it's best to go full steam ahead. And you're either with it or you're not.

At first, it would seem weird putting the Empire Strikes Back of this franchise at Christmas. (Or any franchise for that matter). But given that Christmas was always meant to be that last big light before the dark times come again; it actually proves super apt given when Sienna is at by the end. Even Art's not looking too good.

I wonder what holiday Terrifier 4 would be set on? Halloween's been done. Valentine's wouldn't have a lot there. St. Patrick's Day only a little bit better. Easter could be a bit fun. Fourth of July would be a LOT of fun. Thanksgiving wouldn't really work with pretty much the whole family gone. We'll see.

17.Black Friday (2021)

16.Silent Night (2012)

15.It's a Wonderful Knife

14.Wind Chill

13.Christmas Bloody Christmas

12.Santa's Slay

11.The Children

10.Rare Exports

9.A Christmas Horror Story

8.Day of the Beast

7.Deadly Games

6.Silent Night (2021)

5.Christmas Evil

4.Krampus

3.Scrooged

2.Black Christmas (1974)

1.Gremlins

That's my list as it stands now. At least, I was able to complete something this year.

[ordinaryschmuck]

I tried watching all of those Into the Dark movies on Hulu, and a lot of them aren't really that great of horror movies, losing my interest quick. But there are some really good ones I recommend:

Pooka

Down

Uncanny Annie

A Nasty Piece of Work.

Genuinely good movies that hold my interest, feature some great themes, and sometimes made me feel uncomfortable in the right ways.

[stuff-i-watched]

Into the Dark - season 2, episode 3: A Nasty Piece of Work / 2019 — IMDb, TMDb

[meat-fr]

"they're not graceful", "they're not elegant", "They're not angelic"

-and i took that personally (as a challenge!)

[jamiethebeeart]

Lineart by @ovytia-art which was such a blast to color - I love the entire vibe of all of them hanging out together so much @green-with-envy-phandom-event

[picascribit]

Oh wow, that’s not one of mine that gets many recs. It’s certainly one that I don’t tend to recommend to people, because it is a very particular flavor of darkfic that I don’t think most people are up for, which is more than understandable. Thank you for the shout out!

Harry Potter Rec Fest Day 11 - Dark Fics

I don't seek out a lot of dark fics. I'll read them if they cross my browser or kindle, but I gravitate more toward fluff and save the dark stuff for "published fiction" or just "the news". That's probably why these fics stuck out to me particularly, because I wasn't left with the warm fuzzy feeling. Some dark things for @hprecfest day 11 ...

The Unknown Door by @amywaterwings Pairing: Draco x Harry Word count: 60,970 Rating: E

This fic was part of @hderised last year. Boy does it pack a wallop of feelings. Get ready for addiction, death, child neglect, torture, people experiencing homelessness, discrimination against all kinds of people and creatures. It's a lot. It's also really real because of all that. @amywaterwings creates an apartment building filled with unique and uniformly loveable (but still dark) original characters and the lore goes deep. A beautifully despairing peek into a less magical part of Magical Britain and how hopeless it can feel even when you are in a position to help. It does have a happy ending though!

Death is Not Fit to House Love by @starlitsilvereyes Pairing: Draco x Harry Word count: 20,919 Rating: E

I'm hesitant to say too much about this fic for fear of spoiling it. This was written for @hd-fan-fair Career Fair this year and I screamed aloud at the end. Featuring Politician Draco and Hit-Wizard Harry Potter.

Serious content warnings: Character death, discussion of suicide, violence

A Nasty Piece of Work written and recorded by @picascribit Pairing: Fenrir Greyback/OFC Word count: 11,198 Length: 1:10:00 Rating: E

Hard to believe that this is written by the same @picascribit who brought us cute little Scorbus at Protego Club with all their queer friends. This fic is traditional DARK. Like make you sick to your stomach dark. But also such an interesting character study. Recorded excellently, as usual, by the author themself.

Serious content warnings: Violence, Rape, Non-con, Underage, Major Character Death - this checks all the boxes, literally all the boxes on AO3

************************************************************************

And a couple of little self-recs ...

White, the colour of flowers by @lumosatnight Podfic read by Cailynwrites Pairing: Draco x Harry Word count: 3,203 Length: 23:35 Rating: T

A beautiful, poetic multi-ending fic taking place during the second war. Draco has Hanahaki disease and it's angsty, but it has a happy ending. Mostly it's just like floating through sad space, but like, in a good way.

Devour the One You Love also by @starlitsilvereyes Podfic read by Cailynwrites for @hp-mcd-fest 2023 Pairing: Draco x Harry Word count: 28,102 Length: 2:33:56 Rating: E

@starlitsilvereyes writes an incredible story here. It's non-linear, which I personally think is incredibly difficult and impressive. It's suspenseful, has jump scares, and ends with horrible horrible things happening. Possibly the darkest fic I've ever read. Enjoy!

Content warning: Violence, death, psychological abuse, self-harm, dub-con, cannibalism

[sketching-shark]

tbh--and especially in this era of many protagonists getting viciously belittled by antagonists while they can't say or do anything except take it while looking sad--one of the delightful things about og classic Monkey King is how his brutal honesty about his own desires & crimes comes with a free telling his opponents to 1-800-GO-TO-HELL.

[geminison]

Wood carving and killing people both require knife skills. And both tend to leave marks

[neverenoughmarauders]

2600 words (pre-edited) featuring Dolores Umbridge as the main protagonist is too many words for anyone’s good (Read: zero words is the recommended daily intake). Why did I decide to write about the ‘bit of werewolf legislation’ she drafted, which made it nearly impossible for Remus to get another job? But I will subject you all to my suffering!!

Small WIP extract nobody asked for below:

‘You are the Minister for Magic,’ she reminded him patiently, ‘if the headmaster of Hogwarts is about to endanger young wizards and witches, you have the authority - nay,' she laughed sweetly, 'the obligation I dare say - to do something about it.’

‘Really Dolores, I do not think Dumbledore would appoint Remus Lupin if he thought he was a danger to the students, even if he is a - well, you know.’

Oh, Dolores knew exactly what that filthy half-breed was.

‘Of course, Minister, but -‘

‘No buts today, Dolores,’ Cornelius practically begged as he put down the mug and rubbed his eyes wearily. ‘We have enough to worry about with the whole Black situation.’

‘Right you are, Minister.’

[stagefoureddiediaz]

So do we think maybe Buck golfing with Gerrard is something along the lines of Tommy giving advice to Buck to get to know him and play nice to make his life easier (or some such - because Tommy never actually had any hated directed at him from Gerrard so never actually experienced first hand what he was like in the same way Chim and Hen did).

Which Buck will do and find out a few things about his situationships (it’s technically unlabelled as a relationship so I’m not calling them boyfriends!) past behaviours and dots will start connecting all those red flags that Tommy is waving?!!

[iiileaves]

LMFAOOOOO

[ookaookaooka]

i just spent ages looking for the post, i swear i posted about it when i broke my beloved fish plate like a year ago, but now he's finally back together! i just have to wait a week or so for the resin to cure , and then i can go in and wipe away the excess gold. even though the process was frustrating and VERY time-consuming and i lost motivation halfway through and let it sit on the shelf unfinished for like 14 months, i'm glad i went to the trouble of learning how to actually kintsugi it with resin and gold instead of rushing it with epoxy and mica powder.

the before pics (freshly broken and after the initial gluing):

[stupidiinspades]

john is weirdly dodgy about admitting his age to folk.

namely this is because former reactions to such weren't all that pleasant- typically resulting in being dropped for lying (or being 'weird/gross/creepy'). because no one in their right mind is going to believe he's over six decades- much less just cresting 72; so he slips around the question like a fish lubed in castor oil.

[osamucide]

i have whump/dd and angst and hurt/comfort ideas that i’m too scared to share lest the hoes sabotage me

[fanofspooky]

Posters by Nasty Pieces Of Work