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For all the gl\xfchwein and good cheer, mid-December also marks the darkest part of the year, when families around the world gather to watch their favorite holiday ghost story: A Christmas Carol. Easily the most famous spooky Yuletide movie, it is by no means the only one: Black Christmas was arguably the first American slasher movie; the mischievous creatures from Gremlins squealed their way into many hearts in 1984; and the Alpine Krampus has more credits to his name than Santa has reindeer. For generations, the heart of winter\u2014not Halloween\u2014was when we told unsettling stories around the fire, whether they featured the ghosts of our own pasts or Gryla the Icelandic ogre and her evil Yule cat. This week on Smarty Pants, writer and director Kier-La Janisse offers a primer on how these stories have found their way onto the screen, from annual BBC television specials to big-budget Hollywood bloodbaths.

Go beyond the episode:

• Kier-La Janisse\u2019s Yuletide Terror, co-edited with Paul Corupe, is out of print, but her House of Psychotic Women, an \u201cautobiographical topography of female neurosis in horror and exploitation films\u201d was just released in an expanded edition
• Janisse\u2019s documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched is a thorough history of folk horror, which makes its way to the holidays with movies like Krampus (2015) and Rare Exports (2010), and wintry tales like Marketa Lazarov\xe1 (1967), The White Reindeer (1952), Hagazussa (2017), and November (2017)
• You can watch the newest episode of the BBC\u2019s anthology series A Ghost Story for Christmas on Britbox. Discussed in this episode: The Stalls of Barchester (1971) and A Warning to the Curious (1972), both based on M. R. James stories of the same name, and Stigma (1977)
• Visit our website for a full list of links and trailers

Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.

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Have suggestions for projects you\u2019d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman.

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