Michael Gabriele's Unholy Night is bringing a rather unpleasant family Christmas to Shudder this December, arriving on the streaming service on December 4, 2026, the same day it opens in select Canadian cinemas through Game Theory Films - Marc Bendavid plays Gino, whose traditional Italian family Christmas Eve takes a turn for the worse when his long-dead grandmother turns up and starts killing people.
But she's not the only relative making an unexpected return, either - more dead family members begin appearing around the neighborhood as well, leaving Gino and his ex-girlfriend Renee (Shailene Garnett) trying to work out how to stop them before the whole gathering becomes a massacre - hopefully they don't, though.
This is Gabriele's first feature as a director, following his short film Get Away, which won the Gold Audience Award for Best International Short at Fantasia in 2023, and he returned to the festival with Unholy Night, but this time the film picked up the Gold Audience Award for Best Canadian Feature at the 2026 edition.