Most of the Christmas stuff doing the rounds on streaming and good old telly tends to be pretty jolly.
Even with the burglary and villains of Home Alone, it’s still a fun film. And there’s no denying the likes of Elf, the Gavin and Stacey specials and Love Actually will put a smile on your face.
But sometimes, people just want something a little, well, darker.
And a terrifying Christmas (ish) series hailed ‘one of the best horrors ever’ is now free to stream in the UK.
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It’s probably just not quite something to whack on for the family on the big joyous day.
Pronounced Nosferatu, NOS4A2 was originally released back in 2019 with a second season the following year.
It’s based on the best-selling novel by Joe Hill and tells a ‘different kind of vampire story’.
Sitting with an average audience rating of 82 percent on Rotten Tomatoes’ Popcornmeter, it follows Vic McQueen (Ashleigh Cummings) who is a gifted young woman who discovers she has a ‘supernatural ability to find lost things’.
But this ends up putting her onto a ‘collision course’ with the particularly evil and immortal villain, Charlie Manx (Zachary Quinto).
And here’s the particularly dark yet somehow festive part, he feeds off the souls of children and then deposits what’s left of them into Christmasland.
This bizarre place is ‘a twisted place of Manx's imagination where every day is Christmas Day and unhappiness is against the law’.
Luckily for UK fans of the show and for those hoping for something more haunting at this time of year, NOS4A2 was added to ITVX earlier this week.
And X users are buzzing as they wrote: “NOS4A2 is now available on ITVX. Such a great series!”
Others call it ‘one of the best horror series’ while one even declared it as a ‘golden series of the century’.
On Rotten Tomatoes, some viewers say they were ‘captivated the whole time’ as it had their ‘heart pounding’.
Others say they were ‘shattered’ when the show ended, calling it ‘far better than Stranger Things’.
Another added: “This is SUCH a good show! I love the originality of the take on a sort of vampire villain, as well as the story line. Joe Hill's book was so captivating, and they did a great job making it into a series!”
Although some do slate it as ‘pretty boring’ and ‘too creepy’, with one viewer saying it began to feel like ‘an obligation rather than a pastime’.
You can now stream NOS4A2 on ITVX now.
Topics: TV, Film, Horror, Christmas, TV and Film
Jess Battison