The Unholy Night trailer is out today, and Shudder has just unwrapped one of the nastiest Christmas presents of the year. The horror streamer’s new original film turns a traditional family Christmas Eve into a bloody fight for survival, with a long-dead grandmother returning from the grave to crash the party. The first trailer dropped on 9 November 2026, and it wastes no time showing exactly how wrong this holiday is about to go.
Image Credit: Shudder — Official Trailer via YouTube
If you love horror that mixes festive cheer with genuine dread, this one deserves a place on your December watchlist. Here are five thrilling details from the Unholy Night trailer, plus everything we know about the cast, the director and the streaming date.
1. The Unholy Night trailer brings grandma back from the dead
The trailer opens on Gino’s traditional family Christmas Eve, all warm lights and familiar faces, and then it breaks the mood in the most unsettling way possible. His long-dead grandma drops by for the holidays, and she is not here to hand out presents. She is back on a murderous rampage, and the trailer makes it clear that nobody at the table is safe.
The image that will stay with you is the one from the trailer itself: grandma staring straight at the camera with glowing red eyes, her face lined and grey, looking like she has walked straight out of the grave and into the living room. It is a simple, chilling visual, and it tells you everything about the tone Shudder is going for. This is not a ghost story told in whispers. The dead are here, they are angry, and Christmas Eve is their night.
2. A family Christmas turns into a battle for survival
The heart of the Unholy Night trailer is the chaos that follows grandma’s arrival. What starts as a traditional Italian family gathering collapses into a scramble to stay alive, and the trailer piles on the surprises one after another. Gino reunites with his ex in the middle of the madness, and the two of them have to work together if they want to make it through the night.
The trouble does not stop with grandma either. The trailer shows Gino’s dead Italian relatives popping up all around the neighbourhood, so the threat spreads from one house to the whole street. These are Yuletide revenants, the dead of Christmases past, and Gino and his ex must find a way to get rid of them before the night is over. The mix of dysfunctional family comedy and full-blooded horror is what makes the trailer stand out. It is funny in the way only a family Christmas can be funny, and then it is suddenly, violently not funny at all.
3. Marc Bendavid and Shailene Garnett lead the cast
The Unholy Night trailer puts its two leads front and centre. Marc Bendavid, known to television audiences from Dark Matter, plays Gino, the man whose Christmas Eve falls apart when his dead relatives come calling. Shailene Garnett, seen in Fire Country, stars opposite him as his ex, the woman he must team up with to survive the night.
Their pairing is the emotional engine of the film. A reunion with an ex is awkward enough without a murderous grandma in the room, and the trailer leans into that tension. Bendavid and Garnett look like a strong match for the film’s blend of horror and dark humour, and their chemistry will decide whether the human story lands as hard as the scares.
4. A first-time feature director with a festival win behind him
Unholy Night marks the feature directorial debut of Michael Gabriele, and the trailer shows a filmmaker who already knows how to stage a scare. Gabriele’s short film Get Away won the Gold Audience Award for Best International Short at the Fantasia International Film Festival in 2023, which is one of the most respected genre festivals in the world. That win put him on the map, and Shudder has now handed him a feature.
Gabriele also produces the film alongside Jenna MacMillan, Marc Tetreault and Jason Levangie, with Dave Anderson, Jason MacIssac, Richard Huggard, Tina Carbone and Jef Burnham serving as executive producers. For a debut feature, that is a solid team, and the trailer’s confident mix of gore, family farce and festive dread suggests Gabriele is not playing it safe. If you enjoyed the recent wave of smart holiday horror, this is a debut worth watching.
5. Unholy Night streams only on Shudder from December 4
The Unholy Night trailer confirms the release plan in plain terms: the film streams only on Shudder from December 4, 2026. That puts it right in the middle of the holiday season, when horror fans are hunting for something darker than the usual Christmas fare. Shudder has built a strong reputation for original holiday horror, and a December 4 premiere gives Unholy Night a clear run at viewers settling in for a scary Christmas watch.
There is no theatrical release announced for the film, so Shudder is the only place to watch it when it arrives. If you already subscribe, it will be waiting for you on December 4. If you do not, the trailer alone might be enough to tempt you, because a killer grandma with glowing red eyes is not the kind of thing you forget in a hurry.
Why Unholy Night could be this Christmas’s horror surprise
Holiday horror works best when it understands both halves of the idea: the warmth of the season and the dread underneath it. The Unholy Night trailer gets that balance right. The Christmas setting is not just decoration. It is the whole point. Family gatherings are already tense, emotional and a little chaotic, and this film simply takes that feeling and adds the undead.
The film also arrives at the right moment. December is crowded with cheerful Christmas movies, and a horror film that turns the family dinner into a fight for survival stands out immediately. Shudder knows its audience, and a trailer that leads with a murderous grandma is a promise that the film will not pull its punches.
For horror fans, the other reason to be excited is the director. Festival-winning short filmmakers often bring a fresh eye to features, and Gabriele’s Fantasia win suggests he understands genre audiences. If Unholy Night delivers on the trailer’s promise, it could become one of those Shudder originals that horror fans recommend to each other every December. Fans of recent horror trailers will also want to check out our Karoshi trailer breakdown at https://filmyyfly.com/2026/11/06/karoshi-trailer-out-now/ for another chilling first look. The exclusive first look at the film was covered in detail by Bloody Disgusting at https://bloody-disgusting.com/exclusives/3975126/unholy-night-exclusive-trailer-dead-family-members-steal-christmas-in-shudders-holiday-horror-movie/ and you can watch the official trailer on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_uly3CPQa0
Watch the Unholy Night trailer
The official trailer is streaming now on Shudder’s YouTube channel, and it is well worth two minutes of your time. Watch it below, then mark December 4 on your calendar. Christmas Eve will never look the same again.
Image Credit: Shudder — Official Trailer via YouTube
Unholy Night FAQs
When is Unholy Night streaming?
Unholy Night streams only on Shudder from December 4, 2026. No theatrical release has been announced.
Where can I watch the Unholy Night trailer?
The official Unholy Night trailer is out now on Shudder’s YouTube channel. Bloody Disgusting premiered the exclusive trailer on 9 November 2026.
Who directed Unholy Night?
Michael Gabriele directed Unholy Night. It is his feature directorial debut, following his short film Get Away, which won the Gold Audience Award for Best International Short at Fantasia in 2023.
Who stars in Unholy Night?
Marc Bendavid (Dark Matter) stars as Gino, and Shailene Garnett (Fire Country) stars as his ex. The film centres on Gino’s family Christmas Eve, which is invaded by his long-dead grandmother.
Is Unholy Night a Shudder original?
Yes. Unholy Night is a Shudder original horror movie, streaming only on Shudder from December 4, 2026.
