PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Every time I cover the Fantasia International Film Festival, I know I’m going to find some hidden gems, instant classics, and all-around amazing genre programming, and 2026, which is Fantasia’s 30th year, has come through in spades
One film that really stood out to be this year is Michael Gabriele’s Unholy Night because if you know anything about me and read my stuff, you know that I love Christmas horror. Like really love it.
Gino’s traditional family Christmas Eve turns into a bloody battle for survival when his long-dead grandma drops by and goes on a murderous rampage. Amid the chaos, Gino reunites with his ex, and the dysfunctional duo must avoid his dead Italian relatives popping up all around the neighborhood as they search for a way to get rid of these Yuletide revenants and survive his family Christmas.
To celebrate the film’s world premiere at the festival, I chatted with writer (cowritten with Jef Brunham)/director Michael about using his real family as inspiration, family holiday gatherings, horror movies, and more!
PopHorror: I love Unholy Night. Christmas horror is my jam, so I was super excited about this one.
Michael Gabriele: Thank you, Tiffany, thank you.
PopHorror: You’ve said that holiday gatherings can naturally feel like survival horror. Was there a specific Christmas dinner or a particular moment of the holiday chaos where you thought, if someone got possessed right now it wouldn’t feel out of place? And how did you transition that real life family anxiety into the concept of a murderous, undead grandmother?
Michael Gabriele: It’s interesting. There was never one specific one that felt more intense than the others, but I found it always very interesting. Family, Christmas, it’s all about getting together, a lot of times these family members that you haven’t seen or talked to in over a year and then there’s this one night where you’re all supposed to get along and be fine, and then ultimately there’s hiccups and moments that don’t feel right. To me, it’s this interesting duality of everything on the surface looks fine, we’re happy and we’re cheersing and stuff like that but there’s this hidden darkness underneath the surface that nobody really talks about. That’s where the idea for the dead grandmother came back for me, what happens if that would happen? What would it take for all of these hidden things that nobody talks about and the fact that people are talking behind everybody’s back, what would it take for that to come up in the air for everybody to be on the same page? It would have to take a crazy supernatural element, right? That was generally the idea or the inspiration behind that is this duality of this moment where the family comes together but people are still not cool with each other, but we all pretend we are. It’s weird.
PopHorror: Speaking of family, when writing the script, how did you balance drawing from real life family traits without making your real relatives upset? Was anyone worried about who inspired the monster?
Michael Gabriele: I would say that each character slivers of people, even I can see part of myself in Gino as well as I can see part of myself in Franky and part of myself in Angela too. In the writing process, the idea was to use my real life experience to build these characters, but when they’re made they are their own thing and then understanding how they think, how they act, the decisions that they make, then it’s almost like putting them in experiments to see how they would act. If I understand the character enough, the character that I’ve created, then I can take that, extrapolate that, and understand how they can evolve and manage their arcs throughout the film. I would say there’s only one character that feels very close to one family member that I have and that’s the Giuseppe (Ron Lea) character, the dad, and he’s very much modeled after my grandfather who’s 99 and is like the coolest guy ever.
PopHorror: Wow!
Michael Gabriele: He just has this really great vibe about him and he’s very loving. He’d talk to anybody, and there’s that confidence, but he could still give you a hard time on the way you’re doing things, but he’s not too bad because he’s kind of loving about it. There’s something charming about him. Really, that was the only one inspired by one person, I would say, and that’s relatively positive. The other people are all sort of a mishmash of people that I’ve seen both in my family and others I’ve experienced in my life.
PopHorror: See, if it were me, I’d be like, “Yeah, that monster’s based on you.”
Michael Gabriele: Yeah, I didn’t want to go that far.
PopHorror: You brought together a really stellar cast. How did you work with the actors to establish a believable sense of longstanding dysfunctional history?
Michael Gabriele: I’m so grateful for the cast. I feel like all of them were so positive on set and really came together as a family. It was something beautiful to see. I never did any big chemistry readings with the entire family until they were all cast and so seeing them come together was something really special because you just felt it. They each understood their characters and the dynamic between them. What I did on set was make sure I spent enough time with each actor and then them together talking about the dynamics, especially when we were rehearsing some of the bigger scenes that were multiple people, sort of understanding the motivations. But the actors are smart. They got it; they understood. For me, it was just basically building the groundwork and understanding, giving them a little bit of backstory that we don’t really touch on in the film but so that they understand this happens and this is why you feel this way about this character and whatnot. Then from that, whenever I was busy or couldn’t be talking to them, they worked together to build those specifics that felt real and I think they did a great job.
PopHorror: I really enjoyed the beginning scenes where they’re cooking in the kitchen together, the disagreement over cubed melon versus slices and the frozen butter and putting it in the microwave. I feel like even the strongest families have disagreements when cooking in the kitchen and I really loved that dynamic and their back and forth and how real it felt. It really felt like the holidays.
Michael Gabriele: Thank you for saying that. The butter thing is actually based on a real thing that happened. Several years ago, I basically took a camera… I live in Los Angeles, and my grandparents are in Montreal, and we would go and visit for Christmas. I thought, I’m a filmmaker, I should just film them doing their thing, and what was supposed to be like, oh watch them cooking, this is how they make the dishes. It’s a very specific meal we have for Christmas Eve and it was supposed to be something that was just almost like a documentary just showing everything, and it ended up being a comedy because everybody was just yelling. No one even felt me as the camera and it was just this hilarious comedy. I showed it to them and they’re like, “Were we really talking like that to each other?” They didn’t even notice! That’s what actually happened one year, preparing this special scampi dish that they do and they needed the butter, but they forgot to unfreeze the butter because it was in the freezer and it was a big thing. They’re like, “Can you put it in the microwave?” “No, we can’t put it in the microwave!” It was like the end of the world, it really was. I was like, I have to incorporate that somehow because it’s like sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. It just seems so ridiculous. Glad that you caught that!
PopHorror: I love that. The frozen butter thing is new to me. I would put it in the microwave but then knowing myself, I would put it in there for too long and it would all melt. Later in the movie, I saw the butter is still in the microwave!
Michael Gabriele: I know, right? That poor butter.
PopHorror: I really liked this film because it had a lot of really funny aspects. Beneath the blood and humor, Unholy Night touches on the burden of family traditions and overcoming regret. What do you hope horror fans walk away with emotionally after watching your film?
Michael Gabriele: There are a few themes. One of the themes is really about trying to be yourself and understanding yourself amidst strong voices in your life, whether it be family, friends, and that’s a part of Gino’s journey. The other one is understanding regrets. The big theme is regret and not understanding how to handle that. There’s no specific answer other than sometimes things are what they are and there’s really nothing you can do to change it, and you cannot live with regret too long or else it will pull you under. Another theme for me is family. It’s sometimes a grey area. Family is not always a hundred percent good or a hundred percent bad, there’s always a grey area in between. The grandma says this line that translates to, “Blood is thicker than water.” At the end of the day, you’re still family and there’s something beautiful in that because family’s still, amidst their differences, can still stick together and love each other very fiercely.
PopHorror: I have just one last question for you. What is your favorite scary movie?
Michael Gabriele: Oh my gosh, my favorite scary movie… It changes a lot, but my favorite scary character now is Barbarian. I loved Barbarian. I felt like they did such a phenomenal job with that film. It’s like a North Star for me.
Thank you so much to Michael for taking the time to chat with us! Unholy Night had its world premiere at Fantasia 2026 and is currently playing the festival circuit.
