The holiday season is filled with a lot of joyous times with family, as well as an endless deluge of forced, faked cheer. The last thing anyone wants to see on TV this time of year is a contrived brand of sentimentality that oozes smarmy overacting, which is where many holiday specials fall. Luckily, they're not all cheesy, and many sci-fi episodes that creep and crawl around your half-wrapped gifts are anything but saccharine. Think zombies attending a Dickens reading in Victorian finery, a homicidal Santa Claus, and snowmen that have a craving for human flesh.

If you’d rather go to another planet than another party or deck the halls with horror instead of holly, marathon these nine not-too-Hallmark holiday specials and use it as the best excuse ever to not drag yourself to another gift exchange involving ugly sweaters.