Season 4, Episode 5 – The Uncle “Stric” (Croatia)

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It’s the final episode of our 2026 Creepsmas adventure, and the Festive Fans are stopping off in Croatia, a country that seems almost too beautiful to be frightening. For our grand finale, we’re going to watch The Uncle, a psychological mind game that takes the most wonderful time of the year and gives it a distinctly disturbing twist.

What better way to close out a month devoted to the dark side of the festive season than with a film that turns Christmas into something unnerving? Our favorite holiday is at the heart of The Uncle, but with an atmosphere of unease that plays with our expectations and sense of reality. There is a nagging suspicion here that something is terribly wrong, even when it all looks perfectly normal. The decorations are familiar, the dinner seems ordinary, and the setting evokes a traditional family Christmas. However, sometimes the scariest stories don’t need a serial killer; sometimes, you just invite the monster over to dinner.

The Uncle allows us to discover how Christmas, with all its inflated expectations of happiness and togetherness, can also provide the perfect backdrop for horror. It is a haunting tale that comes without a security blanket. This is no Hallmark holiday romance, there is no magical Santa Claus appearance, and it is certainly not a guaranteed happy ending.

As we bring our October episodes to an end, The Uncle feels like the appropriate final destination. We have spent the month considering the relationship between Christmas and horror, and this Croatian psychological thriller reminds us that the two have more in common than we might think.

Plus, Croatia makes such a compelling destination for our October journey.  It is a place of stunning coastlines, medieval towns, and Christmas markets that look straight out of a postcard.  And yet, while it may sound like the setting for a holiday fairy tale, beneath its beauty is a long, dark tradition of vampires, witches, and night demons.  We can celebrate both its Adriatic sunshine and sinister forests and shadows, and recognize that beauty and horror can share the same landscape. In Croatia, we’re learning that Christmas can be more than merry, it can be disturbing.  It doesn’t always have to be merry to be memorable. Sometimes, it just has to be creepy.

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