D.M. Guay on her Christmas horror comedy ‘Hell for the Holidays’—“We horror geeks. We love Christmas horror so hard.”

December 18, 2023 Chris Well

“If you’re writing horror set at the holidays, you have to nail the season’s vibe or it will fall flat.”

The author of the horror comedy series 24/7 Demon Mart explains what inspired her Christmas horror story, the challenges of writing a story that involves horror AND comedy AND Christmas, and recommends her own favorite Christmas horror comedy books.

In D.M. Guay’s seasonal follow-up to her Demon Mart series, Hell for the Holidays, a truckload of newly minted ghosts mix with the snowstorm of the century. When the neighborhood snowmen turn into blood-thirsty fiends, they crash a party packed with unpleasant relatives, back-stabbing socialites, one inconsolable cockroach, three bad-ass demon fighters, and too much alcohol. This picture-perfect holiday is going straight to hell.

Supernatural fiction author D.M. Guay (AKA Denise Marie) writes the 24/7 Demon Mart series to put the fun back in fantasy and the comedy back in horror. We touched base with her about the series’ Christmas book! More info about Hell for the Holidays below…

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Q: What inspired you to add a Christmas story to the 24/7 Demon Mart series?

Um. I couldn’t not write one? Every horror series absolutely has to have a Christmas special! DUH!

We horror geeks. We love Christmas horror so hard. Christmas stories with monsters just warm our black glitter hearts! Maybe because Christmas and winter holidays are all about being bundled up inside, where it’s warm and cozy. It’s about warm feelings, and love, and too many cookies, and joy. This time of year is cheer overload.

But at the same time, it’s dark and cold outside, and for all of human history—until recently—winter has been a season of “oh holy crap. We all might die from disease or starvation before spring! AAAAH!”

So maybe horror fans recognize the deeper human experience behind the cheerful veneer of the modern holiday.

Or, maybe it’s something about being forced to hang out with coworkers and in-laws and relatives to make merry—even if you don’t get along, even if you don’t feel like it, even if you don’t like each other. That alone is an endless source of horror and comedy. When you mix that together and throw in monsters, it’s instant magic! So, of course I had to do a Christmas story.

Q: What were the challenges of writing a story for these characters that involves horror AND comedy AND Christmas?

If you’re writing horror set at the holidays, you have to nail the season’s vibe or it will fall flat. At Christmas, it’s the music, the cheer, the colorful lights, the peppermint candy canes and hot chocolate. The gritting your teeth around people that rub you the wrong way. You know what I mean.

All those feelings and tastes and smells and emotions that scream Christmas. You have to nail that first. Because the monster has to come along and threaten all of it, or make it worse. The monster has to come along and be the darkness and the cold and the danger—the opposite of the vibe—if it’s going to work. IMHO.

As for the Demon Mart gang, I was excited about the Christmas story. It was a chance to take them out of the store so we could see the relationships they have developed. I mean, you don’t clock in, fight monsters, clock out, and not talk to those people ever again. You don’t go through that together, and not become friends or found family. That isn’t real life! I don’t know about you, but every bad job I ever had—especially bad service industry jobs—created a strong, lasting bond between me and my coworkers. Bad jobs are bonding. Dangerous jobs are bonding. That’s how you get through the day.

So what better way to show the bond than at Lloyd’s house, on Christmas Eve, during a big party? The tension and expectations of the holiday are on full display. Everyone is looking to Lloyd’s family to show them a good time. The neighbors. The social club. The (colorful. Ahem.) extended family. While Lloyd’s poor mom plasters on a smile and declares they all must have fun, under pain of death!

This is the last place Lloyd wants a talking cockroach (and his demon roommate, whose arm makes an appearance), a guardian angel, and a two-story tall hell centipede who makes winter even colder and snowier. Throw in a hard drinking, horny grandma and a snooty, self absorbed socialite, and some monsters, and it was an opportunity that was too good to pass up!

Honestly, Hell for the Holidays was the easiest 24/7 Demon Mart for me to write. It took three weeks from idea to finished book. I’m a slow writer, so that was a small miracle. Maybe it helped that I waited until it actually was December to write it? It was very easy to capture the holiday vibe, when I was immersed in it 24/7. And I don’t know. Something about the characters in Demon Mart, and how different they are as people, but how connected they are, it was easy to imagine how they would interact at Christmas. I’m happy I did it. It’s one of my favorite books.

Q: Are there any particular left-of-center Christmas stories that you’ve read or watched that you’d say, “If you like these, you’ll enjoy my book. Too!”

There is so much good Christmas horror comedy, in movies and in books! I’m burning through a stack of them right now. I don’t know if they’re exactly like my stuff, but there are a few that have stood above the rest, and I love to share!

Secret Santa by Andrew Shaffer is about the new hire at a publishing company who gets a cursed object in the secret Santa gift exchange. Things don’t go well, as you can imagine.

Frost Bite by Angela Sylvaine is an absolute delight! It’s about a meteor full of alien worms that crash lands in a trailer park, then turns the prairie dogs into monsters, right before Christmas! I mean, you had me at monster prairie dogs, right?

But my all-time favorite Christmas monster story is Shapeshifters Anonymous by J.A. Konrath. It’s about a guy who thinks he’s a werewolf, so he finds a support group for shapeshifters. His first meeting is on Christmas Eve, and let’s just say he finds out that Santa isn’t the jolly guy everyone thinks he is! This is the Christmas novella I wish I would have written. For real. It has also been adapted into the Creepshow Christmas Special on Shudder, and it’s a really good adaptation, although, I wish they would have kept the “were-clam” in the story. LOL.

Hell for the Holidays: A 24/7 Demon Mart Christmas Special
(24/7 Demon Mart Stories #1)
D.M. Guay
Categories: Horror Comedy, Satire, Humor

Buy Hell for the Holidays from Amazon

Guay explained to Monster Complex how she writes in such a unique style. “I love horror. I love supernatural monsters. I love stories about normal people interacting with big, supernatural things, and I really love campy low budget B movies. My goal is to successfully mishmash all of that into book form, and then hope like hell it will make readers laugh. If people laugh, I have succeeded.”

This Christmas story is a companion to 24/7 Demon Mart, a humorous, dark fantasy, horror-comedy book series for fans of Christopher Moore (The Stupidest Angel), Terry Pratchett (Hogfather), Mark Cain (Circles in Hell series), and Heide Goody & Iain Grant (Candy Canes and Buckets of Blood and “Last Christmas,” an Oddjobs short story).

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