Forget Black Christmas, this kid’s TV movie is the creepiest festive flick ever

Black Christmas is frequently cited as the creepiest festive film of all-time. But there’s a children’s movie from the UK that’s agruably more terrifying than the horror classic, and quite a bit weirder.

Christmas is usually a time for family fare, with parents and children gathering around their television sets to watch the likes of Miracle on 34th Street, Home Alone, and Elf.

But those whose tastes skew darker might watch a horror movie, with 1974 slasher Black Christmas – with its hysterical killer making foul-mouthed calls to a sorority full of sisters before systematically murdering them – roundly considered the creepiest.

But one festive flick – which aired on British TV more than 40 years ago, and was aimed squarely at children – might be even creepier. Let us take you on a very peculiar journey…

This kid’s TV movie is the scariest festive flick

‘A Cup o’ Tea and a Slice o’ Cake’ is a Worzel Gummidge TV movie that screened on ITV on December 27, 1980, and remains pure nightmare fuel to this day.

Created by Barbara Euphan Todd in the 1930s, Worzel Gummidge is a scarecrow who comes to life and embarks on a series of curious adventures. The character first appeared in 1936 novel Worzel Gummidge: The Scarecrow of Scatterbrook. Then reappeared in several more stories, the last being 1963’s Detective Worzel Gummidge.

The books were adapted into numerous radio serials, as well as a 1953 BBC TV show. But the most famous incarnation of the character was in a series that ran on ITV from 1979 to 1981, and starred former Doctor Who John Pertwee as the title character.

Worzel would wear interchangeable heads – called turnip, swede, and mangelwurzel – that terrified a generation of children as he screwed them off and then screwed them on again. But that’s nothing compared to the movie…

What happens in Worzel Gummidge: A Cup o’ Tea and a Slice o’ Cake?

Worzel Gummidge movie ‘A Cup o’ Tea and a Slice o’ Cake’ begins with rooks attacking the scarecrow on Christmas Eve, and the robin that lives in his stomach causing trouble. Which is a disturbing way to kick proceedings off.

Worzel decides he wants to spend Christmas Day singing carols and opening presents with humans, but his boss – the sinister Crowman – is having none of it, and ties Worzel up in a field, telling Gummidge he must stay there all day and all night or miss the Scarecrow Ball.

Local kids untie him, and head to Worzel’s barn, which is filled with severed heads. Gummidge gets the children to remove his current cranium, and replace it with a truly bizarre ‘Party-Going Head.’

Rich people in a stately home then try to shoot Worzel. While Barbara Windsor cameos as a character somewhat inappropriately called ‘Saucy Nancy.’

The love of Worzel’s life Aunt Sally then appears and tells him that his “cast-off clothes pong” and that she has no interest in “someone who works for a farmer,” stating: “I could never marry a thing that scares crows.”

Shades of The Wicker Man

Worzel then meets a Scottish scarecrow called Bogle McNeep, who is played in terrifyingly and weirdly intense fashion by comic legend Billy Connolly.

Bogle sings about why he hates Christmas, and threatens to beat Worzel up. Their interaction ends with a duel during which both scarecrows are decapitated, their heads ending up on top of the wrong bodies.

The movie then ends with the terrifying Crowman singing a freaky folk song about apples, corn, berries, and hazelnuts, which is the kind of tune that wouldn’t be out of place in The Wicker Man.

Worzel Gummidge: A Cup o’ Tea and a Slice o’ Cake really has to be seen to be believed, and to my mind, it is the creepiest Christmas movie ever.

For some nicer – and less disturbing – festive flicks, check out our list of the Top 25 Christmas movies.