Writer/director Michael Dougherty rose up through the Hollywood ranks authoring the scripts for multiple major blockbusters. He co-wrote the screenplay to “X2: X-Men United” and “Superman Returns” (both of which were directed by the now-disgraced Bryan Singer), and proved his horror chops with “Urban Legends: Bloody Mary,” a straight-to-video threequel to the oh-yeah-I-remember-that slasher franchise from the late 1990s. Dougherty’s directorial debut, the horror anthology “Trick ‘r Treat,” saw a slow release in 2007, but became a Halloween standard almost immediately thereafter. The man knows how to terrify audiences. His most recent film was the big-budget monster movie “Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” the third film in the U.S. MonsterVerse series.
Dougherty’s best film, however, came in 2015 when he made “Krampus,” a Christmas horror film that’s just as much a holiday standard as “Trick ‘r Treat,” only for Christmas. It features one of the coolest, scariest monsters of any film of the last decade, and positively recalls some of the many “killer toy” movies to hit video stores in the late 1980s (think films like “Dolls” and “Puppet Master”). Although only rated PG-13, it’s legitimately terrifying. An R-rated cut of “Krampus” is also available on home media.
As of this writing, streaming viewership aggregator FlixPatrol is reporting that “Krampus” is doing gangbusters business on Max, implying that certain families are watching it together for the holidays (along with not-so-festive offerings like the Gerard Butler-led crime-thriller “Den of Thieves”). It’s an excellent choice.
The film follows an unhappy family (led by Toni Collette and Adam Scott’s characters) whose young son, Max (Emjay Anthony), is just reaching the age when the magic is exiting the Christmas season. He wishes for times to be warmer and kinder, like he remembers from his early childhood, and he writes his desires in a note. When the note is discovered by a crass a-hole cousin and read aloud, Max tears it up in anger and sadness. The torn letter seems to summon the Krampus, a monstrous, Minotaur-like anti-Santa. According to German folklore, the Krampus arrives to punish naughty children by stuffing them in his sack and taking them away to a realm that only monsters know.
Krampus is an amazing holiday horror flick
The bulk of “Krampus” features characters trekking out into their snowy neighborhood to find something is amiss. When the Krampus is summoned, the entire neighborhood’s population seems to vanish, as all the houses become dark and empty. Scott and David Koechner’s characters try to be heroic, but also admit they don’t know what’s happening. The Krampus itself is a massive beast with elongated goat horns, horse legs, a Santa mask, and a prehensile tongue. It can leap from rooftop to rooftop, thudding its hooves against the shingles with terrifying booms. Eventually, other monsters and living toys invade the protagonists’ house, swallowing people alive or attacking them with knives and teeth. (The jack-in-the-box alone will give you nightmares.) The silliest part of “Krampus” involves killer gingerbread men.
“Krampus” is also about how the loss of Christmas magic can feel the same as a household dissolving. The angry, busy members of the family at the center of the film don’t seem to like each other very much, and Scott and Collette’s characters have a brief moment where they acknowledge that they, too, miss sharing romantic warmth. The Krampus is a cool monster, but the film is also undergirded by a note of melancholy. It doesn’t end well for anyone.
Because the Krampus is in the public domain, there have been many, many cheap, schlocky straight-to-video horror movies to feature the monster. There was “A Christmas Horror Story,” “Krampus: The Christmas Monster,” “Krampus: The Devil Returns,” “Krampus: The Reckoning,” “Krampus Origins,” “Krampus Unleashed,” and two films in the “Mother Krampus” franchise. The monster most recently turned up in the expensive Christmas actioner “Red One.” It no longer has any mystery.
Of that lot, though, Dougherty’s 2015 film is likely the best one, given its star power and its slick production values. It’s certainly worth a look, on top of being a great way to scare your family after a rich holiday meal. Just keep your fingers crossed that Dougherty eventually makes that “Krampus” sequel he keeps mentioning every now and then.