ABCs of Horror 3: "K" Is for Krampus (2015)

Paste’s ABCs of Horror 3 is a 26-day project that highlights some of our favorite horror films from each letter of the alphabet. The only criteria: The films chosen can’t have been used in our previous Century of Terror, a 100-day project to choose the best horror film of every year from 1920-2019, nor previous ABCs of Horror entries. With many heavy hitters out of the way, which movies will we choose?

“Holiday horror” can be seen as a horror subgenre in and of itself, with entries far predating the likes of 1980’s Friday the 13th. The latter slasher icon, however, helped to crystalize the previously vague idea of taking a familiar American holiday and then bringing out the dark underbelly, whether that’s via satire of popular culture or simply, you know … sticking a killer in there and releasing it around that date. Director Mike Doughtery’s Krampus, though, is decidedly the former, a pitch black takedown of the artificiality and manufactured cheer of the Christmas holiday season, and the way our societal preoccupation with saccharinely artificial traditions and performative “togetherness” works against actual connection or holiday magnanimousness. It’s just about the film you would expect from the writer-director of 2007’s Trick ‘r Treat, which we’ve previously called the ultimate Halloween night movie.

Granted, Krampus arguably has a harder time claiming a totally unique space on the podium of anti-Christmas horror flicks, because “the holiday is commercial and depressing” is hardly some novel observation–Charlie Brown had no problem stating the same in 1965. Nor does this film have the novel, buoying structure of Trick ‘r Treat’s unusual anthology format, with all its tales happening simultaneously and weaving in and out of each other. Krampus, for better or worse, is a significantly more conventional horror flick, but one that benefits substantially from a very strong ensemble cast, some impressive practical effects, and an aggressive disposition that can actually be rather shockingly bleak at times. It doesn’t pull its punches, or safeguard the innocent. Most of them are actually the first to go! Sometimes it’s nice to watch a horror film that doesn’t strain to come up with ways to protect the most vulnerable, and instead just messily offers them up on the sacrificial altar instead.

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Krampus revolves around the titular creature/holiday icon of alpine lore, a figure who is said to accompany Saint Nicholas as his antithetical reflection. Where the kindly saint presents waiting children with small gifts during the holiday season, his dark rearguard instead punishes them, with folklore warning that Krampus would do everything from beating kids with switches or chains to stuffing them in a bottomless sack, to be dragged off to god only knows where. The figure’s origins are shrouded in mystery, but its function is obvious enough: Be good, or you’ll get a visit from Krampus instead of St. Nick. That’s a macabre sentiment that must have appealed to Dougherty as well, considering his seeming fascination with the upholding of holiday traditions, and the punishment of those who fail to meet the demands of our collective folklore. In Trick ‘r Treat, Sam is his avenging angel, the personification of a holiday who upholds its ancient laws. And here in Krampus, the title character is happy to oblige in the same, though he’s also brought an army of minions along with him.

Those “helpers” of Krampus constitute one of the film’s real highlights, showing off a hideous collection of practical effects monsters unlike anything seen in another wide-release horror film in the U.S. during this era. The man-sized jack in the box is a particularly terrifying creation, at one point swallowing a kid whole like an anaconda might distend itself while taking on a crocodile. The swarm of CGI gingerbread men, sadly, aren’t quite as effective–you can feel a certain, tactile distance between such CGI creations and the rest of the cast, which isn’t present when they’re physically tussling with its more impressive FX. Thankfully, the CGI work never becomes omnipresent.

It has often been observed that this FX work on Krampus, not to mention its obvious Christmas setting, calls to mind the anarchic glee of the titular creatures running amok in Joe Dante’s Gremlins. It’s an obvious comparison, but an apt one–like Dante, Dougherty has a decidedly cynical bent on his portrayal of suburban American consumerism and family dynamics. With that said, nothing here quite reaches the height of miniature sophistication seen in Gremlins during sequences like the bar takeover, or the movie theater full of the squabbling little punks. Krampus isn’t quite that ambitious, but it also gets more mileage out of its character relationships, particularly in the way that a life-or-death situation slowly builds a genuine bond of respect between brothers-in-law Tom (Adam Scott) and Howard (David Koechner), men who hail from different socioeconomic and political castes. It’s the closest thing in the notably pessimistic Krampus to a shred of hope.

In the end, Krampus builds to a brutal conclusion in which its writer-director seems to have written himself into a bit of a corner, but its abruptness is salvaged by Dougherty’s instinct to go for the darkest and most misanthropic of payoffs. Suffice to say, we may have learned a lesson about Christmas, but tidings of comfort and joy remain well out of reach. It’s a coal black sentiment that has helped Krampus to age gracefully among fans of holiday horror.

Jim Vorel is Paste’s Movies editor and resident genre geek. You can follow him on Twitter for more film writing.

ABCs of Horror 3: “K” Is for Krampus (2015)