You don't want to be on his list.
Krampus (2015)
When his dysfunctional family clashes over the holidays, young Max is disillusioned and turns his back on Christmas. Little does he know, this lack of festive spirit has unleashed the wrath of Krampus: a demonic force of ancient evil intent on punishing non-believers.
rating 7/10 User rating 2,357 votes 62% ❄ Christmas Connection
Krampus is set entirely during the Christmas season and revolves around a family losing their holiday spirit, which summons the anti-Santa himself. The film is steeped in Alpine Christmas folklore, making it one of the most Christmas-specific horror films ever produced.
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Our Review
The Christmas movie Krampus opens with a slow-motion Black Friday brawl set to "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas." Shoppers claw at each other over discounted electronics while Bing Crosby croons. It's the kind of opening that tells you exactly what kind of film you're in for: one that loves Christmas enough to be furious at what we've done to it.
Director Michael Dougherty, who had already proved his holiday-horror chops with Trick 'r Treat (2007), turned his attention to the darkest figure in the Christmas canon. The result is a 2015 horror comedy that takes the legend of Krampus, the Christmas devil of Alpine folklore, and drops him into a suburban American living room.
A Dysfunctional Family Christmas Gone Wrong
Young Max Engel (Emjay Anthony) still believes in Santa Claus. His parents Tom (Adam Scott) and Sarah (Toni Collette) are hanging on to holiday traditions by a thread. Then Sarah's sister Linda (Allison Tolman) arrives with her husband Howard (David Koechner), their feral children, and a flask-wielding Aunt Dorothy (Conchata Ferrell). The table is set for a Christmas dinner that nobody actually wants to be at.
When Max's letter to Santa gets read aloud and mocked by his cousins, he tears it up and throws it into the wind. That act of lost faith is the summoning spell. A freak blizzard descends on the neighborhood, the power goes out, and something ancient and hooved begins stalking the family from the rooftops.
Dougherty nails the family dynamics. The passive-aggressive exchanges between Sarah and Linda feel genuinely observed, not sitcom-broad. Adam Scott plays the exhausted dad trying to hold things together with quiet desperation. Koechner, typically cast as the loud buffoon, gets surprising layers here. He's obnoxious, yes, but he's also the first one to pick up a shotgun and protect the kids.
Krampus, the Christmas Devil, Brought to Life
The film's Krampus design is extraordinary. Weta Workshop, the New Zealand effects house behind the Lord of the Rings creatures, built the practical suit. The result is a towering, goat-hooved figure draped in chains and a tattered Santa robe, with a face that looks like a porcelain mask fused to rotting flesh. He moves with unsettling patience, like something that has been doing this for centuries and sees no reason to rush.
But Krampus himself is almost secondary to his entourage. The film's most inventive creations are his helpers: carnivorous gingerbread men, a monstrous jack-in-the-box with a snake-like tongue, and twisted versions of Christmas toys that hunt the family through the snow. One sequence involving an angel ornament that comes alive is a small masterpiece of creature horror.
Dougherty also includes a stunning animated sequence where the grandmother, Omi (Krista Stadler), recounts her own childhood encounter with Krampus in the old country. The segment uses a style that evokes vintage European shadow puppetry. It's the emotional core of the film and the best scene in it.
Horror Comedy That Earns Both Halves
Christmas with Krampus could have gone wrong in a dozen ways. Horror comedies often lean too hard in one direction, becoming either too silly to be scary or too grim to be fun. Dougherty threads the needle. The attack scenes have genuine menace. The family bickering has genuine wit. And the film's final act has a bleakness that most studio horror wouldn't dare attempt.
The PG-13 rating occasionally limits the film. Some kills happen off-screen when the setup demands payoff. But the restraint also forces Dougherty to rely on atmosphere and creature design rather than gore, which gives the film a Gremlins-like quality that has aged well.
The ending deserves mention without spoilers. It is genuinely ambiguous, and it divided audiences on release. Some found it a cop-out. Others recognized it as the most unsettling thing in the entire movie. Revisit it closely. The camera's final movement tells you everything you need to know.
Why Krampus Works as a Christmas Movie
At its core, this is a film about whether Christmas spirit is something worth fighting for. Max's family is awful to each other, but they're awful in recognizable ways. The petty jealousies, the forced togetherness, the relatives you only tolerate once a year. Krampus punishes them not for being evil but for being ungrateful. That's a distinctly Christmas moral, rooted in the same Alpine tradition that gave us St. Nicholas and his shadow counterpart.
The Krampus legend originates in pre-Christian Alpine folklore. In Austria, Bavaria, and parts of Switzerland, Krampusnacht (December 5th) sees costumed figures roaming the streets to frighten children who have misbehaved. Dougherty treats this tradition with genuine respect, anchoring his monster in real mythology rather than inventing something from scratch.
Ten years after its release, Krampus has settled into a comfortable spot as the go-to horror pick for Christmas movie marathons. It grossed $61 million worldwide against a $15 million budget, proving there was an audience for Christmas horror done right. The final shot of Omi's face, knowing what she knows, staring into the firelight, is one of the best closing images in any Christmas film, period.
Fun Facts
Weta Workshop, famous for creating the creatures in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, built all of Krampus's practical creature effects, including the demonic gingerbread men and the jack-in-the-box monster.
Director Michael Dougherty collected Krampus greeting cards and folk art for years before making the film. His personal collection of vintage Krampuskarten helped inform the movie's creature designs.
The animated flashback sequence depicting Omi's childhood was created using a combination of hand-drawn animation and physical shadow puppets to evoke the look of traditional Alpine folk art.
Adam Scott took the role partly because he wanted to make a Christmas movie his kids could watch when they were older. He's described Krampus as his personal favorite among his own films.
Krampus grossed $61.5 million worldwide against a production budget of roughly $15 million, making it one of the most profitable horror films of 2015.
The snowstorm scenes were filmed on a sealed soundstage at Stone Street Studios in Wellington, New Zealand, with 30 tons of artificial snow made from recycled paper products.
Conchata Ferrell, who plays Aunt Dorothy, improvised several of her best lines, including many of her flask-related quips. Dougherty kept nearly all of them in the final cut.
Cast
