Five-Legged Iguana

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I've Seen in the Past Year

[9 of 13]

KRAMPUS

(November 2015)

"Twisted fairy tale horsesh!t!"

I've talked about this ‘round these parts before, that it’s always a good thing to have go-to holiday movies.
And while there are certain go-to Christmas titles (like Go or Tokyo Godfathers), there aren’t as many go-to Christmas horror titles, except, say, Gremlins, and--but this is a stretch, as far as the horror part is concerned--The Nightmare Before Christmas.

So, thank sweet baby Jeebus for Michael Dougherty’s Krampus!

Right from the slo-mo Mucho Mart opening sequence (orchestrated to Bing Crosby’s “It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas”), Krampus is a holiday horror delight, as Max (Emjay Anthony) inadvertently calls down the “shadow of Saint Nicholas,” the titular Krampus, who comes “… not to reward, but to punish.”

After giving us the ¡Qué horror! 2010 title, Trick ‘r Treat--which is, as indicated by its title, all about Halloween horror--Dougherty takes very nearly the same general approach, but this time, tipping his horror hat to Christmas, and focusing on a single story.

And while titles like Sheitan and À l'intérieur (Inside) and Calvaire all sport Christmas-set horrors, they’re also definitely not my idea of “fun” holiday horror viewing.

Krampus is.*

And really, how can you resist a movie that has a dog named Thor playing one named Rosie?

“Yeah, but Ben Kuklinski is always ragging on Christmas. He even told the first graders that Santa was just a cheap marketing ploy invented to sell Pepsi.”

“Coke.”

“You know what I mean.”

“But not why you care.”

“Well, someone’s gotta…”

* Having labeled it “‘fun’ holiday horror viewing,” I feel though that I should point out that this one still gets pretty dark in a number of strategic places…

(Krampus OS courtesy of impawards.com.)