Howdy there, Scream Freaks! With enough sleep and shaman medicine, we’ve defeated the uncommon cold since you last heard from us and are ready to kick off the Krampus season! No, not Christmas – Krampus! That’s right, Michael Dougherty’s Krampus comes out this weekend, and that’s got us more pumped than any Star Wars movie! We remember the first time we heard of the Christmas boogeyman when he made his unforgettable appearance on Adult Swim’s Venture Bros. Christmas Special that had us asking, “What the fuck is that thing?” We’ve done plenty of reading up on this mythical creature since then, and quickly became fans of the original Bad Santa.
For those who don’t know (or can’t use Wikipedia), the Krampus is a creature from German folklore that basically shadows Santa Clause Christmas night, punishing the naughty children while St. Nick rewards the good kids with presents. The punishment Krampus dishes out varies from culture to culture. Sometimes he’s swatting children with birch branches or leaving coal in their stockings, and other times he’s actually snatching kids from their homes to drown, eat, or whisk to hell. Quite the Grimm fairy tale isn’t he?
Somehow the legend of the Krampus was suppressed over the decades (maybe centuries?), and has only recently been making a comeback the last few years, finally blowing up pop culture this Christmas! There’s Krampus Christmas cards, sweaters, t-shirts, dolls, parades, statues, comics, TV appearances, and big budget movies! Yes, Krampus had a handful of humble low-budget breaks into film the last few years, but mainstream movie companies have finally seen the writing on the wall and realized Krampus was movie monster gold and now everyone’s clamoring for him! Even Kevin Smith announced he’ll be starting production on his own Krampus anthology film for next year.
Now, before the movie industry blows up with Krampus fever, the list of his cinematic exploits is still fairly small and easily obtainable for horror fans wanting to collect them. There’s been Night of the Krampus from 2013 which we haven’t seen ourselves yet, and Krampus – The Christmas Devil from 2014 that was, holy shit, a movie bomb that may as well be coal in your stocking. The best thing about that movie was the cover which is really a promise waiting to blow-up in your face as soon as you push play. Then of course, you have the 3 newest entries this year, Krampus The Reckoning, A Christmas Horror Story, and Krampus. We’re not in a hurry to see Reckoning because of the cover but did see A Christmas Horror Story. This anthology was good but not the greatest horror movie in our opinion. We felt the stories lacked a lot of POW! for their endings, not all the creatures were exactly Christmas related, and the Krampus was underplayed and a little too superhero in appearance for our tastes. His segment was more or less an uneventful cat and mouse chase with him pursuing a family of jerks, but the filmmakers did introduce an interesting explanation for how Krampus is summoned which we liked. We’d give it like 3.5/5, and think it makes a great addition to any horror fan’s holiday fright collection.
Krampus is what we’re really looking forward to. From what we’ve seen in the trailers, this should be everything we could ask for; scares, effects, laughs, and (fingers crossed) story. Krampus, don’t fail us now! We’ll definetly be sharing our thoughts on the movie after the weekend. And if you haven’t heard already, there’s also a companion comic that was released in conjunction with the Krampus movie that I’d also recommend picking up.
Enough rambling already! Be sure to catch up on Screaming Soup! Seasons 1-2 before the premier of Season 3 1/20/16, and help us get the word out about the web’s #1 animated horror host show! Please use our social buttons in the upper right corner of the site and follow our tweets, subscribe to our Youtube channel, like our Facebook, watch and share all our vids, and keep that fan mail coming.
I’ll see ya later, Scream Freaks!
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