Universal Pictures has released a new featurette for Krampus, the Christmas horror flick from Trick ‘r Treat director Michael Dougherty.

The new video briefly dives into the folklore behind Krampus, a demon-like creature who kidnaps the kids too naughty to be visited by Santa. The video also covers the way the figure is celebrated in other countries—young men will often dress up as the terrifying creature and frighten the local children on the eve of Saint Nicholas Day, though some of the costumes are no doubt scary enough to make even adults want to flee, arms flailing about—as well as some appearances in pop culture.

You can check out the new Krampus featurette below.

I’ve been unabashedly gushing over about how great I think Michael Dougherty‘s upcoming Krampus is going to be ever since Legendary announced that the film was in the works. The director won me over completely with his Halloween horror anthology, Trick ‘r Treat, so I’m excited to see what he does with the Krampus myth.

Now, Dougherty is getting us ready for the film with a prequel graphic novel he wrote, Krampus: Shadow of Saint Nicholas, out on November 24, 2015 from Legendary Comics.

Check out the cover for the comic, along with two interior pages, here below.

A Christmas Horror Story
Blu-ray | DVD | Instant Video
DIRECTORS: Grant Harvey, Steven Hoban, Brett Sullivan
WRITERS: James Kee, Sarah Larsen, Doug Taylor, Pascal Trottier
STARRING: William Shatner, George Buza, Rob Archer, Grant Harvey, Steven Hoban, Brett Sullivan
RLJ Entertainment | Image Entertainment
Release date: November 24, 2015

As soon as I saw the cover art for the home video release of A Christmas Horror Story, which features Santa Claus battling Krampus in a design that looks like the people behind Game Of Thrones could have created it, I knew I was going to love this movie. As it turns out, I totally did.

I’m just getting that out of the way right up front.

A Christmas Horror Story is a Christmas horror film that includes the kind of old-school frights we’re used to viewing in October, along with the whimsy we’re used to getting during the yuletide. Imagine if Home Alone was just a tad less endearing and much less slapstick, but ten times more bloody. It looks beautiful for a low budget production, especially one of the horror genre, and has a vibe similar to Trick ‘r Treat, another anthology film I love.

Yesterday we saw the first official images from the upcoming Christmas horror flick Krampus, which is made by Trick ‘r Treat director Michael Dougherty, who also co-wrote the script with Zach Shields and Todd Casey. If those images got you super excited to watch a trailer, well, you did not have to wait very long to see it.

Today Universal has unleashed the first official trailer for Krampus, and it looks like it has the potential to be a whole lot of fun. And the best part of the trailer is? All of the wonderful Weta-made practical effects being shown off. Much love to Dougherty and his crew for choosing this path and Legendary Pictures for not trying to force more CGI effects. Digital effects will still be used in the movie—it’s hard to avoid using them completely these days—but using the two forms of effects hand-in-hand is the way to go and it looks the results are worth being excited for.

You can check out the first official trailer for Krampus below.

The first images from Krampus, the Christmas themed horror movie from the writer and director of the great Halloween anthology classic Trick ‘r Treat, Michael Dougherty, have been released online for all to enjoy.

The movie is based on old folklore, which is much more well-known in European culture and tells of misbehaving children being punished by a horned demon-like creature known as Krampus as opposed to Santa just dropping some coal in their stocking like we in the States are used to. It follows a young boy in a dysfunctional family who decides to turn his back on Christmas, leading to the arrival of the ancient being.

You can read more about the movie and check out the first official images from the movie below.