Krampus
Directed by Michael Dougherty
Written by Todd Casey, Michael Dougherty, Zach Shields
Starring Adam Scott, Toni Collette, David Koechner, Allison Tolman, Conchata Ferrell, Emjay Anthony, Stefania LaVie Owen, Krista Stadler
Legendary Pictures | Universal Pictures
Rated PG-13 | 98 minutes
Release date: December 4, 2015

Director Michael Dougherty previously took the superstitions of the Halloween season and molded them into superbly told stories for his horror anthology film Trick ‘r Treat. Now, the filmmaker takes on Alpine folklore’s anti-Santa in his Christmas horror Krampus. Though it’s a while before the horned and hoofed baddie makes his on-screen appearance in the film, when he does arrive during a massive blizzard, he brings with him an unfathomable reign of terror the likes of which young Max and his family have never seen.

It’s a few days before Christmas, and Max (Emjay Anthony) is finding it hard to spread the cheer this year. After having a physical fight during a Christmas pageant, the prepubescent boy fails at getting his family to follow their usual holiday customs. He just wants things to be the way they used to be before his dad David (Adam Scott) became a busy workaholic; his mom Sarah (Toni Collette) closed herself off and became an overachieving Martha Stewart type; and his stereotypically distant teen sister Megan (Stefania LaVie Owen) hit puberty and stopped bothering with him. Thankfully, Max can still find comfort in Omi (Austrian-born actress Krista Stadler), his homely old bun-wearing grandma who seems very adamant that her grandson finish writing his annual Letter to Santa.

Last week we saw a featurette for the upcoming holiday horror flick Krampus that dove into the folklore behind the demon-like creature who comes to take bad children away.

Another new featurette has now been released called “A Look Inside,” which includes director, writer, and producer Michael Dougherty (Trick ‘r Treat) and some of the cast members talking about the movie.

You can read much more about the movie and watch the video below.

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.

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.