Recently I watched Michael Dougherty’s film Krampus, which came out just before Christmas last year and I absolutely loved it. I was very excited for the film as I had seen Dougherty’s previous film Trick R Treat and It was brilliant. So my expectations were very high and it didn’t disappoint.

If you didn’t know Trick R Treat and Krampus are set during Halloween and Christmas respectively and they focus on the traditions of the holidays and the folklore legends surrounding them Sam (Samhain) and Krampus.

Sam’s full name is Samhain, which is the origins of the Halloween that we celebrate today and Sam is the modern embodiment of the Halloween Holiday. Krampus is from Austrian-German origin and is the opposite of Santa. He punishes children who don’t behave and takes them to the Underworld.

Without spoiling anything from the films, its’ very clear to me that Sam and Krampus are enforcers of the rules. They punish those who don’t follow the traditions/rules of the holiday. Their punishments entail tormenting and killing the rulebreakers. I have to admit Sam is a much more playful and somewhat innocent entity compared to Krampus. I personally don’t seem them as evil entities, they’re just there to make sure people follow the traditions.

The designs of Sam and Krampus in the films are brilliant and look suitably menacing, I love the design of Sam especially. They don’t feature in their films to much, which I think is a good thing as the mystery surrounding these characters wouldn’t be as interesting.

They are great comedy horror films which are well acted, shot and full of great tense and funny moments. It’s very hard for me to say which is the better film as they are both fantastic films. Though I would argue that Krampus has better characters than Trick R Treat because it’s not an Anthology film like Trick so has a lot more time to focus on the characters. I also love the nods to other classic Christmas films in Krampus as well.

After watching Trick R Treat I had to get the NECA Cult Classics Sam figure in my collection, he was well worth hunting for and is a great representation of the character.

What I really love is that both films champion practical effects over CGI which makes the films even better in my opinion and makes the creatures feel a lot more realistic than if they were just CGI. These films aren’t too gory either but do have their fair share of scares and surprises though.

I absolutely adore both films because they capture the sense and feeling of their holidays just right and I love comedy horror films so they are perfect films in my opinion. You can clearly see a lot of care and attention went into each film. I remember waiting so feverishly for any news about Krampus which They are downright holiday classics in my humble opinion.

If you haven’t seen either film I highly recommend doing so, you could either do a double feature with them together. They’ll certainly getting yearly viewings from me around the holidays that’s for sure and I’m highly excited for Trick R Treat 2 which Dougherty is currently directing.