HAS KRAMPUS TAKEN CHRISTMAS?

'Tis the season so I've begun to watch Christmas films.

The start was the terrific Tales from the Crypt, with its iconic festive opener And All Through the House. 

I followed this last night with two more, both from the US and both modern: Red One and A Christmas Horror Story.

Red One is totally brand new; made just this year but already being streamed. My Missus says its been panned by critics but I have to admit I enjoyed it! A yuletide guilty pleasure, like Arnie's Jingle All The Way, I would probably watch it again, as I like Dwayne The Rock Johnson.

Red One is essentially a live-action play on The Night Before Christmas without the songs; a bogeyman, in this case a winter witch, taking over the North Pole HQ for her own nefarious plans. The Rock is Santa's bodyguard and chief fixer, who eventually teams up with Cap himself, Chris Evans, a good-for-nothing mercenary, who, yep, is ultimately made good by the power of the Christmas message. Krampus gets a look-in too, as is the way these days - I think he's more popular than Santa! - , with a horned manster looking a lot like Kelsey Grammer's Beast from the X-Men. Red One refers to the sleigh, like FAB1 does in Thunderbirds. If you watch it, uncouple your brains, switch on the tree lights and eat a mince pie or two.

A Christmas Horror Story from 2015 is a festive staple of mine now, added to a short but meaningful list of films I love to watch in December. Now ten years old but still relatively modern, its a sort of Amicus portmanteau for the Noughties, with enough Yuletidery stuffed in there to make your Chris tingle. There is something captivating about Bill Shatner's DJ, the film's radio stationed narrator, as he describes the growing carnage down at the Mall, whilst slowly getting merry with his huge carton of egg nog.

There are four tales told in A Christmas Horror Story; three are great, one not so.

The best is the eternal battle between Santa and Krampus, a piece containing a fabulous dukeroo between these two demi-gods scrapping for power over Christmas. 

Another tale is about a changeling from a forest and is really well made. Yet another concerns the bright new American film star of the season, Krampus, that ubiquitous Bavarian gargoyle and his supreme displeasure with a toxic family of liars and thieves on an outing to see a rich aunt, the Krampus being the same actor who plays him in the Santa segment, a sort of muscular hissing minotaur painted white and reminiscent of the similar beast in the old Unnameable films if you know what I mean. 

The tales, unlike those wonderful Amicus flicks, are all shown piece-meal, and the last for me to mention is about students investigating last year's Christmas murder in a high school basement. Personally its the least satisfying, possibly, because there are no adults in it! [maybe Henry Winkler is, I forget!]

Have you seen either of these movies?

Anyways, until tonight's festal films, that's all folks!