Welcome to day 2 of Killer Christmas, which may or may not stick as the title of a series of posts about Christmas horror, but here we are. Where are we exactly?

We are in Hell.

Hell.

Or at least I am, because I spent 130 minutes watching Nightmare on 34th Street (2023) and the best thing I can say about this movie is that it’s over.

Nightmare on 34th Street is your basic “deranged failed children’s entertainer who comes from a long line of deranged Norwegian ventriloquist/children’s entertainers who are beholden to a demonic snowman puppet” anthology film.

This post doesn’t contain any spoilers, but it probably should.

The frame story involves the aforementioned Henry, who wears a Santa suit and invades homes in his small British village to tell children stories. This is ostensibly the framing narrative for an anthology that has at least one and possibly two additional frame stories outside or maybe within Henry’s frame story and how the fuck do you mess up a structure as basic as an anthology of short films around a theme as broad as Christmas with the tried and true framing narrative format of an adult telling kids 4 stories related to Christmas?

Look, I have a pretty strict rule about not shitting on indie or low budget movies for a cheap laugh. Movies that are intentionally craptacular like SyFy Originals? Sure, let’s snark! We’re all in on the joke! Hollywood mega-flops? Those babies are always fair game. But low-budget indies? I try really hard to approach them with charity and kindness because whoa baby, someone finished a feature film and put it out into the cruel world to distract us from our lives for an hour or two!

And I can take a lot. I went to film school. I taught sound for film. I’ve juried film festivals. I understand that film is a collaborative medium with a nearly infinite number of opportunities to spiral utterly out of control. I’ve seen films so bad they defy description. I’ve worked on films so bad they defy description.

I saw Cats. In the theater. More than once. On purpose.

I watched the Star Wars Holiday Special yesterday. Twice. On purpose.

And yet, Nightmare on 34th Street nearly broke me. It is with genuine sadness that I report that I found this film not terrible enough to be compelling, not boring enough to sleep through, and without the sincere ineptitude that can make a turkey enjoyably rewatchable. If you ever wondered how to make a slasher that’s violent and enthusiastically thematic but with an emotional palette that runs the gamut from saliva to beige, this is the movie for you!

But not for anyone else.

I cannot emphasize strongly enough that I do not recommend this movie.

About 20 minutes into this flick I went outside to get the mail and had such a long conversation with my neighbor’s dog that my neighbor actually handed me the leash, went home, put their laundry in the dryer, and then came back to reclaim their dog.

At this point I thought I just wasn’t focused enough, so I got a cup of coffee and ran the movie back to the point I went walkabout.

20 minutes later I was laying on my living room floor reciting Clark Griswold’s “Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where’s the Tylenol?” monologue from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Out loud. To myself. Just to break up the monotony.

Somewhere around the ninety minute mark I realized I was wandering around my house carrying a houseplant like it was a fussy baby. I can’t explain when I picked up the plant or why I thought it was going to ease my agony, but I’d vowed to see this thing through and apparently carrying around a ficus made sense?

The audio crapped out just as the clock neared the end of the 2nd hour. It was a Christmas Miracle!

I’m fairly certain I did some astral projecting during the final 15 minutes. And then I wandered off to get more coffee and forgot the movie was even running.

I probably would have just deleted my notes but then I searched and saw this title on some lists of new VOD holiday horror with nary a warning that Writer-Director-Producer James Crow shit the bed with this one. Crow actually seems to have potential, but sweet cheezits, if you’re going to pick a recent Holiday Horror flick to spend your precious time on, save this one for when you have a cold because maybe some Nyquil* will quiet the part of your brain that demands a semblance of logic.

Horror anthologies aren’t rare, and they often have a (single) frame in which an adult tells a series of stories to a child. I have a round-up post for next week about some Christmas horror titles, so I won’t get into the weeds here, other than to say that anthologies offer an opportunity to experiment with different techniques or styles or tones, or to string together shorter narratives that might not work on their own or have enough narrative heft to warrant being a standalone feature. But that sort of experimentation is generally understood to take place from story to story and differentiate them from one another. The way elements such as animated sequences, flashbacks, and hallucinations (maybe?) are used throughout this movie across the different stories is confounding. This is unfortunate not only because it makes it harder to keep track of where we are inside the frame(s), but because the animation had verve and comedic-horror timing that was so promising.

But, alas.

In the category of “words I never thought I’d write,” this movie could have used some expository dialogue early on because what, and I can’t emphasize this enough, the fuck?

I’m not saying that Crow should try to salvage this stinker, but honestly, the audio is probably fixable and some judicious editing could address the structural flaws and tedious killer-ventriloquist-daddy issues and reduce what feels like a truly punishing run-time in relation to the material. That said, the stereotypical depictions of mental illness and the peculiar fixation with facial disfigurement would require pretty vigorous intervention.

The movie opens with a family being slaughtered by a trio of escaped serial killers, then jumps 5 years to the same killers returning to slaughter the new owners of the house. The killers all have facial injuries and scars, a trope with a long damaging history. Throughout the film, the killers inflict grievous injuries to their victims’ faces. If Crow was attempting to attach some sort of significance to this or it was explained in Henry’s muddy backstory, I missed it. If you know what’s up with this, do me a favor: don’t send me those notes.**

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I spent most of November recovering from the Halloween season by watching Christmas Horror, as one does. I wrote a series and I planned to post the entries chronologically starting with Curse of the Cat People (1944) to subvert the conventional wisdom this is a newly emerging sub-genre.

But then I realized today’s Krampusnacht so I bumped Krampus (2015) to the front of the line.

Unfortunately, this was one of the posts I hadn’t finished writing and I’m in outer space because I just had some emergency dental work. On the other hand, what’s more old-school than blogging about something you haven’t finished started researching while you’re fucked up under the influence?

Yeah. So. Here’s the trailer. If you’re concerned about spoilers, you can take comfort in the knowledge that this film has an ambiguous ending, so you can still enjoy the running and the screaming and the homicidal gingerbread people even if you’re staunchly spoiler-free.

I don’t think there are any major spoilers in this post, but if you’re that concerned go watch the movie and then come back.

The folkloric figure of Krampus, a goaty fellow who takes naughty children to Hell, is presumed to be of Eastern and Central Europe. Krampus lore has an unsurprising amount of regional variation and there’s a great deal of debate about his pre-Christian roots and his relationship with Saint Nicholas and/or Santa Claus.

Germans were among the settlers in Jamestown in 1608 and millions of Germans immigrated to the U.S. through the 19th Century. Krampus-lore has certainly circulated outside commercial culture. Prior to the start of World War I, there were more than 800 German language newspapers and journals being published in the U.S. and if I was more motivated I’d dive into some databases to see what scholarship has been done with these sources in regard to Krampus. (Info via The Library of Congress).

I’d love to hear from folklorists who’ve looked at Krampus in early America. Belsnickle, a Krampus-adjacent figure, for instance, appears to have been transported (folklorically, not in a big crate) to Pennsylvania Dutch country and has a long history in the Mid-Atlantic and Mid-West United States.

As it turns out – googling yields a number of upcoming talks on this topic! On December 11th Viktor Wynd & The Last Tuesday Society is presenting a talk by Krampus historian Al Ridenour via Zoom, for instance. They ask for a small donation if you’re able, but talks are available as recordings after the event for registrants who can’t attend or who find themselves without power due to supernatural incursion.

Krampusnacht has been gaining ground in the U.S. over the last few decades, with a plethora of figurines, greeting cards, costumes, and props available on Etsy and at Big Box retailers. Local parades and festivals such as Krampusnacht DC are increasingly common, although Krampusnacht DC 2023 was cancelled but the website lists some related events around town.

Or, just stay home and watch Krampus, a 2015 Universal Studios/Legendary Pictures holiday confection that took a bit of beating from critics channeling their own inner Krampus when it was released but the film’s dark humor, quirky charm, and practical effects will likely keep your own family occupied for 98 minutes.

Krampus checks a lot of the boxes in the Christmas movie tropes checklist, including:

The opening scenes of corpulent, blue collar Americans behaving badly under an ironic music cue – in this case Bing Crosby crooning “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

The stressed out upper-middle class family – Tom (Adam Scott) and Sarah (Toni Collette) and their kids dreading the arrival of their crude conservative economically precarious family for the holidays.

The crude conservative family – Sarah’s sister Linda (Allison Tolman) and husband Howard (David Koechner) and their 4 children.

A gentle, seemingly irrational and superstitious elder – Tom’s mother Omi (Krista Stadler).

A disastrous family dinner.

The ubiquitous advent calendar marking the story time.

The unexpected arrival of a large drooling chaotic dog.

The arrival of the unexpected but expectedly hyper-critical Aunt.

Flannel plaid aplenty.

Unexpectedly harsh weather.

Awkward sleeping arrangements.

A demonic jack-in-the box clown-snake monster with a mouth full of nightmare teeth that swallows a tween whole and slithers through the vents at breakneck speed.Okay, maybe that last one is too specific. How about:

The arrival of a dangerous/sinister being or beings who either teach the family valuable lessons about togetherness, die bloody, or go on a rampage to punish this family for their hubris and lack of appreciation for traditional family values and/or Christianity.

As far as Christmas movies go, Krampus is pleasantly diverting.

The cast of seasoned character actors have the chemistry to sell us on the logic and naturalness of both their irreconcilable differences and their sadomasochistic impulse for an annual Christmas gathering.

The practical effects are a hideous delight, while the gore is relatively restrained.

A scene in which Tom’s (Adam Scott) mother, Omi (Krista Stadler), recounts her childhood encounter with Krampus decades ago in Bavaria is an eerie incursion of German Expressionist art within the film. While this fabulous animated interlude may sound out of place, over the course of the film Michael Dougherty and cinematographer Jules O’Loughlin use inky shadows and candlelight to transform the expansive beige-tastic suburban home. Taking advantage of the high-ceilinged angularity they create a claustrophobic and unsettling atmosphere once the blizzard encases the isolated and embattled family in a shroud of darkness as the power fails. Nosferatu would be right at home in this HOA.

My criticism is primarily with how ham-fisted the depictions of the class divisions and gender stereotypes are early in the film, but I must admit that to me it feels more and more like an artifact of that precarious pre-Trump period in 2015 and less like a Hollywood shooting fish in a barrel with every passing year.

I know I should name the actors who play the kids, but they’re right there on IMDB and honestly my anesthetic is wearing off and my jaw is starting to hurt so let’s stick a pin in that and I’ll do better with the rest of the posts in the series.

That said, I want to conclude with acknowledgment of Conchata Ferrell’s critically under-appreciated performance. She sinks her teeth into the role of Aunt Dorothy, turning on a dime from insufferable to genuinely wounded, revealing herself to be a lonely woman whose barbs may be part of the defensive armor she’s developed (along with consumption of copious amounts of peppermint schnapps) to deal with Sarah and Tom’s classism. I’m not saying she’s an especially well-developed character, but she’s a nice addition to the cast.