This trio of flicks delivers on body count during the Christmas and Halloween seasons, but only two out of the three earn a spot on the holiday horror page. Let’s find out why.
BLACK KRAMPUS (2025)
I was so thrilled to find a new Christmas horror to watch with the hubby on Christmas Eve. That is until we watched it.
I guess they called this British horror flick Black Krampus because the title I Know What You Did Last Christmas was already taken. The whole “we’re reuniting after doing something a year ago that we dare not speak about” plot is much more of the focus than Black Krampus actually is.
Krampus kills a couple at the beginning, complete with a beheading, so that gave me hope.
Then we meet the group of friends reuniting for Christmas. The creepy old groundskeeper who warns them about Black Krampus has a rockin’ narrator’s voice. In fact, he does the old school narration for the movie’s trailer. They so need to bring back trailer narrators.
In between the group spending most of the time talking, there are occasional flashbacks hinting that something happened a year ago, but they are the most unrevealing flashbacks ever.
There’s one low-key kill, and Black Krampus himself is just as chill. That’s because Black Krampus spends most of the time making his supernatural power do his dirty work for him by turning the friends against each other.
The kills are few and far between, the Christmas atmosphere is minimal, and we don’t get enough of the ominous presence of Black Krampus. And the ending? Whoosh. The two survivors apologize to thin air for what they did last Christmas and then just walk out of the house without ever confronting Black Krampus.
TRAUMATIKA (2024)
I’m a huge fan of Two Witches by the same director, so I’m psyched that I blind bought this one despite all the “wah wah wah, so much missed potential” shit I’ve seen floating around the internet about it. For me, this is like if all the boring trauma porn shit that hits Shudder was actually good and filled with intense scenes. It’s also only 82 minutes long, so it gets right to the horror.
Perhaps I’m a bit biased because the concept is similar to Oozy Bruisy, an abusive creature that first appeared in one of my short stories before becoming the main antagonist in my latest book Halloween Specials & Torcher Porn.
This film is about trauma (title kind of gives it away…), but it’s a literal trauma demon that passes the pattern of abuse from one person to another. Seriously, this concept is ridiculously similar to Oozy Bruisy.
There’s a bizarre opening scene that isn’t quite necessary but establishes that this demon dates back to at least 1910. Then we jump right into several edge-of-your-seat scenes of a boy and a cop (played by AJ Bowen) being chased through a dark house by a possessed girl. This is a perfect example of how to create a heart-pounding cat and mouse sequence.
The movie manages to jump timeline a bit without being overwhelming as we see how things led to the moment of the boy being terrorized by the possessed girl. In case the block of text that opens the film didn’t clue you in as a trigger warning, this is a movie about abuse, particularly sexual abuse. Interestingly, the daughter abused by her father is played by an adult woman…who happened to star in Two Witches.
There are some fantastic horror visuals as the film progresses, as well as disturbing bodily autonomy moments, and then the demon’s intentions begin to unfold. Just when everything appears to come to a head, the movie totally switches gears, and this is the part people seem to be bitching about the most.
Personally, I found it a satisfying switch-up. The movie essentially becomes a slasher for the last 20 minutes or so, and it takes place on Halloween! Not long enough to consider this a holiday horror movie, but it does add to the shift in tone and delivers seasonal atmosphere.
The theme of the infectious abuse is totally still at the forefront, it simply takes on a different form this time—a killer instead of a child abuser. Awesome and logical, since the need to hurt others as you’ve been hurt doesn’t always materialize in the exact same way. And if you’re going to morph from possession to slasher, the goal is to deliver on both subgenres, and Traumatika nails both.
THE JESTER 2 (2025)
This sequel to The Jester remains fully immersed in the Halloween night theme, and the plot also reminded me of Satan’s Little Helper. However, by having the Jester enlist a little helper, it waters down his creepy mystique. But, if you can accept that Michael Myers hired an apprentice after almost 45 years of working alone, then you shouldn’t really gripe about this turn of events in the second movie in what is apparently becoming a franchise.
We jump right into the holiday celebration with an outdoor Halloween party. In his magical fashion, the Jester climbs out of a trunk in the middle of the woods and starts right in with his terror tricks.
Then we meet our main teenage girl, an aspiring magician dressed as a magician for Halloween. She has no friends, so she is totally bummed to be going out by herself on Halloween night.
She has an encounter with the Jester, who is impressed by her magic knowledge, so after he kills off a few more people, he circles back to her and way too easily convinces her to tag along for some trick or treating. I get that she’s lonely and vulnerable, but did no one ever teach this teenager not to take candy with a stranger…?
The Jester soon makes it clear to her that he wants her to participate in using magic to mesmerize victims before murdering them. So begins her on-again/off-again relationship with him as she goes from trying to dip out of this one-night stand to joining in on his murder spree.
It’s all very odd, with the main girl’s wishy-washy feelings about the Jester killing any sense of suspense or horror. Adding to the lack of tension is the fact that the movie is focused on making the Jester an iconic quirky killer character—the same move that quickly made Freddy, Jason, Chucky, and Art the Clown into cultural caricatures rather than terrifying personas.
The kills are clever and get gorier and more fun along the way, but the movie waits until the very last second to clue us in to exactly what the Jester’s motivation is and why he will definitely be back next Halloween. The main girl’s final words tell us that his goal is four tricks for four souls every year, which is at odds with the fact that he totally killed more than four people in this installment.
