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Five Terrifying Holiday Monsters to Give Krampus a Run for His Money

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Let’s face it, parents will do just about anything to get their children to behave, but few, especially this time of year, are as effective as the threat of no gifts from Santa. However, there have been cultures that took that threat one step further by creating holiday monsters that stalk the night ready to whip, kidnap, and devour naughty children.

Everyone’s heard of Krampus thanks to his resurgence in popularity following the film that was released just a few years ago, but the list below contains holiday monsters far worse than the old Christmas devil.

#1 JÓLAKÖTTURINN

The Icelandic Yule cat, Jólakötturinn, is said to stalk the snowy countryside of the small island nation seeking out those who have not received new clothes as a gift by Christmas Eve night. The only way to receive new clothes was by finishing all of one’s chores!

How’s that for passive aggressive?

Get your work done, or the Yule cat will eat you! That’s right, Jólakötturinn won’t just scare you; he fully intends to eat the lazy kids who don’t obey their parents and do their chores.

#2 Hans Trapp

Leave it to the French to come up with a nightmarish scarecrow!

Legend says that Hans Trapp was a greedy, rich Devil-worshipper who was banished to the forests upon his excommunication from the Catholic Church. He disguised himself as a scarecrow and set about terrifying the local children.

He captured a young boy and was just about to eat him when he was struck by lightning and killed, but that didn’t stop Hans for long.

As Christmas approaches each year, Hans Trapp appears as a Scarecrow and stalks certain regions of France in order to frighten children into good behavior!

#3 Gryla

Gryla is an evil ogress said to live in the mountains of Iceland. She had three different husbands and bore 72 children in all.

Gryla’s legends are far older than modern celebrations of Christmas, and in fact, she only became associated with the holiday sometime in the 17th century. Before that time, she was more commonly associated with Yule, the celebration of the Winter Solstice and the longest night of the year.

Gryla, who by the way is the mistress of the Yule cat Jólakötturinn, has a bad habit of boiling and eating disobedient children, and her name definitely gets thrown around during the holidays to keep Icelandic children in line.

#4 Pere Fouettard

This guy’s name translates to “Father Whipper”. Need we say more?

Another French legend, Pere Fouettard was a butcher who developed a taste for the flesh of children. (What is it with all this cannibalism?!) He once captured three boys, and butchered and salted their flesh to preserve them for later.

When St. Nicholas discovered what he had done, he burst into Fouettard’s shop, resurrected the boys, and took the cannibal as his prisoner.

From that time on, Pere Fouettard worked for St. Nicholas punishing bad children.

Frau Perchta

Frau Perchta is the legendary witch of Germany and Austria who hands out both presents and punishment during the 12 Days of Christmas.

It’s her particular method of punishment that bought her place on this list, however. Upon finding a sinful, disobedient child, she’ll rip out their insides and fill them with garbage!

Gross, right?

You definitely do not want to be on Frau Perchta’s naughty list!

Have you heard of these fascinating holiday monsters before? Have one you think should be on the list? Tell us your stories in the comments below!

Header image is taken from Historycollection.com  

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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