Krampus director says he has an idea for a sequel to the holiday horror

Krampus movie
(Image credit: Universal Pictures)

Krampus director Michael Dougherty says he has an idea for a sequel, despite a follow-up to the Christmas horror never having been greenlit.

In a new interview with Collider, the filmmaker got to chatting about Trick 'r Treat 2, the next installment in his Halloween-set anthology-style flick, before dropping the bombshell that he's been cooking up more Krampus tales, too.

"It doesn't necessarily center around a family as much as it might be about a group of strangers who are trapped somewhere," he told the publication, which is certainly intriguing given the plot to his 2015 original. 

Starring Adam Scott and Toni Collette, the first film – which puts a nightmarish twist on the titular Austro-Bavarian folklore figure – centers on Max (Emjay Anthony), who inadvertently unleashes a murderous beast when his festive spirit gets snuffed out by his family's constant arguing. Over the course of the movie, Max and his believer grandmother (Krista Stadler) fight to bring the fractured Engels together again, and send the horned demon back to Hell.

Maybe one day, Dougherty will be able to bring his Krampus 2 to fruition, but for now, he and his frequent collaborators Zach Shields and Todd Casey are perfecting their Trick 'r Treat 2 screenplay.

"I will say this, because we said it last year at the Beyond Fest screening, the sequel is in active development with Legendary," Dougherty teased in the same sit-down. "I'll go so far as to say that we have several drafts of a script. I brought back the same storyboard artist I mentioned before, Simeon Wilkins, so we have a stack of storyboards and a good fat stack of concept art done by Breehn Burns as well. So it's inching along." We're already looking forward to reuniting with sack-wearing Sam again...

For more, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming horror movies heading our way throughout the rest of 2023 and beyond.

Amy West

I am an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering all things TV and film across our Total Film and SFX sections. Elsewhere, my words have been published by the likes of Digital Spy, SciFiNow, PinkNews, FANDOM, Radio Times, and Total Film magazine.