This Christmas season saw a surprise present from Scream Factory who released an extended version of filmmaker Michael Dougherty‘s 2015 Christmas-horror movie Krampus. The so called “Naughty Cut” of the movie was reported to be a few minutes longer with the original announcement calling it a “previously unseen” version of the movie which “restores key dialogue and scenes that had to be trimmed from the original theatrical release to appease the MPAA.” Now having seen the new cut of the movie we can confirm what the differences and changes to the edit are, and fans expecting a radically different version might be disappointed.
For starters there’s nothing different about the movie for roughly the first 18 minutes and most of the final 15. Throughout the sections in-between these two moments are some added scenes, extended versions of ones already in the theatrical cut, and a slight-re-arranging of the order of some scenes, plus a handful of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments of additional gore and mayhem. Perhaps the news that some viewers will be disappointed to hear is that all of the extended scenes and most of the extra footage (besides the new gore shots) were previously included in the original home media release for Krampus some five years ago. The new scenes in the Naughty Cut include:
- “Checking In” – In-between Beth asking to go check on her boyfriend and leaving is an extra moment of Conchata Ferrell as Aunt Dorothy making a joke about her previous boyfriend.
- “Bump in the Night” – An extra scene where the family is waiting on Beth to come back home, it features Aunt Dorothy making a joke about what she would do if she were homeless in the current weather while Howard and Linda’s kids play a video game.
- “Emergency Warning” – A few extra seconds of Howard and Tom in the truck hearing a broadcast of towns that are effected by the weather, one of them the city Warren Valley, the town from Dougherty’s Trick ‘r Treat.
- “Are you jealous?” – One of the longest new scenes as Toni Collette’s Sarah and her sister, Allison Tolman’s Linda, have a heart-to-heart about where their two paths in life have gotten them.
- “Waiting Game” – Perhaps the biggest addition to the Naughty Cut is this scene that also connects Krampus to Dougherty’s Trick ‘r Treat (an Easter egg of Sam’s lollipop from the film can be seen in a box that is Max’s “Halloween Stash” of candy). The scene
- “Around the Fireplace” – The last big scene that is added into the cut is one where Stevie and Jordan sit by the fireplace and by Omi, setting up their ascension into the house and search for the bathroom (leading to the fight in the attic with the toys).
From there Krampus The Naughty Cut and Krampus the theatrical cut are mostly the same, featuring the same ending and roughly the same final 15 minutes. As we outlined above there are a handful of very, very short additional shots that add a bit of gore, blood, and goop back into the movie (many of them in the attic sequence). The order of one scene is also different in the Naughty Cut as Tom’s initial plan to get the snowplow arrives slightly earlier, nestled between some of the new scenes . If anything the addition of these scenes should point to how ridiculous the MPA is with violence as minor cuts had to be made from the movie.
Anyone perhaps disappointed by this news should know that the new version of the movie is definitely worth the double-dip for fans of the film. Scream Factory’s release is the first time that the movie has been released on 4K format but also features over an hour of all-new bonus content and brand new interviews with the creatives involved in the movie.