On this special holiday episode of After Hours AM/America’s Most Haunted with co-hosts Joel Sturgis and Eric Olsen, we talk Krampus with famed novelist Richard Kadrey, an aficionado of dark Christmas traditions of every stripe! Kadrey, who lives in San Francisco, is the author of dozens of stories, plus ten novels, including the Sandman Slim series (Kill the Dead, Aloha from Hell, Devil Said Bang, Kill City Blues, The Getaway God, Killing Pretty), Metrophage, Dead Set, and Butcher Bird. He has written and spoken about art, culture and technology for Wired, The San Francisco Chronicle, Discovery Online, The Site, SXSW and Wired For Sex on the G4 cable network.
It seems you can’t swing a dead cat these days without smacking into Krampus, the dark shadow to the bright light of St. Nicholas at Christmastide. The ancient Alpine demon-thing comes equipped with horns, fangs, claws, unruly fur, hooves, long creepy tongue; and wields chains, whips, switches, and bells. And while the punisher of naughty kids has been terrorizing Germanic Europe for centuries, even millennia, he is now suddenly running rampant across the US in a brand new feature film, on TV (Grimm, Supernatural, Colbert Report, American Dad), in comics and novels, and at various gatherings, balls, and runs.
The zeitgeist senses that something is missing, that Christmas is out of balance, that actions no longer have consequences. Hence the resurgence of Krampus in his ancestral territory of Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Slovenia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, but also in the US. And when Americans grab onto a trend, it knows it has been grabbed.
READ MORE “WEIRD CHRISTMAS”:
Talking Weird Christmas Customs with Gerry Bowler on After Hours AM/America’s Most Haunted Radio
Werewolves of Yule
Mari Lwyd – The Party Animal Horse Skull of Wales
Krampus – The Rise of the Anti-Claus
The Yule Log
The Macabre Adventures of St. Nicholas
Santa Claus and the Magic Mushroom
Midnight Syndicate on After Hours AM/America’s Most Haunted Radio
Midnight Syndicate Brings Spooky Sensibility to CHRISTMAS: A GHOSTLY GATHERING
SCROOGED Should Be On Your Christmas Horror List
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