The Devil of Christmas 2016

The episode opens with a video-tape clock slate announcing a film titled The Devil of Christmas, plunging us into a December 1977 story set in an Austrian Alpine chalet. Julian, Steve Pemberton and his pregnant wife Kathy, Jessica Raine, along with Julian’s mother Celia, Rula Lenska, and Julian’s young son Toby, George Bedford, are ushered inside by Klaus, Reece Shearsmith. The group chatters about their plans as a strangely unsettling painting of the Krampus watches from the wall, its eyes following Toby and hinting at something darker ahead.

In a chilling meta twist, the film’s director, Dennis Fulcher, Derek Jacobi, speaks to an unseen partner in the mode of an audio commentary. The footage is rewound so Dennis can flag a continuity error, and his running commentary continues to braid itself into the story, remarking on the performers’ missteps—Celia missing her marks and fluffing her lines, and Julian blurring his dialogue in his eagerness to finish a scene and move on to another job. The asides blur the line between movie and reality, turning the chalet into a stage on which the film’s own制作 choices become part of the tension.

Klaus recounts the Krampus tale in a way that unsettles Kathy, casting a shadow over the holiday narrative. Before bed, Toby dutifully leaves his boots for the Krampus, while Kathy empties a bottle of tablets, a quiet sign of strain in the household. The next morning, Toby’s boots are found stuffed with switches, a sign (in Klaus’s telling) that the Krampus has visited a naughty child. Celia distrusts Kathy, noting that she is not Toby’s mother, but Julian brushes her off, insisting the adults know best. Dinner brings Toby’s cheerful claim of a wonderful day with Klaus, and as Toby heads to bed, Kathy worries that Toby may have been sleepwalking the night before, a worry Julian and Celia dismiss.

That night, Toby and Celia drift out of bed, and the eerie figure of the Krampus looms again in the dim light. The following day brings fresh scratches on Toby’s body, and Celia decides to leave with the child. Later, Julian discovers scratches on Kathy’s back, and the pair uncover that her boots are stuffed with switches. A subsequent search reveals Kathy downstairs, and Celia calls to confirm she and Toby are safely home. The Krampus then appears to snatch Kathy, while Julian collapses, clutching his heart and reaching for his medication. Kathy holds up his empty pill bottle for him to see, a cruel cue to his impending death.

The shocking revelation arrives: the Krampus is not a supernatural entity at all but Klaus in costume, who then discards a fake moustache and drops his accent to reveal himself as Simon, Kathy’s lover. Fulcher frames this disclosure as a hinge in the story, a pivot from folklore to human treachery.

With a final scene promised, the actors prepare. Kathy lies on a bed while Champagne is poured, and Simon—still half in costume—joins her and binds her to the bed. Simon claims to be Krampus, and the scene ends with Kathy’s scream as the Krampus-style figure cackles. The actor playing Krampus leaves the set, while Kathy, believing filming is over, remains unaware that the cameras still roll. Two stagehands lay plastic sheeting beneath Kathy for a sequence not written in the script. Another actor dresses as the Krampus, and Kathy is roughly gagged by a stagehand as the new Krampus advances with a machete. Dennis explains that Kathy understands what is about to happen and that the audience is witnessing genuine fear. Kathy screams as the tape cuts, just as the machete would fall. Dennis notes with a mix of awe and unease that this footage has surfaced again, calling it one of the better ones, and he confirms that The Devil of Christmas was, unbeknownst to the main cast, a snuff film. The interrogation ends abruptly when the interviewer, Cavan Clerkin, terminates the police inquiry, leaving the chilling truth to linger in the air.