Festive horror comedy Krampus cut down a host of bigger budget rivals to land in second place at the US box office this weekend with $16m in receipts, only just behind the $18.6m haul taken by enduring No 1, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2
Michael Dougherty’s $15m chiller riffs on the titular horned creature, a kind of anti-Santa Claus who in Alpine folklore arrives each Christmas to punish children who have misbehaved. The film, starring Adam Scott and Toni Collette as a suburban couple whose family are menaced by a sinister demon as punishment for losing their Christmas spirit, has drawn average to good reviews and boasts a 66 per cent “fresh” rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The Guardian’s Benjamin Lee labelled it an “admirably batty horror” in his three-star verdict.
Krampus beat some rather-more-notable rivals, including Pixar animation The Good Dinosaur – fourth with $15.5m – and Rocky spin-off Creed, which made a few thousand dollars more to steal third place. Both films were in their second week of release, though The Good Dinosaur has made more money overall – $75.9m in the US and Canada to Creed’s $65.1m.
The top five was rounded out by James Bond movie Spectre, with $5.4m in its fifth week of release for a total of $184.5m in North America.
There were no other new films in the top 10 this week, though Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq did well on limited release. The Oscar-tipped satire, about a group of gangsters’ partners who embark on a sex strike to try and end violence on the streets of the city’s South Side, scored $1.25m from just 305 cinemas to land in 13th place. Lee’s well-reviewed film did particularly well in Chicago, where it opened on 22 screens, taking in advance of $15,000 per site.
North American box office 4-6 December
1. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2: $18.6m. Total: $227.1m
2. Krampus: $16m - NEW
3. Creed: $15.54m. Total: $65.1m
4. The Good Dinosaur: $15.51m. Total: $75.9m
5. Spectre: $5.4m. Total: $184.5m
6. The Night Before: $4.9m. Total: $31.9m
7. The Peanuts Movie: $3.5m. Total: $121.4m
8. Spotlight: $2.9m. Total: $16.6m
9. Brooklyn: $2.4m. Total: $11.2m
10. Secret in Their Eyes: $1.9m. Total: $17.2m
