It's the modern holiday seasons: an upper middle-class family is reluctantly having their obnoxious redneck in-laws over for Christmas. Hijinks ensue, resulting in the youngest son taking back his Christmas wish for his family to better themselves. Suddenly, an intense blizzard knocks out the neighborhood's power and prevents road travel. Very quickly, the family begins to realize that a supernatural force is tampering with their lives: the Krampus, the ancient German demon who comes to punish those who do not embrace the Christmas spirit.
I've found the legend of the Krampus fascinating for a while now. The irony of this dark and morbid story being told to children around the happiest season of the year was intriguing to me. So when I heard Michael Dougherty (director of the Halloween horror film Trick r Treat) was doing a film about a family who encounters this creature, I was hyped. Initially the trailers were very dumb, but I was confident it would be a fun little movie. And it was. Slightly disappointing, considering how great Dougherty's first effort was, but still enjoyable.
The humor of the film blends with the horror surprisingly well, and Adam Scott, Toni Collette, Allison Tolman, David Koechner, and Conchata Ferrell were great comic relief in the film, and while initially seeming very unlikable, slowly start to grow on you as the survival portion of the film sets in. Krista Stadler, Emjay Anthony, and Stefania LaVie Owen were good supporting characters, playing the grandmother and two kids, respectively. Some reviewers complained the family was unlikable for the most part, but I found myself sympathizing them more and more as the film went on, and I believe that was Dougherty's intention. However, characters often make dumb, horror movie mistakes, but the tongue-in-cheek nature of the film makes this more understandable.
Krampus himself takes a backseat most of this movie, which was slightly disappointing, but also built suspense to his eventual arrival. His design was pretty great in this movie, paying homage to traditional portrayals, while trying its' own thing. The special effects of the monsters in this film were fantastic, mostly practical effects, though at times the effect of the Jack-in-the-Box creature looked like a Power Rangers monster suit, and one key scene of a character falling was laughable looking and almost ruins the climax. There is, however, a short clay-mation/CG sequence that looks amazing and shows Dougherty hasn't forgotten his background in animation.
The story at times had holes (how much of the town Krampus' snowstorm has enveloped is unclear), and the ending (as Chris Stuckmann pointed out in his review) felt a little too similar to the ending of Jeepers Creepers. The jump scares felt a little cheap, and I know from watching Trick r Treat that Dougherty can do better, and overall you can tell he wasn't having as much fun with the Christmas horror concept as with the Halloween one. In fact, the PG-13 rating seems to drag down this project with its' obviously censored dialogue ("Get away from my kids, you fudger!") and lack of blood. I'm all for "what you see is less scary that what you don't", but with a big, dumb, in-your-face monster movie like this, some gore would be a good payoff but I never got that. Trick r Treat was rated R, and therefore went all-out with the gore and was better for it.
The film felt longer than it was, but that's a good thing. It felt like a solid length for this type of movie. Krampus is an entertaining movie, albeit a slight let-down. Best case scenario: it encourages more viewers to check out Dougherty's Trick r Treat, which, unlike this film, was given a criminally limited theatrical run and then went straight to video and on demand for vague reasons, despite having a good budget and cast. Worst case scenario: it disappoints people and discourages them from watching ore of Dougherty's horror films, which would be a shame, as Dougherty is a talented filmmaker who should branch out and do more work outside of just writing. Give this one a watch, and then go out and buy Trick r Treat for next Halloween (or just watch it now, it doesn't matter). 7/10 stars.
(Images: Wikipedia, comingsoon.net)
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