Krampus
Imdb synopsis: A boy who has a bad Christmas ends up accidentally summoning a Christmas demon to his family home.
*Gideon commentary is in red.
*Sam commentary is in black.
*Gideon commentary is in red.
*Sam commentary is in black.
The rundown: The film begins with a brawl at a Christmas pageant. We don't learn until later on the the young boy involved in this fight is Max, a kid who is lucky enough to have Adam Scott for a father. I love Adam Scott. Adam Scott portrays Tom. Tom is married to Sarah, and Sarah is having her sister's family over for Christmas. Her oldest child, Beth, complains that this family shouldn't be allowed to breed, much less visit for the holidays. Meanwhile, Max prepares his letter to Santa and awaits the arrival of his cousins, who we soon learn are truly horrible.
The cousins could exist anywhere in the current sub-working-class milleu. They stockpile ammo, deck their numerous children in camoflage, and mutter conspiracies about the coming World Government. They're the sort of cousins that everyone has, no matter the state or region. There's a lot of friction between Sarah, the bourgeois housewife, and her lumpenproletariat sister Linda. Linda married lower-class goofball Howard while Sarah waited for her milquetoast European beau. Their mutual Aunt Dorothy, also invites herself to darken the festivities with her drunken foulness. Peace on Earth and goodwill to all men, eh? In the midst of this hurricane of resentment, Omi sits as the eye. She's Tom's German mother, a quiet woman who mutters creepy things in German to Max. After a sad dinner of mutual hatred, Max's latent belief in Santa (here, an extension of the belief that his family can love on another again) is extinguished. He destroys his Christmas letter while a terrible blizzard rolls over the town.
The family wakes up the next morning with no power and a whole lot of snow everywhere. There's a creepy snowman in the yard. Max is quick to point it out even though everyone pats him on the back and says, "Yeah, that's a snowman, buddy." Eldest child Beth decides to go looking for her boyfriend, who lives a few blocks away. The blizzard is terrible and she's wearing one or two layers of clothing. Clearly, this is the best decision. She walks through the snow for a while until it gets increasingly dark and she hears a loud clank. That clank is Krampus. Krampus is a large figure in all black. He hops roof to roof, prompting Beth to run toward her house while screaming. This will certainly deflect attention away from her.
Beth suffers a horrible, unseen fate under a delivery van. Meanwhile, everyone at the house is antsy and grouchy from lack of electricity and cabin fever. Tom and Howard climb into the cousins' military transport/mobile aresenal to look for Beth. The blizzard seems to have taken every soul in town, save for a few frozen corpses they encounter. They get to boyfriend's house, which has been ransacked. Shattered Christmas decor and mutilated cookies litter the scene. Howard and Scott find evidence of "an animal" breaking through the walls, as well as bipedal cloven prints. Outside, something in the snow grabs Howard and nearly kills him. Tom is packing heat and scares off the monster, causing the brothers-in-law to bond. Unfortunately, Beth is nowhere to be found. They retreat back to the house, noticing many more spooky snowman dotting the grounds.
All is basically the same on the home front. The family eventually decides to go to sleep but not before asking Howard to stay awake to keep guard. He predictably falls asleep, causing the fire to burn out. This is bad, because it gives Krampus an opening into the house. Krampus dangles a gingerbread cookie from the chimney, and Howard's overweight son wakes up and goes for it. Let me note that I am not at all insulting overweight people; the thing is, this kid's entire character revolves around him eating. He never speaks but he eats a lot during the film. When he bites into the gingerbread cookie, it comes to life and drags him up the chimney. The others wake up but cannot save him. In all fairness, he died the way he lived: eating.
Sam was so upset when el chico gordo met his fate. At this point, Krampus' dark forces have invaded the home. One more cousin is picked off by terrifying abominations that lurk in the attic. Krampus' minions consist of an enormous, sluglike jack-in-the-box with a taste for live children, a Chucky-eqsue angel with blades, a robot, and an evil teddy bear. The visual aesthetic of these critters is a bit Tim Burton/Nightmare before Christmas. This visual undercurrent is subtly present throughout the film. Omi even tells a stop-motion flashback story that looks an awful lot like Coraline. It's a testament to the director's visual sense that these breaks in visual style still feel organic. All of the adults run to the attic to battle the monstrosities while Max, Omi, and Aunt Dorothy guard the booze. Action ensues! Howard is accosted by demonic gingerbread men, but the family bulldog saves his bacon. Yay!
Somehow, no one dies during the great toy attack. The deaths don't start happening until the family decides to go for the snowplow, and then they don't really stop. Tom is sucked into the ground, Howard is obliterated by one of the snowman creatures, Sarah and Linda get sucked down and dear Aunt Dorothy is slaughtered off-screen at the house. Omi is killed there, too, but we don't see that part. I was happy about this because I genuinely liked Omi; she probably could have stopped Krampus by warning Max but instead lets him pick off all those gross family members. Krampus presents Max with a bell, but Max doesn't have it. He screams at Krampus, who is holding one of his cousins over a fiery hell pit. "Give me my family back, you whore!" Max yells. "I know you can revive those terrible people!" Krampus tosses Max into the hell pit too, probably because he's not used to children talking so much.
Cut to Max waking up on Christmas morning. It was all a dream! The family is peaceful and loving, just like Max wished. They open presents, laugh, and enjoy the soft-focus golden glow that permeates the scene. But all is not well. Max opens a mysterious package, finding a memento from Krampus. A cold wind stills the festivities. The camera pulls back from the living room to reveal that the house is inside a snow globe. Said snow globe is on a shelf with thousands of other snowglobes in some kind of subterranean hell-dimension. It seems that Krampus has a monkey's paw sense of humor for wish fulfillment. Merry Christmas!
The cousins could exist anywhere in the current sub-working-class milleu. They stockpile ammo, deck their numerous children in camoflage, and mutter conspiracies about the coming World Government. They're the sort of cousins that everyone has, no matter the state or region. There's a lot of friction between Sarah, the bourgeois housewife, and her lumpenproletariat sister Linda. Linda married lower-class goofball Howard while Sarah waited for her milquetoast European beau. Their mutual Aunt Dorothy, also invites herself to darken the festivities with her drunken foulness. Peace on Earth and goodwill to all men, eh? In the midst of this hurricane of resentment, Omi sits as the eye. She's Tom's German mother, a quiet woman who mutters creepy things in German to Max. After a sad dinner of mutual hatred, Max's latent belief in Santa (here, an extension of the belief that his family can love on another again) is extinguished. He destroys his Christmas letter while a terrible blizzard rolls over the town.
The family wakes up the next morning with no power and a whole lot of snow everywhere. There's a creepy snowman in the yard. Max is quick to point it out even though everyone pats him on the back and says, "Yeah, that's a snowman, buddy." Eldest child Beth decides to go looking for her boyfriend, who lives a few blocks away. The blizzard is terrible and she's wearing one or two layers of clothing. Clearly, this is the best decision. She walks through the snow for a while until it gets increasingly dark and she hears a loud clank. That clank is Krampus. Krampus is a large figure in all black. He hops roof to roof, prompting Beth to run toward her house while screaming. This will certainly deflect attention away from her.
Beth suffers a horrible, unseen fate under a delivery van. Meanwhile, everyone at the house is antsy and grouchy from lack of electricity and cabin fever. Tom and Howard climb into the cousins' military transport/mobile aresenal to look for Beth. The blizzard seems to have taken every soul in town, save for a few frozen corpses they encounter. They get to boyfriend's house, which has been ransacked. Shattered Christmas decor and mutilated cookies litter the scene. Howard and Scott find evidence of "an animal" breaking through the walls, as well as bipedal cloven prints. Outside, something in the snow grabs Howard and nearly kills him. Tom is packing heat and scares off the monster, causing the brothers-in-law to bond. Unfortunately, Beth is nowhere to be found. They retreat back to the house, noticing many more spooky snowman dotting the grounds.
All is basically the same on the home front. The family eventually decides to go to sleep but not before asking Howard to stay awake to keep guard. He predictably falls asleep, causing the fire to burn out. This is bad, because it gives Krampus an opening into the house. Krampus dangles a gingerbread cookie from the chimney, and Howard's overweight son wakes up and goes for it. Let me note that I am not at all insulting overweight people; the thing is, this kid's entire character revolves around him eating. He never speaks but he eats a lot during the film. When he bites into the gingerbread cookie, it comes to life and drags him up the chimney. The others wake up but cannot save him. In all fairness, he died the way he lived: eating.
Sam was so upset when el chico gordo met his fate. At this point, Krampus' dark forces have invaded the home. One more cousin is picked off by terrifying abominations that lurk in the attic. Krampus' minions consist of an enormous, sluglike jack-in-the-box with a taste for live children, a Chucky-eqsue angel with blades, a robot, and an evil teddy bear. The visual aesthetic of these critters is a bit Tim Burton/Nightmare before Christmas. This visual undercurrent is subtly present throughout the film. Omi even tells a stop-motion flashback story that looks an awful lot like Coraline. It's a testament to the director's visual sense that these breaks in visual style still feel organic. All of the adults run to the attic to battle the monstrosities while Max, Omi, and Aunt Dorothy guard the booze. Action ensues! Howard is accosted by demonic gingerbread men, but the family bulldog saves his bacon. Yay!
Somehow, no one dies during the great toy attack. The deaths don't start happening until the family decides to go for the snowplow, and then they don't really stop. Tom is sucked into the ground, Howard is obliterated by one of the snowman creatures, Sarah and Linda get sucked down and dear Aunt Dorothy is slaughtered off-screen at the house. Omi is killed there, too, but we don't see that part. I was happy about this because I genuinely liked Omi; she probably could have stopped Krampus by warning Max but instead lets him pick off all those gross family members. Krampus presents Max with a bell, but Max doesn't have it. He screams at Krampus, who is holding one of his cousins over a fiery hell pit. "Give me my family back, you whore!" Max yells. "I know you can revive those terrible people!" Krampus tosses Max into the hell pit too, probably because he's not used to children talking so much.
Cut to Max waking up on Christmas morning. It was all a dream! The family is peaceful and loving, just like Max wished. They open presents, laugh, and enjoy the soft-focus golden glow that permeates the scene. But all is not well. Max opens a mysterious package, finding a memento from Krampus. A cold wind stills the festivities. The camera pulls back from the living room to reveal that the house is inside a snow globe. Said snow globe is on a shelf with thousands of other snowglobes in some kind of subterranean hell-dimension. It seems that Krampus has a monkey's paw sense of humor for wish fulfillment. Merry Christmas!
He said: Holiday-themed horror films are a dime a dozen. Christmas has a lot of strange imagery that lends itself to fear. Traditional European Christmas/Yule/Solstice traditions are also alien -- Krampus and/or Black Pete havn't crossed over the Atlantic yet -- which provide a neat angle to an otherwise tired subgenre of slasher films. Writer-director Michael Dougherty has some experience in writing horror and big-budget action films. The writing and character arcs are fairly bog-standard for moralistic horror/holiday films, but that kind of works in an ironic way. Few Christmas slashers try to ape Family Holiday films, but Dougherty and co. comfortably bridge the divide. It's only fair to mention that Dougherty has a different interpretation of the ending. Some people, such as the writers, contend that the ending is happy -- the snowglode is merely the portal by which Krampus will spy on the family to ensure their best behavior. I contend that Omi's warnings, which are completely correct throughout the film, note that Krampus is merciless and will only leave a single person behind, if any. Since Max volunteered to by taken "instead", Krampus still has the infant cousin and dog to "spare". Plus, ironically backfiring wishes are a huge part of ancient European pagan folklore. Death of the author, people. Death of the author.
Putting my ranting aside, I did enjoy this film a lot. I thought the pacing was great and dread-inducing. The acting ranges from serviceable to great. Adam Scott in particular is wonderful. He plays a normal Adam Scott character -- slightly dull and passive -- but makes a believable transition to action-dad. The half-comic Burtonesque tone is rather bizarre, but welcome for an otherwise tired subgenre. I love the visual mishmash style. The stop-motion pulls from Christmas horror and Rankin-Bass alike, a double allusion if you will. The spooky pagan notes in Krampus and his elves are also great. This will be an entry in my heavy rotation of Christmas films.
Putting my ranting aside, I did enjoy this film a lot. I thought the pacing was great and dread-inducing. The acting ranges from serviceable to great. Adam Scott in particular is wonderful. He plays a normal Adam Scott character -- slightly dull and passive -- but makes a believable transition to action-dad. The half-comic Burtonesque tone is rather bizarre, but welcome for an otherwise tired subgenre. I love the visual mishmash style. The stop-motion pulls from Christmas horror and Rankin-Bass alike, a double allusion if you will. The spooky pagan notes in Krampus and his elves are also great. This will be an entry in my heavy rotation of Christmas films.
Feminism: Krampus offers equal-opportunity damnation!
Shoehorned Christmas cheer: Overfilled with that high-octane European blend of surreal festivity.
Sequel potential: Nope. They're trapped in Niflheim.
Manly sighs: None.
Tim Burtony: Almost expected a Johnny Depp cameo.
Candy canes: 5
She said: I liked this movie, but that doesn't say a whole lot considering how questionable my taste can be. That said, I loved the acting and the writing. I liked the cinematography and how legitimately scary the atmosphere was. I found myself more on edge during the blizzard scenes than when the adults were being attacked by tiny terrifying toys, likely because it's much more realistic to get stranded in the snow and freeze to death than it is to be jumped by a talking gingerbread man. My friend Kelby, who saw the film with us, told me after that he thought it would be better if Krampus killed more people himself. I agree with that. I also think this movie needed a lot more blood and a lot more kids being dragged up a chimney to their death.
Still, it was awesome. We went to Waffle House after seeing it, so I associate the movie with waffles. That means I will always like it.
Still, it was awesome. We went to Waffle House after seeing it, so I associate the movie with waffles. That means I will always like it.
Sappiness: It was more of a lesson in not being a dick, so there wasn't a lot of sappiness.
Gore level: For a random Christmas film, a lot. For a Christmas horror film, there were too many off-camera kills.
Cute animals: Not enough
Loud kids that are supposed to be cute but are really annoying: Too many
Jump scares: Too many
Candy canes: 4.5
Final Score: 4.75 Candy Canes
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