Krampus: Quick Review

A movie I missed in 2015, but will now be in my Christmas movie rotation forever.

Krampus is the 2015 Christmas horror movie based on the German legend, and aims for the same horror comedy feel as something like Stitches or The Evil Dead franchise. Let me just spoil it right now, and say that Krampus hits that nail pretty hard.

Our story follows Max, a kind hearted boy (albeit with a pretty bad temper) who is struggling to survive another Christmas with his extended family. Things get pretty tense pretty quickly, and the entire family ends up in a big fight, with Max tearing up a letter he wrote to Santa, writing off the entire holiday. This pisses off Krampus, who storms (literally) into Max’s neighborhood seeking to send everything living to the underworld and teach Max a lesson.

Krampus takes the formula of a Christmas comedy, in this case a vary obvious comparison/spoofing of Christmas Vacation, and throws in a dash of horror. It’s not as perfect a blend as the aforementioned Stitches, but it does its job well. The intro sequence, showing a typical Black Friday mob in slow motion, while Max fist-fights another kid dressed as Jesus for a manger, is the perfect introduction into the chaos that inevitably unfolds. When the extended family shows up (with David Koechner acting as the perfect alternative to Cousin Eddie), they are perfectly annoying, and you feel Max and his parent’s pain as you yourself remember all the bullshit you had to put up as family visited.

Once all that setup is out of the way, however, Krampus turns into a pretty serious thriller, before going all out in goofy-but-scary with evil teddy bears, a monster Jack In The Box, and the final reveal of Krampus himself. Hell, once the setup is over, we get a sequence where Krampus is established as an actual threat. No punches being pulled, it’s not a guy in a mask, it’s a 12 foot tall goat demon that is here to fuck shit up. And let me just add that this is the first horror movie I’ve seen in awhile where there are no cheap jump scares, or red herrings. No annoying jumps as characters suddenly enter without warning as a scary noise blares, just good set ups and executions of horror scenes.

Also, take it as you will, but the film is filled with goofy sound effects that sound like they are straight out of a Looney Tunes cartoon. No joke, a character is pulled out of the house through a window by chains, and a slide whistle sound effect plays as they’re whisked away. It’s pure silly gold.

That all being said, the film does have its flaws. The comedy doesn’t work all the time, as I mentioned, with more than a few jokes not landing at all, and coming off as awkward rather than charming or funny. There’s also a few nitpicks I have with the way certain scenes play out, most specifically the scene where the entire family is looking around the house for the 2 cousins. This scene in particular felt like it was dragging on too long, and don’t get me wrong there is a fantastic payoff for it (in fact, it’s right after this scene that we get the balls to the wall Evil Dead style nightmare monsters) but it felt like the setup was being taken too far. Lots of scenes pull this similar trick where something spooky happens, and then something exciting happens, but in between is lots of “oh my god” and “what was that” and “we better check it out” and it ends up feeling like 10 minute filler that could have been summed up in 5 or less. In addition, the CGI on the evil gingerbread men look pretty cheap. A very minor annoyance, but one that bothered me more than it should considering how good looking all of the other monsters are.

It’s not the most complex movie in existence, but it’s a brutal horror movie with tons of Christmas cheer, and one of the most entertaining horror comedies I’ve seen in awhile.

7/10