Plot: Tom (Scott), Sarah (Collette), and their kids Max (Emjay Anthony) and Beth (Stefania LaVie Owen) are having a rough time with family visiting for Christmas (Koechner, Tolman, their kids, and Ferrell). Max accidentally summons the evil Santa Claus, known as the Krampus, who is determined to make the family suffer for their lack of holiday spirit.
Thoughts:
I saw Michael Dougherty's first movie Trick r' Treat about a year ago for the first time and was pleased by the way he mixed horror and comedy. The attempt with Krampus is to do the same thing with Christmas.
The look of this movie is fantastic. Dougherty has so much fun playing with Christmas iconography. Nearly every shot is rich with Christmas details, be it candy canes falling into hell pits or ornaments littering the floor as hooved creatures stalk family members. The creatures working for the Krampus are fun plays on classic Christmas Characters: elves, gingerbread men, teddy bears, etc. The Krampus himself is interestingly scary, only slowly being revealed throughout the movie. I imagine Dougherty must've kept a notebook of all the creepy ideas he had for this that he worked on including like a checklist.
I love the cast too. They were all chosen for the different flavors of comedic chops. Adam Scott is one of the best straight men working. Koechner has that outsized personality. Tollman and Collette are both great at milking comedy out of serious circumstances. Farrell is big and broad in every way. The kids aren't needed for much more than being scared (they're the redshirts of this). Once the family dynamics are established, it's fun just seeing how they all react in different circumstances.
There's a big difference between Krampus and Trick r' Treat which turned out to be an important one. Trick r' Treat is an anthology, and that structure allowed Dougherty to get out of any story before the audience could get tired of it. His attention to detail makes the interweaving of stories a lot of fun, but nothing overstays its welcome. As a single story, Krampus doesn't have that freedom. It definitely drags in the first half and takes far to long to get crazy. Once it does get crazy though, it's a blast. My theater broke into applause more than once for some of the big character moments. The other big issue with moving away from the anthology structure is that the larger narrative is a little thin. I don't really understand what the Krampus is, where he comes from, or what makes him come and go. There's nothing special about this family or circumstance other than that this happens to be the family the movie is following. This lack of world building makes for a weak ending that also undoes a little too much of what happens before it.
Elephant in the Room: Is it a Christmas movie or a horror movie that happens to be set on Christmas? Yes, the Die Hard debate. Just because something is set on Christmas doesn't mean it's a Christmas movie. I'm of the opinion that Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. It doesn't have Christmas themes. It doesn't really matter that it's on Christmas. Hell, it was a summer movie (Released 7/15/88).Krampus is absolutely a Christmas movie though that, depending on your taste in movies, could work its way into your holiday rotation without feeling out of place. The Krampus only comes because families aren't in the Christmas spirit after all.
To Sum Things Up:
Krampus is a very uneven movie, with definite pacing issues. A solid cast keeps it watchable in the lesser moments, and once the story gets going, the craziness keeps it fun. It's not for everyone, but for those it is, it's who seeing.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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