‘Krampus’ delivers campy Christmas terror
He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good, and you better pray that you’ve been good because Santa isn’t coming this year, Krampus is. And while he brought complete terror on a family who had lost the Christmas spirit, we loved every second of it.
Directed by Michael Doughtery, who gave us the Halloween masterpiece Trick ‘r Treat, delivered another campy holiday horror. While it wasn’t scary, the movie put me through every emotion while keeping me entertained.
The film starts off showcasing how far we’ve come from merry times and love, and branched into mass consumerism and violence. It also introduces us to Max, a preteen who loves Christmas and the traditions that come along with it, but his family is making very difficult. Especially when his aunt Linda (Allison Tolman) and gun toting republican uncle Howard (David Koechner) turn up on his doorstep with their young hellspawn and drunk aunt Dorothy (Conchata Ferrell).
Not to mention his own parents Tom (Adam Scott) and Sarah (Toni Collette) have lost the spirit as well. The stereotypical contrast between the two families is apparent. Max and his family educated and have money, while their relatives are, for lack of a better word, redneck. And it doesn’t take long before tensions flare, and Max queens out and rips up his letter to Santa and throws it into the wind.
His ripped up letter, summons Krampus and his army of campy minions to drag the family into their own personal hell complete with blizzard, no electricity and ominous snowmen littering the front yard. Krampus claims his first victim as Max’s older sister walks to her boyfriends house in the blizzard. And while she was one of the only likeable characters in the film at that point, she still made the biggest rookie mistake. And it was all for some stoner make out session. (So who can really blame her?)
The panic doesn’t set in until Tom and Howard are attacked as they search for Max’s sister by something very large under the snow. It’s apparent that there is no escaping, so the family huddles in the living room and wait to see what they are up against.
The film’s camp level is full force, and while it gives us the regurgitated supernatural home invasion, it does it in an intriguing way. The characters grow as the film continues, and the characters we once hated became some of our favorite right before they meet their demise. We laughed. We jumped. We squealed. We sat in awe as Toni Collette stole every scene with A+ acting.
Go see this film before Christmas, because nothing puts you in the holiday spirit quite like fear.
