Monday, December 7, 2015

Review: Krampus

by Patrick Bromley
This jumps right to the list of the best holiday horror movies ever made.

Michael Dougherty's sophomore film Krampus isn't just a great Christmas horror movie -- it's a great Christmas movie period, filled with a deep love and respect for the holiday and its symbols and jam packed full of signifiers designed to push all of our Christmas movie buttons, even when they've been tweaked to the point of becoming terrifying. It's a PG-13 horror movie that suffers nothing as a result of its rating. It has a great practical monster. It's the studio horror movie of the year.

Adam Scott and Toni Collette play Tom and Sarah, busy upper middle class parents to snotty teenager Beth (Stefania LaVie Owen) and sensitive Max (Emjay Anthony), the only kid around who still wants to believe in the magic of Christmas. The family is visited for the holidays by Sarah's sister (Allison Tolman), her husband Howard (David Koechner in full Cousin Eddie mode) and their terrible kids, plus Sarah's drunken monster of an aunt Dorothy (Conchata Ferrell). When Max grows jaded and stoops to the cynicism of everyone around him, he conjures up Krampus -- the dark shadow of St. Nick, who appears to the naughty and drags their souls to Hell. It's going to be a long couple of days.
It's hard to believe that it's been eight years since Dougherty's first film, the horror anthology Trick 'r Treat, now widely accepted as the greatest Halloween horror movie ever made. Not content to own just one holiday, Dougherty's follow-up aims to be the definitive Christmas horror film. I'm not ready to crown it that title yet -- it's only been out for a weekend and Black Christmas still exists -- but goddamn if he doesn't give it his all. From a gorgeously realized Rankin/Bass-style stop motion flashback sequence to a sea of snow globes, Krampus doesn't just want to be another Christmas movie. It wants to be the Ultimate Christmas Movie.

But Dougherty isn't just cramming in a bunch of empty iconography. He's got something to say about Christmas and what it has come to mean to most people in contemporary society. There's nothing subtle about it -- he's got bratty kids and workaholic parents and fighting families and savagely greedy shoppers, who open the film in a slow-motion Black Friday sequence that announces Doughtery's thesis right up front. Krampus isn't just a horror movie cashing in on a time of year. It's the movie -- and the monster -- we deserve right now.
Like with Trick 'r Treat, Dougherty establishes certain rules for the holiday; those who don't follow the rules -- in this case, almost everyone -- is punished for not respecting tradition. After a strong start and an early surprise, the movie settles in for a long middle section (some could argue too long) in which characters try to think their way out of their predicament before ramping up for a showstopping final act in which all hell breaks loose in a really fun way. There are scary snowmen, psychotic gingerbread cookies, deadly toys (including an enormous Jack in the Box and angel doll that are the stuff of nightmares) and even what appears to be killer snow. For a studio horror movie (and a PG-13 one, no less), Krampus shockingly unsentimental -- if Trick 'r Treat taught us anything, it's that Dougherty has no problem killing off kids. It's the reason for the season.

Despite its willingness to be dark and nasty, Krampus never feels mean-spirited because Doughterty knows how to keep the tone fun and light -- it owes way more to Gremlins and Poltergeist than to anything contemporary. Though the comedy can sometimes be a bit broad (particularly in the early going), every actor is able to infuse his or her character with just enough depth and dimension to become at least sympathetic enough for us to not want them to be killed off...even though we're still not all that upset when they are.
I loved Krampus, a horror movie that refuses to compromise even when it seems like it's totally compromising. I know not everyone is responding to it the same way I did (discussions online have suggested as much), but I know it's going to become a new December tradition for me because it gets so much right about Christmas movies, has a great message about the power of belief and one of the coolest movie monsters in a long time. I don't need Michael Dougherty to take on any more holidays, but I do need him to keep making horror movies -- preferably inside the studio system, as he understands horror in a way so many for-hire filmmakers fail to do. The genre needs him like Santa Claus needs us to believe. Otherwise, we're all going to Hell.

17 comments:

  1. I'm really glad you loved this so much. I think I need to see it again because there were things I liked about it I just wish it went a little further. It's great to see that it did better than expected financially over the weekend, I was afraid it would fail given the odd title. I want movies like this to succeed even if I wasn't as crazy about it as most people. That Jack in the box monster though... holy shit i loved that so much!

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    1. "I wish it went a little further." Me too, man. It could just be my imagination, but the movie seemed cut to hell to me, to the point that it made less sense than it should have. The violent scenes sometimes seem like there's something missing or that they're over very quickly, and there's an F-bomb that Koechner drops that was clearly edited out in post. I'd wager Dougherty made an R-rated movie and Universal decided they wanted a PG-13 after the fact. I hope an unrated cut comes out later that's a little more out there, and a little more cohesive.

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  2. Great movie...great review. It sounds like it's doing better than expected at the box office so hopefully that leads to more studio gigs for Michael Dougherty. He just gets it and at this point, I would watch anything he does. I kind of want him to make one more holiday horror for his trilogy. Valentine's Day needs a good kick in the ass.

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    1. Just saw it today and I agree it was a great movie! That feeling of sub-zero cold, which people have been mentioning, was so well done it really got me in the mood for Christmas horror. Dougherty is hitting it out of the park for me as well, but don't you think to complete the trilogy maybe a Thanksgiving horror should be in order. It's an underrepresented holiday, plus three consecutive months of Dougherty joy...just saying.

      Found any winners during your Christmas horror month?

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    2. Jack Frost was a surprise. It's ridiculous but it seemed like everyone is playing it straight. I had to watch it on youtube but I still loved it. A Christmas Horror Story was great. Blood Beat was completely insane and made for nothing but worth checking out. I liked Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 and I shouldn't. I'm waiting for 3,4 and 5 to arrive. I think I might watch Black Christmas on Christmas Day. I've never seen it but I've heard it's the best. Dougherty could go way outside the box and do Easter...maybe have Jesus decapitate the Easter Bunny...or zombie Jesus. I don't think I've seen that.

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    3. Now I have to see Silent Night, Deadly Night 2. Never realized Easter had such potential. Now that I think about it I can't believe we haven't seen that already!

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    4. Stick to this:
      https://youtu.be/17Rd5UmdnmA

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    5. Hahaha...pretty funny stuff. It does look pretty terrible, so terrible I must watch :). There's a part 1 & 2 combo on amazon, for cheap, calling my name! You warned me but what can i say??

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  3. Great review! However, I'm pretty sure Halloween is accepted as the greatest Halloween horror movie ever made.

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    1. I think he meant the best movie about Halloween. Halloween is on Halloween but not about Halloween. He also doesn't love Halloween. Alright, I'm done trying to speak for Patrick and probably being wrong about it.

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  4. It's great to hear that you loved it. Mainly because it was a film that I want to love but just ended up liking. It's a bit messy in my opinion, but I'm really glad a movie like this got a widespread theatrical release and is doing so well.

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    1. Weren't you killed by Tom Atkins and lasers from a Stonehenge rock?

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  5. Went and saw this with, like, 10ish friends. It's a super fun movie and, at least in my showing, definitely a crowdpleaser. This'll probably be a Christmas tradition for me too!

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  6. Glad to see you liked it Patrick. This is the kind of movie I wish came out when I was like 13 (though I did get classic fare like Dracula 2000, so I guess it evens out.) I thought just about everything in Krampus was way better than it has any right to be. Particularly the casting and performance of David Koechner, who shockingly plays an actual character in this.

    But I'd really like to point out the amazing atmosphere and production design. This movie feels COLD like few winter movies outside of The Thing do. It really made that neighborhood house feel like it was in the middle of Antarctica. And all the creature designs were wonderful, scary and silly at the same time, but always played straight.

    It feels almost strange to say, but Star Wars, Hateful 8 and the Revenant are really going to have a hard time topping Krampus as the best movie of December.

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  7. Krampus gets a grade of "A pus!" *bang*

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  8. Just got back from seeing this and it is just so great. I loved it. There's more I could say but that pretty much covers it.

    I loved it and I got exactly what I wanted, which is a kickass Christmas gift indeed.

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  9. Thanks for the review, I'm really excited to see this, its playing in the UK now also which is great, looking forward to seeing it with a crowd on a Friday or Saturday night

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