Based on the trailers, the movie could have gone anywhere. It could have been a movie about the traditional family that always fights when they get together on Christmas and eventually all sappily reconcile. It could have been a straight up horror movie. It could have been a mix between a horror movie and a comedy a la “Gremlins.” Luckily, the creative team decided to go with the latter approach to the movie.
After a heated dinner due to tension between different members of the family and a fistfight between Max (Emjay Anthony) and his cousins, Max tears up his letter to Santa. Unknown to Max, this action summons a blizzard, which traps his turbulent family in their home. As the blizzard continues, the family members are picked off by Krampus, the shadow of Saint Nicholas who, along with his helpers, has come to take instead of give.
While there is a lot of cliché Christmas movie moments in the first 15 minutes with the family all at each other’s throats, “Krampus” uses that more for guidance than trying to actually be one of those movies. The family drama is needed to get Max to accidentally summon Krampus, and that is it. Sure, the characters, for the most part, reconcile with one another, but it is not sappy like it would be in those traditional Christmas movies, and the ways it happens actually feels a bit genuine.
What is surprising is that, for a partial horror movie, the characters actually make as logical of a decision as they can. For example, when Tom (Adam Scott) and Howard (David Koechner) are looking for someone who has gone missing, they come across a snowplow that looks like it was attacked by something. Instead of continuing on despite the obvious evidence that something is wrong, they arm themselves with guns that Howard has in his car. Also, when it is obvious that something is actually happening, the characters did not split up stupidly and go off by themselves. If they split up, it was always in groups.
The movie also has a number of creative Christmas theme ideas, like using the advent calendar to show passage of time, making a flashback sequence in the manner and look of those old claymation Christmas specials, and holiday icons being Krampus’ helpers to attack the family. The only things that actually felt a little too ridiculous, even for this movie, were the gingerbread men, who were a little too much of a mixture of the Gremlins creatures and the Gingerbread man from “Shrek.”
The movie is unfortunately ten minutes longer than it needs to be. There is a part right at the end of the movie where it could have ended and everything would have been fine. Instead, the movie keeps going and gives the audience two extra, unneeded scenes. While these scenes do not ruin the movie or make the ending bad, it would have been better to end it ten minutes earlier. If you see the movie, you will know immediately what scene I am talking about.
“Krampus” is one of the more creative movies I have seen in a while. It has a lot of elements that have been seen in other movies, but it uses them to its advantage to create something that feels different. I will end by saying it was not the best movie or my favorite movie I have seen all year, but it might have given me my most entertaining theater experience in quite some time.
