This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
JTA The Film Passionator’s review published on Letterboxd:
This review may contain spoilers.
Krampus - Petrifying and Dark!
Krampus (2015) is a Christmas black comedy horror movie directed by Michael Doughert, who co-wrote the screenplay with Todd Casey and Zach Shields. The movie features Emjay Anthony, Adam Scott, Toni Collette, Allison Tolman, David Koechner, Conchata Ferrell, Krista Stadler, and Stefania LaVie Owen.
The movie centers on the Engel family preparing for the Christmas holidays, but they constantly get into conflicts with one another. This causes the family's son Max (Emjay Anthony) to lose his Christmas spirit. Unfortunately, the family suffer the consequences after a demonic Christmas figure known as Krampus is released to cause havoc on them. With Krampus on the loss in their neighbourhood, will the Engels work together to stop him before they meet their demise?
The idea of having a Christmas horror movie was unusual yet interesting, and this movie was well-executed with a great story. It offers engaging character development, a dark tone with plenty of scares, and fun moments. The movie explores the themes of family, fear, and redemption. These were shown through who the main characters are and how they want to redeem their relationship and their Christmas holidays by defeating Krampus.
The acting was brilliant since everyone acted like a real dysfunctional family with their realistic emotions and body language. Also, they knew which scenes were appropriate to act funny or terrified, which supports the movie's dark comedy horror genre.
While it is mainly horror-focused, the movie does a great use of dark comedy that suit the eerie atmosphere appropriately with its great execution. For instance, I had a blast with the evil gingerbread men that manage to bring some hilarious moments while still making them dark.
Krampus' design was amazing and well-designed as he looked terrifying with his unsettling claws, dark clothing, disturbing features (including his goat-like horns), and creepy expressions. His design was chilling enough to give the audience nightmares while they feel impressed with how much time and effort the crew made.
There was an stop motion scene that explains the grandmother's backstory. I loved this scene because it was animated magnificently thanks to great time and effort, as well as it having a Tim Burton feeling with the support of its gloomy colours and emotional depth.
Douglas Pipes' soundtrack was marvelous as he uses gloomy and terrifying music to establish the movie's dark tone and connecting to the horror genre. This will make the viewers scared because they want the family to survive Krampus' attack and will worry about the latter succeeding in his plans.
However, one of the film's issues was Krampus' small screentime, despite being the main antagonist. This is because the movie focuses more on the human characters and Krampus' minions, which may bore the viewers who were really excited to be scared of the titular villain.
The main complaint I had was the twist ending as it uses the generic "It was all a dream... or was it?" ending, where it looked like Krampus had the family trapped in a snow globe or he was just watching them. This may confuse the viewers as they could think that Krampus succeeded in punishing the family.
The movie's target audience are people who enjoy horror movies with some comedy elements. This is because the film has a gloomy tone with some humour, dark messages, and disturbing moments that would scare younger viewers.
In conclusion, Krampus (2015) was a great Christmas movie that allows to incorporate horror moments that makes it stand out from your typical Christmas films. It has an engaging story, compelling characters, a perfect balance of humour and horror, and a terrifying soundtrack. However, it should have got an original ending and more screentime on the titular antagonist. In my opinion, this was an enjoyable yet creepy watch. This will make you re-consider your position on Santa's list.
