Macabre…ish Horror Review: Krampus
Krampus, 2015/ 98 min
It’s 3 days before Christmas and though the Tom and Sarah (Toni Collette) Engel’s family is large and bustling, it is also dysfunctional. And son, Max (Emjay Anthony), still believes in Santa and wants to keep to tradition but the family has killed his Christmas spirit. So he writes Santa a letter. When his cousin finds the letter and reads it out loud, Max is devastated. He lashes out and announces his hatred for his family and Christmas.
Max’s dad, Tom (Adam Scott) comforts him but he’s still angry. Max rips up the letter and tosses it out the window. That night a blizzard blows in and the electricity goes out. And the next morning, Howard brings a mysterious bag inside and Beth (Stefania LeVie Owen) goes out to check on her boyfriend. But something is chasing her and making it’s way across the rooftops and it leaps from house to house, over head. Whatever it is, has huge horns.
Beth screams and runs for cover under a mail van, with the driver (Curtis Vowell) still inside, in a frozen scream. The cloven hooved creature following her drops down just long enough to leave a jack in the box, this is no ordinary jack and Beth screams her last under a DHL van.
Howard (David Koechner) and Tom go in search of Beth when she doesn’t return. They find the DHL van, now empty, and they find her boyfriend’s house open to the elements and in ruins, the chimney appears to have been blown open and there are huge hoof tracks in the snow.
Back at the house, the family sits in the candle light listening to what sounds like hooves running across the roof.
Whatever it is, Tom and Howard, narrowly escape it and upon returning home something grabs Howard and pulls him underground. And that same something has also ripped up their truck.
Back home, they board up the windows and Howard keeps watch. Until he too, falls asleep. After which, a huge hook and chain with a gingerbread man drops down the chimney. It’s not a normal gingerbread man though, this one is alive. And it get’s the attention of Howie Jr. (Maverick Flack), who wakes from a dead sleep, goes over and takes a bite. He’s very quickly, wrapped in the chain and hauled up the chimney as his, now awake, family desperately tries to rescue him.
What happens instead, is a log rolls under the tree and lights it on fire. And Howie Jr. is gone.
Once the tree is out and the fire is re-lit in the fireplace, Omi (Krista Stadler) tells them a story about a Christmas when she was a child. It was not cheerful but dark and the people in her town, including her family, had given up and forgotten the spirit of Christmas. She wished they would all go away. And that night, came a blizzard and Krampus (Luke Hawker). She got her wish. She hid as he dragged her family away. She was left with nothing but an ornament.
Howard shares all the disrespect and bluster he could muster, shambles up, insists Omi and her story is insane and announces that he’s leaving to find his son. He’s not outside long before he’s dragged back inside. Because outside, the yard is covered in scary snowmen. And the cackling voices of unseen creatures.
Linda (Allison Tolman) salvages some of the gifts including the one’s from the mysterious bag from outside, something is moving inside the boxes. While the adults brainstorm a plan, the boxes erupt with activity, whatever’s in them, is about to come out.
The kids go upstairs after being called and thinking Beth is up there. It’s not her. When the parents make it upstairs to rescue the kids they find all the gift boxes ripped open, from the inside. But what was in them, animated hybrid toys, one of which is a massive jack in the box, swallowing Jordan (Queenie Samuel), whole. And downstairs, is a small be mighty group of gingerbread men, armed with a nail gun. Gleefully shooting up the kitchen. Howard gets one good shot off and lights them all on fire and Rosie enters with a save, catching a flying, flaming, angry gingerbread man, armed with a candy cane, in mid air.
Meanwhile, upstairs adults are still battling a dangerous teddy bear, a terrifying ceramic doll with wings and a deadly action figure. All while, the enormous Jack makes it’s escape through the vents and Rosie goes in after it. And Aunt Dorothy (Conchata Ferrell) is letting the toys have it with a shot gun.
But the elves soon break in for the rest of the children. Once they leave, Krampus arrives and Omi stays behind, to face him, at the fireplace.
Outside, all but Max, are taken one by one. But Max has had enough, he takes back his wish, throwing the ornament back to Krampus’ minions. The ground where it lands cracks opens up and Max confronts Krampus. He offers a trade. Himself for his family.
This Christmas horror comedy, directed by Michael Doherty, also has a phenomenal soundtrack by Douglas Pipes! This is the candy cane variant.
