I saw Krampus at the theaters alone at 10:30pm on a Monday night and I couldn't have been happier. The theater wasn't empty and there were two girls who were chit chatting incessantly behind me and one of the girls even yelled "BULLSHIT" when the twist ending happened. It didn't ruin the movie I just wish dumb people would stay out of my movie theaters.
Krampus makes a lot of noises throughout the movie. Many of which are a series of growls and grunts which makes him seem bull-like, and very much fits the demon persona the folk lore has given him. However, there are instances when he's jumping from roof to roof (which I will get to) where he howls like a wolf. Not even like a wolf he howls and it is a wolfs howl. So my question is why? Why give him all these demon qualities then go "Hey, you know what would complete this demon persona we got going here? Wolf howls. Yeah do that" no nobody should have said that.
The best fight scene by far was the scene in the attack. You get to see all the hench-toys individually try to take down the adults and you also get to see the adults fighting the toys which is just a bundle of fun. None of the kids are interesting and there is no real investment in their lives. I definitely wanted the kids to go first and then have the parents duke it out. The other fight scene was a scene in the kitchen with the Gingerbread Men which wasn't great and you don't really get to see much in the fight scenes outdoors. The attic gave you the most monsters for the most amount of time and it was interesting, so not just a mole-like-thing digging under the snow. Actual evil things actually attacking people.
There's a part of the film where three characters just get picked out of the group and taken away. The obese aunt wasn't going to die fighting and the baby is a fucking baby so they really just needed to take it away and we can just assume it's death. So the "elves" (they look more like a Greek choir but alright) take these two characters, because it's the only way to get out them out of the storyline, and then David Koechner just jumps along out with them to "save" the family members that were taken, even though it was pretty damn obvious that jumping onto the toys and having them take him as well wasn't going to work.
There was also a part where you could tell the director was like we still got three adults and need to get rid of them and then came up with them just getting pulled under the snow one after the other. The best part of the movie, Adam Scott, dies like 20 minutes before the end of the movie so I really couldn't enjoy the epilogue to the fullest (I seriously enjoyed watching Adam Scott be badass) but not two minutes after he sacrifices himself the two moms and the two kids are running to a car and one of the moms just gets pulled under then immediately after the kids get into the car the other mom gets pulled under, so that was three characters gone in under three minutes.
The end is a pretty big cop out but I do think it would have been funny if the last child was thrown into the underworld volcano and then that was the end of the movie, like it was just over after that. I would "spoil" the "twist" but it's pretty obvious anyway so I won't bother.
If I had to rate the monsters in it I would say #1 the Jack-in-the-Box because oh shit was that thing so creepy. It gave me a The Thing kind of vibe and it was enormous. So the head was probably 5 feet tall and 3 feet wide and then it had a connecting cord thing to its box but it ate people and then they would, like, digest in the connecting cord to the box. I'm making it sound more complicated than it was but overall this thing was absolutely great; they showed it a lot it had a lot of little qualities attributed to it besides that it ate a child like when Krampus landed on the house and was making a ruckus the Jack-in-the-Box started clapping in a "Oh you're in for it now" sort of way and that was super off-putting. Anyway you could tell that was their most impressive monster and maybe the most expensive so they put it to good use. #2 would have to be Krampus just cause he looked creepy as hell, like his face--terrifying, but we only saw his whole being, body and face included, 30 minutes before the end and within those 30 minutes we probably saw his face, what, three times max. Also, a lot of the times the movie tried to show the audience Krampus' face is was too shadowed and covered to see. I wanted more Krampus, if I had gotten more Krampus he would be number one but I didn't get enough Krampus. #3 and #4 are pretty tied between the Teddy and the Angle, they can really be intertwined between these two rankings. These two were definitely second to the Jack-in-the-Box in the attic fight but each had their moments to shine and showcase their havoc causing abilities. I also really like these guys because when they are eventually killed they are shot and they have blood and guts which I thought was a smart choice as opposed to like stuffing or wiring or something like that. Guts are good. #5 I say are the gingerbread men. Here we're getting to the point where I'm not into these monsters. These were definitely funny but in the way that Alvin and the Chipmunks are funny when they do something that chipmunks aren't supposed to do. They didn't do anything particularly heinous they just shot nails from a nail gun at David Koechner and they were pretty cute even when they were meant not to be. These were also the only computer animated characters which may give me some bias because I love me a good practical effect. #6 are the elves. These dudes didn't have any purpose other than being the retrieving squad and if they were really necessary they would have picked up all these people at the beginning of the movie. They make snowmen in the beginning and when they are actually doing something in the end they leave when Krampus calls for them or whatever, so if Krampus calls them back before they're finished why did they even need to bust in at all because they seriously do some damage to that house--they take out a whole wall just because they want a grander entrance than what? The homicidal Gingerbread Men? No elves! Last place for you elves!
Other thoughts I have:
- This movie should have been rated R, nay, it needed to be rated R. It could have been funnier, it could have been scarier, every part could have been enhanced and it could have been overall just better if it was rated R.
- Complaining about not seeing Krampus' face enough before was not a jab at his reveal. I thought the reveal was pretty spot on. They dragged out introducing us to Krampus and I think they did it in a pretty impressive way. So each time a different character would see Krampus we would see more of him until he is fully revealed in front of the grandmother. I thought the way they did it was super clever and I liked it.
- I didn't understand why Krampus could jump so well from house to house and then limp while he was walking to get right in front of a character, that was pretty confusing. I guess he needed to jump to get from place to place because walking takes too much time for him. Also the jumping was super fake and disappointing like at the end a giant pit of lava opens up between the last child and Krampus and then Krampus just lands in front of this kid and it just seemed out of place and weird.
- Snowmen? Were they a tally of the people Krampus had gotten? If so, why did only one look like the character that was killed? And why didn't the casualties at the other houses count, like the teenagers boyfriend? That house seemed pretty ransacked and you're telling me no one died? I don't think so Krampus.
- I'm confused about the physical qualifications within a home one needs to have in order for Krampus to enter your home. Every house that was terrorized had a fireplace and Adam Scotts family had an attic where many of the toys bided their time and hung out. I have neither so could my family not be targeted?
- Speaking of qualifications I need to know what qualifies a family or a town to endure the wrath of Krampus. It seems like if the last person in the family/town gives up on Christmas and leaves a physical trace of it then Krampus can invade your community for example: the littlest boy rips up his letter to Santa and throws it into the wind, then the Grandma burned her Santa doll and the ashes floated up into the sky, so if you leave no evidence of losing faith in Christmas then can Krampus not come get you?
- David Koechner gets his leg almost bitten off and his other leg gets shot with a nail gun like three times and Adam Scott gets stabbed in the back several times yet they seem pretty alright throughout the rest of the time they're alive
I think that's it. I think that's all of my thoughts on Krampus. I know it's a lot but this movie had a lot to be discussed. I really think it's a fun movie. If you don't like going to movies alone, then go with a few friends, but the scariest part of the movie was at the end they throw in one last jump scare in the final clip and otherwise it isn't really scary. There's some funny one liners like when David Koechner jumps out the window to chase after the elves Adam Scott goes "Oh great" referencing how dumb that move was cause now theres only five of them. The drunk aunt gets a few good lines in and when the sister is asked what she saw up in the attic she says "you don't wanna know" and David Koechner says something along the lines of I just got my ass kicked by Christmas cookies I think I can handle it. I thought it was the perfect combination of funny and scary and if it were a little more of both the movie would have been made. This movie was a solid medium and I really appreciated it.
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