Review of Krampus (2015) by Tilde_Gunderson — 05 Jan 2016

I am a big fan of horror-comedy movies. What We Do In The Shadows, Housebound, Cabin in the Woods, and Dale & Tucker Vs. Evil are some of my favourites. So when I heard about this movie a few years back, I got pretty excited.

However, I found this movie didn't know how to implement that well.

At times, they cranked up the horror elements and that was done well. Ominous snowmen appear on their lawn, no other signs of life are seen in their town, and we get to finally see Krampus. After Beth (stereotypical eye-rolling teenager) is taken, the movie begins to be goofy, featuring animated gingerbread men with power tools, a killer teddy bear, little masked elves, etc.

Nothing got me more disgusted and frightened than the Jack-in-a-box demon worm. It's crowning moment was when it was swallowing one of the kids, let out a loud shriek, and then slithered away. You probably know this scene because it was featured heavily in the trailers.

At this moment, they could have just stuck to making a horror movie and it would've been pretty good. Before this, the only funny parts were the conversations amongst the families.

Some of the jump scares were pretty mediocre, too. The flying angel doll was a pretty cheap scare, and when Krampus took Omi, the shot inside his bag of goodies was a bunch of toys shaking around for a few frames. This looked really amateur and... I didn't know what to feel about it.

Probably my least favourite scene is, actually, the last, when the camera slowly zooms away from the house and WOAH! A whole bunch of demonic toys jump out of nowhere and the movie cuts to black. This is exactly the kind of cheap scare you get from something like the video game Five Nights at Freddy's.

In the end, it's decent. Not that bad, not that good.