Review of Krampus (2015) by Brandon W — 10 Dec 2015

Though not good enough to generate good cheer or poor enough to totally Krampus your style, this well-intentioned but slipshod holiday horror comedy ultimately fails to nail the right tone at either end of the spectrum. Think Gremlins. On second thought, forget Gremlins because that particular Christmas-set creature feature handled its comedic and horrific components JUSTright, and with a family-friendly PG-rating to boot. Krampus wants so badly to be hilarious and scary but, in appealing to general audiences, the flick quickly learns that it can't be all things to all people.

In this PG-13-rated horror comedy, a boy who has a bad Christmas ends up accidentally summoning a Christmas demon to his family home.

For this to be an A-Level movie, writer-director Michael Dougherty needed to stop tip-toeing around gross-out scares and R-rated humor and jump headfirst into the fray. The funny moments generate a few chuckles and the monster moments generate a few thrills but the neutered tone just roasts your chestnuts. Just as Mark Twain termed golf as "A good walk spoiled," Krampus can best be described as "A good idea spoiled." Krampus plays out like an episode of Amazing Stories, the Steven Spielberg-produced anthology series that presented fantastical tales without the cynical bent of Rod Serling. Indeed, this slight diversion would have been better served as an hour-long one-off TV episode.

Bottom line: Black Christmas Blues.