Starring: Emjay Anthony, Adam Scott, Toni Collette, David Koechner, Alison Tolman, Conchata Ferrell, Stefanie LaVie Owen.
Director: Michael Dougherty.
I didn't have a lot of expectations going into Krampus and that probably did work out in my favor at the end of the day. I actually remember generally saying I wasn't going to bother with seeing it in theaters, as much as I liked Michael Dougherty's(superior) Trick 'r Treat until I saw that Adam Scott and Toni Collette were in and realized that I would want to make the effort after all. So I trudged through a considerably amount of Christmas-y rain for a Tuesday afternoon matinee and generally found myself happy enough that I did so.
The general premise: after a pretty crappy day of getting into a fight at the Christmas play, dealing with his family's growing ennui, and hurtful teasing on the part of his horrible cousins(and their oafish Father), teenager Max tears up his letter to Santa as a symbol of his deciding to hate Christmas and eschewing everything hopeful and loving that the holiday stands for. As a result, a blizzard darkens the sky and horrible creatures start beseting the family. Sound simple enough? It mostly is, and then it isn't.
There's a lot going on in Krampus, probably too much. It's hard to maintain a lot of focus when Dougherty fills the space with as much Christmas decoration, a massive cast, and seemingly dozens of different creepy-crawlies into the picture, causing it ultimately to feel somewhat bloated and top-heavy. This is, in a nutshell, probably the movie's worst feature: it's far too busy.
Director Dougherty is mostly known for a film that is anthological in style, and it seems like he may actually have trouble with traditional narrative structure as a whole. While Krampus is not an anthology film at all, it still presents itself with a frustrating pace made up of hard-and-fast sequential order. Scenes start and stop, there's a pause, and then they start and stop again. This works for an anthology, where each sequences tells its own story, but in a longer form narrative it mostly becomes distracting: just as you're getting into something, it jumps away to something else. The most jarring instance of this involves Dougherty taking some of his characters outside into the snow which, while it offers a little bit of world building, some fun imagery, and a rather fun(but ultimately flat) chase sequence, mostly ends up pointless as the characters just loop right back around to where they started for one of those aforementioned extended breathers before more events happen.
Adding to that torrets-like focus problem is the multitude of monsters that are thrown at the characters. Besides Krampus himself, there are no fewer than five or six smaller monsters running around the narrative, many of them literally for one scene only. While they're mostly interesting(save maybe for the CGI Gingerbread Men, who offer little to the party), there's nothing to them. Without them serving any greater function or even making sense (why would an ancient anti-christmas demon even have evil versions of mostly modern toys anyway?), they feel very kitchen-sink-like, almost as if Dougherty couldn't make up his mind about which ideas he wanted to use. So he threw in absolutely all of them. It's dizzying and superficial, and doesn't help give the movie any of the foundation is really needs to be successful. The Monsters, a combination of practical and digital effects, mostly look fantastic and creative, though, so there is that.
The closest thing we get to that aforementioned desired foundation comes primarily for a very talented cast of actors who are very game for every wacky idea the movie decides to push through. Much is made from the earnestness of Adam Scott, the sincerity(and near-constant sense of exhaustion) of Toni Collette, the oafish nature of David Koechner(admittedly more subdued here than usual) and the worry and exasperated face of Alison Tolman. Each of the actors play every scene straight, reacting very honestly to the impossible and with terror, confusion and heartbreak as their children are targeted by evil forces. Tolman in particularly gets a wonderful moment of lucidity as she tears through monsters to save her Daughter despite the overwhelming shock and terror she feels. Scott, too, gets some of the more honest responses to "kids in danger," perfectly executing his naturally wide-eyed-but-square demeanor for all he's worth. It's their reactions that keep things from going out of control(for the most part) and those quieter, grounded moments make things work better than they probably should.
Also excellent is young actor Emjay Anthony, who gives a great performance even as the script dutifully ignores opportunities to give him some very strong emotions to convey. However, he provides such heart to earlier scenes(his letter to Santa, read aloud by his mean cousin, is heartbreaking as the camera closes in on his anguished face. The combination of embarrassment and meaning as his Sister hears his Christmas wish that they become close again is really moving) that we care about him and, by extension, relatives we'd want to fire out of a canon.
So, despite being a very busy, distracting mess of a narrative, it has nearly endless charm (which is what a horror comedy probably needs most to succeed) thanks to some strong character work from the actors(and decent dialogue from Dougherty). One can only hope that Dougherty can calm down and find a little more focus next time, though.
Final Thoughts: Not nearly as funny or as scary as it would like to be, it is nevertheless charming and filled with enough successful emotional beats to remain entertaining and enjoyable, even as the distracted-by-the-shiny narrative, crowded set pieces and confusing menagerie of creatures keep threatening to derail things. In the end, it works more often than it doesn't.
Final Rating: Three Stars. Perfectly fine holiday horror/comedy in the vein of Gremlins, but with less focus.
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