ENTHEO ZINE MOVIE REVIEW: KRAMPUS (SPOILERS)

Every once in a while a movie comes along and revives your hope for a whole genre or niche genre. Krampus is one such film, in that it has revived and breathed life BACK in to the "creature feature" style horror film. Back in the eighties and early nineties, creature feature horror films were very popular, as was dancing the line between horror and comedy in such films.

Films such as Chucky, Gremlins, Spawn and Dream Master are examples of films that relied heavily on animatronic creatures, heavy make up and what is now considered "old school" effects to create the main creature or little creatures that made these movies so great. Krampus showed so much care and details in its creatures, and used an innovative blend of animatronics, digital art, and puppetry to create the creatures that made the film. Kudos to the artists who created these creatures!

Krampus opens with a black Friday montage of people tackling each other over material things in a mall. While comical, it also makes a great commentary about the season losing its meaning to material things and selfish intentions. The movie then goes on to introduce the family, where Toni Collete of "The United States of Tara" is the perfectionist mother of two kids, one a teen, and another a young child of about 10 or so.  The family is of German descent, and has the German grandmother residing with them. This story is based upon the German fairy tales of Christmas, and the creatures have a heavy Kinder style to them.

Every year, the family hosts their cousins. The cousins include two girls and a boy. The father of that family is a typical red neck, and of course, there is disagreements and conflict. In the midst of the holiday madness, the young boy who is the main character wishes for his family to disappear.

Soon, an impossibly treacherous winter storm blows in. Power goes out. The town grows silent and white. People start disappearing. During this time you see glimpses of the creatures. Cell phones don't work, regular phones don't work. One by one, everyone in the family disappears, due the creatures.

These creatures, while being cute and Christmasy, are also horrific. Imagine, evil gingerbread men and Germanic porcelain dolls coming to life, and wielding weapons. Visualize a giant jack in the box, that eats people. All of this in a menacing confer forest, while dark Christmas carols drone in background.

In my opinion, the best part of the movie was the pagan ritual. You get to see all the creatures in their twisted glory. The blank faced elves, the wicked cookies, and the one and only Krampus. The movie depicted Krampus more like the Germanic Santa decorations than the pagan fairy tale depictions.

In the end, the film finalizes itself somewhat stereotypically. Everyone wakes up from a dream. It's Christmas morning. It's snowing, and merry, and bright. Everyone is opening gifts, drinking cocoa and is happy.

The thing that I enjoyed the most about this movie, aside from the great animatronics and creature art, was the switch of formats almost half way through. In the middle of the movie there is a great 3D animated short that illustrates one of the characters stories. It is cute, imaginative, and a great way to divide the story up.

In conclusion, Krampus will become a camp classic. There is just so much greatness to the art and acting that you could see people waiting for it to come on as a Christmas special on a horror channel or something. It really is a great film. Go check it out!