Krampus

This scary movie version of a tradition in the southern Germanic area of Europe is a funny movie with very strange special effects.

First, background information. Krampus was Santa’s elf who handed out switches to all the bad boys and girls while Santa gave presents to the good ones. He is mainly part of christmas in southeast Germany and Austria. He did not kill children, he was only meant to scare them.

The movie was just strange. After a kid decides he didn’t want christmas Krampus came and tormented the entire neighborhood, or possibly more- it was never really explained. In the grandmothers description of her past experience with Krampus, he only killed her parents, not everyone in town. The way the grandmother and language were treated in the movie was weird, too. The grandmother spoke only german with the family, and they spoke english back at her. Even though Omi, her son, and grandson all knew both German and English. There were subtitles used for the german, but only half the time. And it was always for the very simple phrases, like ‘Danke’, but not for the thirty second rant.

One thing that bugged me throughout the movie, was that it was trying to be funny. Not once was there an attempt to truly be scary, only to create a humorous situation in which people are being attacked by christmas decorations. I like movies that try to be scary but fail miserably. I felt cheated by this movie. I loved the special effects, though. The jack-in-the-box was super creepy and weird looking. It seemed like CGI was only used when necessary, the rest was practical effects.

The actors were great as well. The horror movie screams were awesome, and they managed to keep a straight face while acting, which is impressive.

I don’t know if I would say this movie was amazing, but it had its good points and lots of humor.