13 Days of Christmas Day 7: Krampus (2015) 1h 38m

I almost impulse bought the DVD of Krampus this year.  I hadn't seen it previously but I remember a decent buzz existing around this film.  I couldn't rectify the $10 price tag I saw on it at the time though.  I like Adam Scott, but not $10 like Adam Scott.  Maybe more like $5.  $4.99 + tax like him.  Let's go with that.

Krampus takes it weird and makes it weird.  An awkward holiday get together becomes an even bigger tragedy after Max's letter to Santa is read aloud and calls out his family on most of their unspoken shit.  In a fit of anger and embarrassment Max "loses faith," tears up the letter, and scatters it to the wind.  This apparently summons Krampus, his minions, and freak snow storm that would make the North East blush.

I was disappointed with this film.  Despite an excellent cast (Adam Scott, Toni Collette, David Koechner) Krampus didn't know if it wanted to be a dark or light horror film.  It's loosely based on the lore of Krampus (like Krampus Unleashed was) and the only tie-in to its roots was that the grandmother of the family had summoned the entity when she was a child in her Germanic village.  The pacing was also a bit off but I think that this may have been more of an editing issue with how the scenes and passages of time flowed together.  Finally, the Shrek-esq gingerbread men can suck a fat fuck.

Conversely, Krampus did have some really great creature designs.  There's some sort of owl creature with a doll face that I want as a pet.  Krampus himself looked amazing and when we get our first look at him he's running from rooftop to rooftop in the most menacing manner.  He also had his own version of Christmas elves that were all wearing uniquely carved masks and need their own horror film.  Additionally there was a visual element that never gets any verbal confirmation, but each person that Krampus takes has a snowman made in their image on the family's front lawn.  I was hoping that this became a bigger part in the film (such as the snowmen would break into the house) but it never came to pass.

I think that the hype around Krampus hurt it here.  Once again, the U.S. got a giant collective boner over learning about this anti-Santa but putting a budget and some well known actors behind this really didn't pull it together for me.  At the same time I feel like my gushing for Santa's Slay earlier in these 13 Days of Christmas colors what I want in a film.  If Adam Scott was replaced with Kenny Omega or Krampus replaced with Bray Wyatt then I'd be more into this.

I give Krampus 2 ripped Santas out of 5:

Friday's Choice Cuts: Horror in Pro Wrestling

WCW's The Yeti... not really a Yeti, more of a TP monster

Let's all be honest here.  If you're a horror fan then odds are you're also a pro-wrestling fan.  I don't know of many people that don't have that cross-over.  "Sports entertainment" has evolved from just the standard heel/face battles into developed characters with costumes.  I still remember being a kid and The Undertaker coming out with Paul Bearer.  We had Paul's spooky high pitched voice talking about the dead man returning from the grave with the Undertaker rolling his eyes back.  It was creepy.

There's Kevin Sullivan who embodied the role of a satanist at a time when that was unheard of.  Stables like the Dungeon of Doom, the Brood (existing because White Wolf worked with WWE to create the wrestler Gangrel to go with their LARP game), and the Disciples (which crucified the owner's daughter by the titontron) created an ominous presence.

 

In modern times we have Bray Wyatt speaking of supernatural powers, a spirit known as Sister Abigail, and practically crab-walking around  the ring.  He also was the reason we had the amazing "House of Horrors" match which involved the shittiest Halloween haunted house and a KO-by-refrigerator.  I wish every gimmick match was as awesomely bad as that.

Speaking of gimmick matches, sometimes you don't even need the characters to keep things evil.  Barbed wire, cage matches, hardcore matches, backyard wrestling, Japanese Death Matches, "C4" matches, all things that push the limits.  While WWE has pretty much banned any blade-ing (when a wrestler uses a concealed razor blade to cut their forehead during a match), there are still matches in other federations where you can catch some insanely bloody scenes.

Before I forget, there's Lucha Underground which is essentially everything you could want with wrestling and strange story lines.  Mil Muerte was introduced as having the souls of 1000 dead men inside of him.  Their plots blur the lines of reality in a way that we haven't seen since the late 80's/early 90's.  We also have New Japan Wrestling which literally has a character that is just named Evil and comes out holding a scythe and a stable of crazies.

I could go on and on.  I was going to post the video of Sandman vs. The Zombie from ECW (when they got picked up by the Syfy channel) because it's hilarious, but Hulk Hogan meets the Dungeon of Doom is so much funnier.  Plus it's a tiny B-movie in its own.