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:

13 Days of Christmas Day 3: Krampus Unleashed (2016) 1h 30m

At some point in the last decade the U.S. caught a whiff of the Germanic folktale of Krampus and lost its collective mind.  A creature to rival Santa which kidnaps and beats and/or devours bad children?  Sign us the fuck up!  Kids are jerks!  Unfortunately, like most things we lose our minds over, people start cashing in on it.  With the release of the 2015 film Krampus making $61.8 million in box office alone then why wouldn't knock-off versions begin to pop up?  This is how I found Krampus Unleashed.

Following absolutely nothing in regards to the Krampus lore (aside from his look and setting the film during Christmas) we get some backstory about a bandit named Klaus that supposedly hid some treasure in the desert in Arizona.  A group of treasure hunters find the buried loot but it just ends up being some dirty socks and a large black stone.  This stone summons Krampus and he kills with wreckless abandon until the stone falls into a creek.  Fast forward years later and the stone is found by a boy that is part of a family get together on some land in the desert.  Krampus is summoned and this movie continues its sickening spiral into hell.

I don't know what I expected with this film, but I'm damn sure it isn't what I watched.  The acting was competent.  That's all.  The director got a bunch of people in front of a camera and they said their lines, but a lot of the emotional response or just physical acting lacked any talent.  When you tell a boy that his dad and grandfather were just murdered by a monster, and you do a close-up shot of the kid's face, you better make sure he looks upset.  Instead we get the "did I leave the stove on" face.  This movie had a plot, and it worked, but in that sense that if you put enough glue on things then they have to stick together.  Right?

The only redeeming moments of this film are each of the kills done by Krampus.  I thought Troma did some low budget stuff, but damn!  The blood was the reddest blood I have ever seen and every time a limb or head was severed it was apparent that some poor mannequin was getting fucked up.  The thing is, I can't fault them on it.  Even though it looked cheap it made me laugh every time.  It wasn't what they intended but at least I got enjoyment out of it.  If you look up anything from this movie then please look up Krampus punching the grandmother's head off.  That might be all you need to see.

I give Krampus Unleashed 1 ripped Santa out of 5:

A Christmas Horror Story (2015) 1h 39m

I'm not a fan of Christmas.  I haven't been since I was a teenager and as I aged into adulthood I liked it even less.  The only movie I readily acknowledge as a Christmas movie is Die Hard and fuck the rest.  So finding out I was about to watch A Christmas Horror Story meant that I was prepared to zone out over the next hour and a half.  However, as the song goes... you better watch out!

A Christmas Horror Story is an anthology of four different story lines that all share small intersections.  We have one where a zombie plague spreads through Santa's elves and Santa fucks some shit up with a sharpened staff.  Another involves three maybe high school or early college kids as they go to film in an old convent where some mysterious murders took place a year ago.  Number three has a nuclear family facing off against Krampus.  The final one is a boy and his parents going out to get a Christmas tree from way out in the boonies off of someone's property and the son suddenly goes missing.

That's all I'm giving you as far as this film because it was honestly fun to watch.  The story lines all interweave as far as what you're watching so it's less of a Tales from the Crypt style and more of a cohesive movie.  They do a great job of what I can only refer to as horror edging because they will build up to an exciting point in one story and back you off by switching to another and building again.  My greatest complaint though was that I only liked two of the four endings (Santa's story and the Krampus story).  This doesn't make the other two stories bad, just not what I would've enjoyed as a climax.

Other randomness from this film includes William Shatner as "Dangerous Dan" the radio DJ who fucking loves Christmas and Jesus.  He has a great line of "You know who saw that?  Jesus! And his dad!" when someone shows him a sign that says "FUCK CHRISTMAS." David Hayter was an executive producer.  You might know him as the voice of Solid Snake in the US versions of almost all of the Metal Gear Solid games (except for the last few where Kiefer Sutherland took over).  Finally, and this is more of a personal observation, the singing over the opening credits sounds like it was done by the same program they use for Hatsune Miku.  That's more of my nerdy shit though.

I give A Christmas Horror Story 4 copies of King Diamond's No Presents for Christmas out of 5:

Don't forget, you can follow us on Facebook at Facebook.com/30daysofplight or on Twitter @30daysofplight