A Very Genre Christmas: Krampus (Dir Michael Dougherty, 1h37, 2015)

The spooky Christmas story is about as old as the season itself; look back far enough and it's not just Dickens, MR James, and the like who concocted Victorian and early Edwardian spine-chilling stories for the short days and long, dark nights of December in the build up to-and of course, days after-Christmas, but myriad other tales, some of which border on the genuinely disturbing. From the medieval period, we have works like the Saga of the People of Floi, in which a Christmas feast turns bloody, spectres picking off drunk revellers, or the Yule Lads (seriously, if there's not a decent Icelandic horror movie next year featuring them, I'm starting work on a script myself), who, whilst sanitised in the modern age, were a violent group of trolls in the 17th Century, complete with giant Yule Cat who would eat children without new clothes for Christmas Eve.

But whilst Iceland, and indeed Scandinavia are still rather working the marketing out on their Christmas folklore when it comes to it popping up in the growing genre of "Christmas Horror" (with the exception of Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale), and whilst Saint Nick himself seems to be largely restrained to appearing as apparrel for axe/chainsaw murderers (aside from the charmingly nutso Saint from, of course, the Dutch, over in Germany and Austria, Krampus is busy at work in his newly found niche of movie star. Krampus himself needs a little unpacking before we encounter his most famous outing; with origins stretching back to the 7th or 8th century AD in Bavaria, and co-opted by Christian celebrations to arrive in advance of the kindly St Nicholas (or occasionally with him), as a cautionary horned and goatlike figure that frightens children into behaving with their frightening appearance and lumps in coal.

Whilst appearing in Gerrman Christmas Cards since the mid 19th Century, it's only since the beginning of the 21st that he has stepped out of his Gerrmanic homeland, and begun appeairng in our films. And what an impact he's made; both as unexpected and mischevious trickster antidote to the season's schmaltz, the figurehead of toy runs and fundraisers, and as frightening mirror image of kindly St Nick-almost all of his appearances in cinema, starting with 2013's Krampus The Christmas Devil are American made, and they seem to have absolutely exploded in popularity with the double-header of A Christmas Horror Story and today's film, Krampus (both 2015). Whilst the former is uneven, most watchable for William Shatner's radio jock who holds the narratives together, Krampus, from Michael Dougherty, the director of Hallowe'en anthology, Trick 'r Treat, and 2018's Godzilla, King of the Monsters, is bloody good fun, a charmingly spooky, and often wickedly funny story of a fractious household

We begin with the anti-thesis of the season; Krampus' opening is practically the film in miniature-the festivities forgotten as violence reigns, as shoppers storm their local shop, knocking down workers, trampling staff, and each other, as security staff sadistically taser them, and brattish kids accost Santa, and a school Nativity collapses into a fist fight. It is here, as "Happy Holidays" fades out, and we survey the aftermath, that we are introduced to Max (Emjay Anthony), our protagonist, and younger child of the Engel family, a rich if barely functioning family, who still believes in Santa, largely due to his German-speaking Grandmother (Omi, played by Krista Stadler), who dotes upon him, both of them living together wth his boy-obsessed sister (Beth, Stefania LaVie Owen) , his neurotic mother (Sarah, played by Toni Colette), and soft, and homely father (Tom, played by Adam Scott), who are gearing up for Christmas with their down-at-heel in-laws, who arrive a short while after.

Doughtery wastes no time in beginning to ramp up the tension of the film; Max's relatives are a barely together mix of his family, who seem to just about tolerate each other, and their inlaws, who are the complete anti-thesis of their middle-class liberal life-style, from the family patriach Howard (David Koechner), who is little more (at first) than a gun-toting Republican, to his rough and tumble and often crude children, to his wife, whose relationship with her sister has become frosty, each looking down on the other's choices. With so many fractious personalities at the dinner table, it is small wonder that this too soon descends into chaos, with Max's bullish cousins stealing his letter to Santa, reading it out at the table, and causing the young boy to storm off to his room, tear up the letter, and throw it to the wind, thus setting in motion the rest of the film, starting with a colossal blizzard that knocks out the power and telephones, plunging the entire town into darkness, and into the perfect setting for the rest of the film.

It is here, in this inhospitable weather, that the true menace of the film begins to show its face-with Beth heading out to meet up with her boyfriend, so the film suddenly, and unexpectedly, shows the distant form of the beast itself, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, before, with dawning horror, it begins to chase her, forcing her to hide under a Fedex van, and thus, seemingly manages to give the monster the slip, only to be attacked, and seemingly killed by a Jack-in-the-Box Krampus leaves behind. What's especially masterful about the entire sequence is the degree of suspense and pure creep feature of Krampus stalkng his prey, the heavy chains they carry clanking, their hoofs in the snow. Much of this is down to the man in the suit, Luke Hawker, and the costume department making Krampus a present and often spine-tingling threat, even when we don't see more than his hoofs and his sillouette for much of the film.

With Beth having disappeared, Tom and Howard head out to find her, and here the suspense is masterfully ratcheted up as the duo drive across their neighbourhood, bickering with each other, whilst Howard belittles Tom's masculinity. This is soon to change, however, when the duo come across the wreckage of Beth's boyfriend's house, nigh-collapsed and with the roof caved in. Again, the tension racks up, the duo finding hoof-shapped footprints across the floors, trying to piece together what has happened, only for, once more, the film's monsters to rear their head., Howard attacked by a creature beneath the snow, from which Tom has to rescue him, leaving the former injured, and the duo scrambling back to safety, and the refuge of their home, which they proceed to hole themselves up in and board up the windows, with Omi demanding they keep the fires burning throughout the night.

However, with the fire going out, and Howard, on watch, falling asleep, so the minions of Krampus make themselves known, a living-and gonkily adorable living gingerbread man baiting a trap that Howie Jr falls for, taking a bite out of the gingerbread man, who promptly hooks him onto a cable, and attempts to pull him to his death, waking the family, who proceed to try and rescue him. There's a sense of enjoyable chaos, of our heroes basically destroying their front room, setting their tree and presents on fire only for the boy to be whisked away to death, and it is certainlyat this point that the film's wicked sense of humour, its taste for blackly comic violence and death, and its smartly done co-opting of the season's characters to hunt down our hapless protagonists come together, to provide a thrilling, and enjoyably nasty set of encounters with Krampus and his followers.

It is also here that the film begins to delve into the backstory of Omi, and her fear of Christmas and Krampus; through a beautifully animated sequence, that tells of the last Christmas she enjoyed, how her entire village stopped believing in the season, and the chaos and death that Krampus wrought upon them; the family remain skeptical, until, rummaging in the attic, presents attack Max's cousins, a colossal, and impressively visceral jack in the box (played by Brett Beattie), who proceeds to eat one of them, and attack the other. Together with a stocking-worth of toys, the jack-in-the-box, and a small army of elves, Krampus lays siege to the family house, with two of the family snatched, and carried off by the elves, whilst Howard's final appearance is giving chase to the monster that ate his daughter. Omi makes a stand against Krampus, only to be attacked by the toys, and seemingly killed, in perhaps the only moment where the film could have smartly changed its focus to an all-out action setpiece, or a twist to its own gleefully violent aesop. 

Attempting to make a getaway, the rest of the family are quickly whittled down, in some jarringly tense sequences, leaving only Max and surviving cousin Stevie to face Krampus himself. Begging for her to be released, Max recounts his ways, and though the terrifying entity seems to accept the apology, he is dumped into hell, only to wake up in his bed on Christmas morning, his family seemingly intact. However, as he opens a present, and reveals a bell just like the one Krampus left, the moral, and the wickedly funny twist of the film hoves into view with pin-point accuracy, as the rest of the family begin to realise this all may not have been a dream...It's a perfect, and perfectly seasonal, ending to the film, a sense of Scrooge's penitance given a modern, and undeniably slick sensibility.

Krampus in a word, is bloody good fun-the holiday horror movie has become an oversaturated, and often cynical thing, all the charm that it could have cut away in search of pure meanness, or an obsession with violence or exploitation. Krampus is many things, but cynical is not one of them-its beating heart might be a twisted thing of horror and the dark side of Christmas, but it believes all the same, in something, its charm, its ability to create the feeling of the season, even if it is in the depth of bitter winter that Krampus stalks, palpable. The creature itself is a masterwork of character design, the few strings of lore that we get and Hawker's presence on camera, its minions a Burton-esque motley crew of enjoyable nasty, and perfectly designed things that go bump when a creature shouldn't be stirring.

But the true smartness of Krampus as a piece of cinema is in its sense of economy; there's rarely a wasted second in the film, and with such a large ensemble cast for Krampus and co to cut through, it could have been badly paced, or simply over-stuffed with moments that whizzed by with little gravitas. The film never wastes its threat, nor softballs its character offings, and by the time that Max faces Krampus, it's utterly personal, even if it further underlines exactly how powerful, and utterly unequipped humans are against this primal force of nature. Little wonder that Dougherty's other screen credit to date is in bringing an equally beloved monster to life. But more than this, Krampus is proof that Christmas's connection to horror yields glorious and undeniably spooky results at the most wonderful time of year, in a monster romp that has charm and bloodthirstiness alike.

Rating: Highly Recommended

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