Rating: Ah, Christmas. The one time of year where cynicism is hung up at the door and even the most jaded of us (the Inside Out emotion at my controls is Contempt) can enjoy a dose of idealistic sentimentality. Maybe it's the cold mixed with a good lining of mulled wine, but I do love a good Christmas movie - Scrooge, Elf, Miracle On 34th Street and especially It's A Wonderful Life are essential festive viewing. But every now and then, in amongst all the wishing and believing, it's good to be reminded of the less cheery parts of the holiday; consumerism, disgruntled relatives, deadly demons - y'know, the darker traditions. And, refreshingly, Krampus brings those two sides together in wonderful B-movie fashion. Michael Dougherty's Xmas-themed follow-up to the underseen anthology Trick 'R' Treat has a wicked hook - a family is terrorised by the dark shadow of Saint Nicholas - that allows for a mash-up of slasher stalking and unnerving creature set-pieces. It's a lot of fun, aided by a cast that would typically be better than this material - Adam Scott, Toni Collette, Allison Tolman and some of the best child actors around. There's particularly a strong focus on tone, meaning that peskiest of tropes the jump scare takes a back seat and we get something that tries to go a bit further, building a camp-y chill throughout. But scares are only part of the film - this is still at its heart a Christmas movie, not just a generic horror flick with snowy sets and a holiday-themed murderer (shout out to Jack Frost). There's an overriding message of family, of giving, of the greater good, and how much of modern life stops us from appreciating these intrinsic elements of the season, which is set up long before the hoofed demon steps into frame; we open with the real horror of December - pre-Christmas sales - ironically scored and the entire plot is motivated by a child's wish for things to return to how they were when he was younger. From the early stages, with family bitching the order of the day, we could easily be on track for a whimsical coming-of-age tale. And when you look at it thematically, that's kinda what we get - it's just that family here learn the true meaning of Christmas through metaphorical-cum-literal hell. Because it's a horror and thus doesn't need to be as morally cloying as its festive counterparts though, Krampus is able to attack this stuff with a bit more bite (it also helps the monster is rooted in fables that link it to the holiday's Germanic origins). It's not a deep bite, but when our culture's choice "alternative" Christmas movie is an actioner in perpetually sunny LA that happens to be set around the holidays, it's a gift for sure. Things fall apart a tad in the third act where Dougherty goes the Cabin In The Woods route and throws as many monster design at the screen as the budget allows, leaving tone, character and - at points - comprehensibility in his wake. It's a shame he couldn't provide something more fitting of his satirical opening, although it's just about saved by a great design for the titular demon and a poignantly chilling final beat. That ending pulls us back and reminds us of the true meaning of the film. Krampus may not be a Christmas classic that'll be revisited every year (although I'll probably check it out again for that monster at some point), but it is still a solid Christmas movie - a teaching of those typical festive morals in a nicely novel way. And those are incredibly hard to come by. Go check it out, despite its flaws, for that alone. Krampus is in cinemas now.
