Slowly ramping up to a full-blown, charged-up holiday horror movie, Krampus proves that filmmaker Michael Dougherty is more than a one-trick pony.
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This new video takes us to the set of the horror comedy for some background on how it all came together and the character whcih inspired the story. The family, headed by Tom (Adam Scott) and Sarah (Toni Collette), dread the arrival of the rest of their extended family, featuring both Howard (David Koechner) and Linda (Allison Tolman), who will be spending the holidays with them. Krampus delivers this mix perfectly from its stunning opening, slo-mo consumerist riots at the mall accompanied by Bing Crosby’s It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, before turning into a siege-type horror that effectively melds the set-ups of Christmas Vacation and The Mist. In anticipation of December 6, which is St. Nicholas Day, German children would leave a shoe or boot outside their doors overnight to see if they received gifts, signaling good behavior, or a rod or twig for spanking, signaling bad behavior, according to the National Geographic. It’s directed by the co-writer of George A. Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead”, John A. Russo, and sees a murderer dressed as Santa killing the colleagues of his idol and neighbour, Scream Queen Raven Quinn. And Douglas Pipes’ vibrant musical score very much adds to the film’s suspense.
Behind the innocent suburban celebration and comical bits by its familiar cast, most known for their comedy films, Krampus is the real deal.
“The same way that Americans send out Christmas cards, Europeans have this rich tradition of sending out Krampus cards”, Dougherty said. He has no lines in the movie, but still manages to be one of the funniest characters.
The first time I saw Krampus in this movie, I was kind of terrified.
Krampus is one of those movies that didn’t have to be near as good as it turned out.
Director Michael Dougherty, who wrote the screenplay with Todd Casey & Zach Shields, knows how to convey all hell breaking loose, though sometimes he and the editors do so which such fervor that it’s impossible to tell what’s actually being shown in the shot.
It’s fair to say that the pacing is a little off in the middle section, while potentially frightening elements (such as the evil-looking snowmen that keep appearing in the garden) are frustratingly under-used. The number of jump scares, even those that result in laughs, are pretty minimal for a movie about a family under attack. In retrospect, it’s no surprise that the movie became yet another holiday classic. To the film’s credit, it creates a complete Krampus legend all its own with the creature becoming a more apocalyptic force. I’ve been surrounding myself with Christmas music, decorations and the obvious, Christmas movies.
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“Victor Frankenstein” is the closest competitor “Krampus” had in the horror realm this weekend – which isn’t much competition at all when you consider that the Daniel Radcliffe-James McAvoy flop fell to 17th place in only its second weekend, with a dismal $253 per-screen average in wide release and a total gross of barely over $5 million.
