Writer/director Michael Dougherty decided to put Trick 'r Treat 2 on hold for another couple of years in order to bring us Krampus, a Yuletide horror-comedy about a dysfunctional family struggling to find the Christmas spirit.
Something we can all relate to, yes?
When the family's youngest son, Max (Emjay Anthony), tears apart his wish list for Santa Claus, he unwittingly conjures something far more "naughty" than anyone could have bargained for.
Like Dougherty's Trick 'r Treat, I think Krampus has cult status written all over it. I see myself enjoying it even more with perennial viewings. It's as though Christmas Vacation, Gremlins and Jumanji all got into the egg nog together and birthed this raucous family film. It's on par with those beloved family classics in terms of humor, horror and excitement.
Dougherty displays a delightfully grinchy attitude that stands in refreshing contrast to the saccharinity of most of the films people will be watching this season. There is perhaps a not-so-subtle poetry behind the slow-motion, Black Friday binge scene set to Bing Crosby's soothing "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas." Krampus really works because of this kind of dark, cynical mentality that everyone has about Christmas, to a certain extent, that makes the film so funny, so relatable and so frightening. In other words, Dougherty is saying what we've all been thinking for years. Very few Christmas movies have had the balls to do that. The ones that have are now considered classics (Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story, etc). Soon enough we'll see if time is equally as kind to Krampus.
My only real complaint is that it has a bit of a convoluted ending. It feels like a cop-out but is also one of the oddest and possibly most satisfying resolutions of any mainstream film this year. Certainly repeat viewings will help.
Kudos to Dougherty for getting an excitingly original genre piece out in theaters at this time of year.
B+
No comments:
Post a Comment