Editorials

Krampus – So Good It’s Bad

30 July 2016

By Lois

What is the perfect formula for a horror film? Exorcisms? Violence? Ghosts? Or an old Austro-Bavarian legend about the shadow of St Nicholas? Krampus had many of the ingredients to be an incredibly successful horror film, but somehow managed to sell itself short. The reason for this? In my opinion, it was too clever, and managed to entirely miss the mark it was aiming for.

What we know and love about horror films is what we have ultimately come to expect. Horror films play on the rawest impulses of the public, and use jump scares and our preconditioned fear of what we can’t see or understand to keep us coming back over and over to what is essentially the same tired old plot line. While Krampus made an attempt to do something similar on the surface, the underlying story – that an unsuspecting suburban family  are being punished for forgetting the meaning of Christmas – did not allow room for the gory Chucky-esque ‘scariest’ scenes. The result is therefore mismatched and unsure of itself, as overqualified actors fail to capture the melodrama necessary for a horror film.

It does leave an impression, however, but the try-too-hard layer underneath it takes away from any real scariness. What might have been more effective is if they’d stopped trying to do what other films do, and played on the already-existing creepiness that comes with the strange goat Santa demon that gave the film its title. Horror films like Insidious play on the imagery behind its main haunts to great effect; it is the carefully sculpted (although predictable) demons that make them so eerie, but Krampus took this too far, so that it became almost a parody of what it was trying to become.

Overall, it wasn’t terrible. The story-line beneath the exaggerated gore was actually quite good, and many of the performances from the actors were quite good too. But if you’re looking for scares, you’re in the wrong place. Despite a good attempt, it falls at the last hurdle. Although it is probably the sinister – if slightly foreseeable – ending that will stay with you the longest.

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