Michael Ledo The film opens showing us that Christmas is a holiday of aggression at the Mucho Mart. Tom Engel (Adama Scott) and family are hosting some relatives for the holiday season, people they seem to tolerate only because they are family. Howard (David Koechner) is a citizen with the right to bear arms and makes no bones about it with his family that "crawled out of the shallow end of the gene pool." Young Max Engel (Emjay Anthony) has a special relationship with his German grandmother (Krista Stadler) who believes in Santa. When Max is bullied...the spirit of things change.It took me a while to see this film because of the plethora of Krampus films on the market. This one is "kid friendly" in that there are no F-words, sex, nudity, or gross bloody scenes. I don't see it as an annual classic as it is a film one can out grow. The production had a "Gremlins" feel to it as small characters provide us with mischief. The film lacks real horror for adults. Fair amount of humor.

Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "Krampus" is an American 95-minute movie from 2015 and if you have heard the name Krampus before and remember the reference, then maybe you will know that here we have a combination of Christmas and horror, in which the scary component, however, is far more dominant than the harmonic component. The director is Michael Dougherty and he is also one of the many writers working on this one. The most known cast members here are certainly Oscar nominee Toni Collette and Adam Scott from Parks and Recreation. I cannot deny that I am not a fan of the latter at all, also in this film, but it needs to be said in his excuse that honestly the material he and most of the other cast members were given here is never that amazing at all. There are also several child performers in here, who are probably not known to many and for me personally, that also includes the kid in the center of the story. The character of Krampus was included in many other horror films already, but this has to be among his most famous inclusion, probably even the number one. We see him in all kinds of shapes and costumes here and my favorite was probably the harlequin skin if you may want to call it like that. But besides that, I also felt sadly that most of the movie was really forgettable. The general idea about the summoning and the background story of the creature not only never had me on the edge of the seat, but never impressed me at all. It's pretty tough to find huge pros in here. I think the runtime was not (way) too long. The ending when it actually seems they kill the boy was bold and unexpected, but sadly they made up for that kind of quality quickly afterward by including a stupid "oh it was all just a dream" story line. I also did not find this one worth seeing from the Christmas film perspective. The only ones I'd really recommend it to are probably those who really really are into supernatural creature horror films although they probably have seen it anyway already. The ending indicates that there may be plans for a sequel (or prequel), but we will see about that. I am not sure if quality, critical reception and especially box office were successful enough for them to really go for it. All in all, my personal verdict here is rather on the negative side too. Gotta give this one a thumbs-down and it is clearly superior to some recent fairly decent horror films I've seen in previous months. My suggestion is you watch something else as this one clearly tries to include effects (even animation in flashback sequences) to make up for story-telling deficits. It's not worth your time.

jcox713 No, it's not 7 as in compared to other movie greats, but I do think it safely earns an entertainment value of a 7 compared to other Christmas themed movies. While there are definitely obvious plot flaws, the flick has enough drama/plot twists to keep it interesting in order to say - "gosh, what the heck happens now?" This is a dash of National Lampoon's Christmas with a bigger serving of Gremlins. And if you remember Gremlins or care to watch it again, you can spot plenty of plot flaws in that flick too, but it went on to be a Christmas classic. I can point out plenty of opportunities where Krampus could have been directed better, but, hey I enjoyed it, it kept my attention to the end, and I can not say that for about 75% of movies I have seen in recent years. I am guaranteed to zone out from watching poorly acted or badly directed movies. For the most part, the acting was excellent - except for the dad, who was not well cast. I know I'll be watching this on occasion at Christmastime especially if ever there's a good snowstorm brewing!

cinemajesty Movie Review: "Krampus" (2015)The opening as commercial as can be with an army of consumers storming a department store for holiday season shopping, giving in to the madness, the money spending, the elbow practice of the fastest to catch the best of pieces to bring home, where the chaos continues in the everybody's family who seek the pleasant evening with a roaring fire inside and snow-covered exteriors of cushioned silence in quiet town neighborhood, when 10-year-old Max, grandmother's darling, tears up his wish list to throw out the window, a blizzard rises with nowhere to run but besieging the living room, which comes eventually invaded by the shadow of "Sankt Nikolaus" and his dark-side turned elves to open the gates of the underworld. Writer Michael Dougherty also produces and directs this fairly-innocent appearing PG-13 horror-comedy for Universal and Legendary Pictures to bring paced motion picture entertainment to the screen, which especially in the last 20 minutes unfolds his final strokes of conviction of not just being an one-time viewing experience, but a vehicle for an any-given-time escapology recipe from menacing stresses of an overloaded day.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)