KRAMPUS

I tell you what I love most about Krampus; saying ‘Krampus’. I could say ‘Krampus’ all day and all night. This time of year? Are you kidding me? Throwing around a ‘Merry Krampus’ or singing a verse of ‘I Saw Mummy Doing Hand Stuff With Krampus’. It’s all great stuff, I wish you all a Krampus in your lives.

I’ll tell you though what I love less about Krampus; the rest of the movie. It’s a heck of a hook - the bad Santa from folklore is here to ruin Christmas. It’s got a heck of a poster campaign. It’s got some truly off the wall demented Christmas present monsters and nightmarish snowmen, but it all sadly adds up to a miss.

Krampus is a strangely confused film that doesn’t seem to know what exactly it is. Nothing sums up how at odds this movie is with itself quite like the presence of both David Koechner and Toni Collette. There is no movie where David Koechner and Toni Collette can exist comfortably in the same universe. Just as Toni Collette makes no sense walking into Anchorman, David Koechner would feel incredibly out of place in Hereditary. Like finding out Cate Blanchett and Kevin James were teaming up.
 
The plot is your classic extended family of hicks and louts come to stay for Christmas and annoy the prim and proper much better off family. The link to Krampus is a grandmother from the old country, and when the son stops believing in Christmas, Krampus comes to town. Krampus brings with him a whole host of evil Christmas-related monsters, including a genuinely terrifying enormous Jack-in-the-box snake thing and some not at all creepy CGI gingerbread men, who seem like they fell out of Shrek.

Where would I fit into Krampus? Well, the other night I was out at a gig in London, and it started snowing, you could see it falling through the window. I went out into the hall, and I was watching the snow fall, and the host of the show came up behind me and said “What are you doing?” and I turned and said “It’s snowing!” I was genuinely excited because I’ve not been in a country around Christmas time where it actually snows. And that sense of wonder is only going to get me into trouble in the world of Krampus.

IF I WERE IN 'KRAMPUS' I WOULD: GET KRAMP’D