2015

 

This is one of those Christmas movies that’s not really a Christmas movie, but could be a Christmas movie for the right person. Like Gremlins. Or Die Hard.

The film opens with humanity at their worst: a department store during the Christmas season. Even the children fighting, which is a nice way for the filmmaker to introduce us to the main family. The terrible, terrible family. The family returns home, still yelling at each other, to find the Austrian grandmother in the kitchen baking up quite the Martha Stewart-esque spread. You can tell the grandma (Omi) is already sick of their holiday season shenanigans. Or whatever the German word is for shenanigans. I’m sure there is one.

The son, Max, still wants to believe in Santa Claus and all good things about Christmas, and that his family isn’t all terrible. But those thoughts are quickly squashed when the extended family shows up and exhibits the worst part of themselves: whining, gluttony, alcoholism, child neglect, and more whining. In a final attempt to save his own humanity, Max tries to mail a letter to Santa, but in the end, just rips it up and throws it out the window.

This somehow causes a giant electrical snow storm to descend over the entire neighborhood. The snow and wind are at Day After Tomorrow levels of bad, and the power goes out almost immediately. The family is now trapped in the nice suburban home indefinitely. That’s when Max notices that someone built a snowman in their front yard, which is terrifying. Especially since they know all of their neighbors are out of town. Who, or what, would brave the elements just to build a creepy snowman. This is either the best prank ever, or the most dangerous one.

After Max’s sister, Sarah, doesn’t return from her boyfriend’s house, the dad and uncle decide to go find her out in the tundra. They don’t find her, but they find what has been making the noises on the roof: some sort of monster with terrifying minions throughout the entire neighborhood.

They return to the house and Grandma decides to tell them all the story of the Krampus, and how she accidentally invited it to earth once, and has never forgotten it. I have a feeling there were tons of other things Omi wanted to forget about Austria from her childhood. A demonic St. Nick sounds like the least of their problems in post-war Europe. Nevertheless, it is here, and it is about to wreak some havoc on this terrible family.

It starts to pick them off one by one, until they believe their only way out is to go out into this atomic winter, find a plow truck, and drive it into town. Seems like a solid plan, except they all seem to forget this monster already destroyed their Hummer and is parkour-ing around the neighbors rooftops like it is competing for Ninja Warrior, and the prize is a free trip back to hell.

Finally, the only one left is Max. He makes it back to his house, where apparently his front yard is now the runway for the Krampus and his sleigh of evil minions. The monster has all the family now so Max tells him he takes back his wish and throws the Krampus bell. This opens up the fiery pit to hell that exists under all suburban developments. He first begs the Krampus to stop all this, and then begs him to take him in the place of his family. Krampus don’t care (and also might not speak English), so he pushes Max into the open pit.

It’s a bit disturbing to watch a movie where ALL the children are killed, even the baby. And this isn’t even a foreign movie. It’s an American interpretation of what would happen if children were actually punished for losing the Christmas spirit. In some of the original folklore, people are tortured and forced to change religions. That sounds a little more like Europe when the grandma was growing up. But I could totally understand why a child made up the image of a monster who ate her parents, and not the idea that starvation and lack of stable infrastructure had anything to do with it.

Anyways, Happy Holidays everyone! Protect your Christmas Spirit with the fire of 1000 suns!