Director: Dan Walker
Year: 2018
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature; Horror/Comedy
Plot:
Heading out on an adventure, a group of girls breaking into a supposed abandoned Christmas-themed amusement park find that their actions have inadvertently released the evil Krampus from being locked away and must team up with the real Santa Claus to stop the creature and restore the holidays.
Review:
This one proved to be quite an enjoyable effort. Among the more entertaining features is the highly immersive and over-the-top spirit the film has. The introduction here to the girls with their pace-paced lives being lived out online as their wild, reckless and carefree attitude as they run around filming everything gives us a great introduction to them. The scenes of them hanging out at the park doing their usual shenanigans has a lot of fun to it, which is carried out throughout the rest of the film as the goofy sense of off-kilter fun which dominates the film overall. From the concept of Santa masquerading as a swearing, filthy biker to keep an eye on the world to the constant cutbacks to their social media uploads documenting everything and the lack of urgency to the situation, there’s plenty of fun to be had with the general setup here.
As well, there’s plenty of over-the-top fun to be had with the creature attacks. Opting for a purely practical suit-driven creature that looks imposing and impressive, the Krampus scores nicely in the series of attacks and confrontations not only with the girls in the park but also the other children in its rampage. The chasing around the abandoned theme park before meeting Santa, the side encounters on the few family’s it comes across and the girls‘ first attempt at confining the creature before taking it back to the shop where they begin playing with it and decorations of Christmas ornaments for their site offers a great combination of high-energy action, brutality and even goofy comedy in their reactions. There’s also the frenzied and fun finale that offers a solid twist with solid and surprising action, giving this one plenty to like about it.
There wasn’t a whole lot really wrong with this one. The biggest issue is the film’s lack of explaining anything as this one favors the fun, fast-paced action rather than going into detail on anything. The release of the Krampus and what happened to it while it was being kept away for decades isn’t explained, while the last half’s revelation twist about several of the characters just seems thrown together to add a last-second swerve to the action. These could’ve been explained better had the film decided to do something more in the middle half than trying numerous attempts at convincing the girls of his true identity, causing a drop-off in the action that goes hand-in-hand with the go-nowhere subplot about the overworked police station where nothing is happening. Some of the scenes look awful with the shaking camera or being too dark to see anything, but otherwise, there isn’t a whole lot to dislike here.
Overview: ***.5/5
With some minor issues that aren’t detrimental too much, the film’s sense of fun and highly enjoyable creature action is far more important to the film and really has a lot to offer here. Give this a shot if you’re into this kind of goofy, silly genre feature or looking for a solid holiday-themed effort that isn’t too taxing, while those looking for something more serious or are turned off by the film’s style should heed caution with this.
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