It's a Krampus Miracle!

Promise me.  The moment you’re done reading this, make a mad dash for the movie theater.  Skip the crowds of hackey sack-playing Darth Vaders and loitering Yodas, avoid the wisps of Wookie dander in the air, and buy a ticket to Krampus.  Spend the next ninety minutes remembering to be good this Christmas – or Krampus will get you.

Krampus is that rare treat – a Christmas horror movie –joining other holiday hallmarks like Christmas Evil, Santa’s Slay, and Silent Night, Deadly Night One, Two and Four as well as the seminal Santa Claws – the 2000 film about a psychotic Santa who kills people with his mangled hands.  Those with Teutonic tendencies are familiar with the mythological duality of Krampus and St. Nicolas, how Krampus is the Jing to St. Nick’s Jang, a goat-like, bell-wearing horned monster with a long tongue, anger issues and no patience for ingrates.  Krampus hunts down children who’ve abandoned their love of Christmas and its spirit of giving, and he delivers not gifts but rather a one-way trip to the Underworld where sullen brats contemplate their misdeeds for eternity while the good kids awake to freshly wrapped presents and warm breakfast stollen from Krampus’s much more agreeable cousin Nick.

 

Our main character Max is the cause for all this ruckus.  His belief in Santa is tested by a creature almost as hideous as Krampus himself – the teenage sister - as well as by his oafish cousins, their terrible parents and his mom and dad who’re too busy with the trappings of the holiday to remember the reason for the season.  Max makes a bad decision that summons Krampus and his kinetic gang of giggling monster elves, along with angry gingerbread men, flesh-eating teddy bears and a very toothy baby angel doll.  Max’s German grandmother, Omi, is hip to Krampus’s jive and tries her best to warn the extended family that the goat hooves on the roof are not friendly goat hooves, but they only listen after kids go missing and the Christmas tree’s gone up in flames.  Sadly, it’s Krampushnacht, and things go from cynical to violent in minutes.  The ensuing mayhem in the film’s second half is infinitely worse than any eggnog hangover you’ve suffered through and makes the Christmas you spent with that weird cousin who smelled like a hamster cage and lectured everyone about how “Jesus was such a sellout” a veritable paradise compared to what Max and his family must endure.

               This film is so good I expect the word “Krampus” to take on a cultural meaning far beyond the film’s title.  In twenty years, the term “Krampus” will be used in many ways.  “Remember President Trump’s second term?  That gives me Krampus just thinking about it!” “An hour into Black Friday and my hamstrings seized up due to terrible Krampus.”  Or simply, “This relationship is over – you gave me Krampus.”  On Christmas, families will serve Krampus ‘n Cheese Yule loaves, partygoers will yell things like, “Hey bartender!  Two shots of Krampus and a martini for the lady,” and doomed, snow-bound travelers will whisper final phrases like, “Leave me here – I can’t make it.  I’ve got the Krampus.  Tell my family I love them.”

                 Krampus, like Santa, knows if you’ve been bad or good and has no time for coal.  He brings a different kind of holiday justice, one that includes pits of hellfire and wet willies.  Watch this film and you’ll rush home to get that letter to Santa in the mail, give a hug to your family, take special care wrapping gifts and enjoy every last bit of that overcooked ham.  Otherwise, there’s a whole lot of misery awaiting you.  And if a bloodthirsty, Germanic goat-beast is what you need to rekindle holiday magic in your heart, consider it a true Krampus miracle.