“Krampus” is dumb but fun

You better watch out. You better not cry. You better not pout. And, whatever you do, you better not lose hope and let the Christmas spirit die within you. If you do, you’re family will be terrorized by a giant goat demon and his malevolent henchmen. That’s what I learned from watching “Krampus”. And I had I pretty good time doing it.

”Krampus” is a Christmas/horror fusion movie which tells the tale of young Max (Emjay Anthony). Everyone picks on Max for his belief in Santa Claus. After a particularly bad round of teasing at the hands of his cousins, Max gives up that belief. That turns out to be a bad move.

What Max doesn’t know is that when he quit believing in Santa, he summoned Krampus, the shadowy, goat-hooved flipside of Mr. Claus. Before you can say “here we come a wassailing”, Max’s family members are being picked off by Krampus and his helpers. That’s pretty much the whole movie.

”Krampus” isn’t exactly what you’d call “smart”. In fact, it’s a fairly dumb movie. The characters aren’t deep thinkers. They do stupid things and leave you wondering what they could be thinking. The only character in the whole movie with brains is Omi (Krista Stadler), Max’s grandmother. Even Max is kind of clueless.

Good thing that “Krampus” is pretty funny. Most of the laughs come from the fact that it’s hard believe what you see onscreen. Krampus’s henchmen are all pretty easy to laugh at, whether they’re demonic gingerbread men or Christmas toys run amok. I was actually reminded of “Gremlins” as I was watching. “Krampus” is similar in tone and the way it gets laughs. That’s a good thing.

You don’t go to see a movie like “Krampus” for writing or acting, but the cast is solid. David Koechner’s shtick gets old after a while, but none of the performances are bad enough to pop you out of the story. The writing is similarly solid. It’s never very clever or witty, but it never leaves you waiting for a lobotomy, either.

The creatures all feel kind of phony and old-school in a way that gives the movie some throwback charm. It’s nice to see monsters that look like puppets instead of a bunch of pixels. It reminded me of movies like “The Dark Crystal” and gave the monsters a humorous quality they wouldn’t have otherwise.

”Krampus” is hardly a classic. It’s a dopey movie populated with less-than intelligent characters. But, if you’re looking for an antidote to all the schmaltzy Christmas fare out there and you don’t mind turning your brain off for a couple hours, you should have fun with “Krampus”. I know I did.

3 Indy Fedoras out of 5

MPAA Rating: PG-13