Krampus Review

There is a Austro-Bavarian Alpine folklore character called Krampus, a horned, anthropomorphic figure who punishes children who have misbehaved during the Christmas season, in contrast with Saint Nicholas who rewards the well-behaved with gifts. Frankly, I'm surprised this demonic folklore figure hasn't been used as a horror movie villain before now. Krampus (2015) features an ironic take on Christmas in general, features B-movie camp, and disappointingly little Krampus.

While the holiday season represents the most magical time of year, ancient European folklore warns of Krampus, a horned beast who punishes naughty children at Christmas time. When dysfunctional family squabbling causes young Max (Emjay Anthony) to lose his festive spirit, it unleashes the wrath of the fearsome demon. As Krampus lays siege to the Engel home, mom (Toni Collette), dad (Adam Scott), sister (Stefania LaVie Owen) and brother must band together with their dreadful visiting relatives to save one another from a monstrous fate.

So, it seems that the Krampus character has popped up increasingly in pop culture, including the Christmas episode of the American Dad TV series in season 9, where I first heard about it. When we hear about Krampus in the movie, he is referred to as "The shadow of Saint Nicholas." It seems to represent the bad qualities of Christmas that many people are becoming cynical about these days. This cynisism was beautifully Krampus starts with Bing Crosby singing "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Chrismas" while we see Black Friday shoppers trample store employees. beat each other up over merchandise, kids getting into fistfights in the middle of Christmas pageants, stressed housewives trying to make elaborate dinners, huge messes of holiday wrapping paper. This ironic opening scene was just beautiful; it captured the essence of the unpleasantness that Christmas can bring when we become materialistic, mindless consumers, and spiteful towards other people and family members during a season that claims to be about love, sharing, and kindness. It's this sort of attitude in part that draws the attention of Krampus.

I had really hoped the movie would go on to explore this lack of Christmas Spirit during the Christmas season, but it dosen't delve into it nearly as much as it had potential to. So many Christmas movies and TV specials try to sell "The True Meaning of Christmas" by having some grouchy Scrooge character or busy professional have a sweet change of heart and learn to love or some scientifically inclined intellectual experience the "magic" of the Christmas season and suddenly believe in Santa Clause or some such tripe. Here I was hoping to see Krampus terrorize people into a state of humility and gratitude that forced them to understand the love, personal sacrifice, and kindness that they claim they have but obviously didn't. There was tons of potential to do an ironic and scary "True Meaning of Christmas" thing. It started out that way, but quickly devolved into a Christmas themed home-invasion horror story with very little Krampus.

Krampus has hoards of ironic Christmas themed minions that he keeps sending into the house to abduct and terrorize the Engel family and their houseguests. There are killer Gingerbread men, a many-toothed teddy bear, a creepy angel, and a monstrous worm-like creature inside of a jack-in-the-box clown, to name a few. It's a more mature juxtaposition of Christmas and Halloween than was used in The Nightmare Before Christmas. The family ends up fighting off these creatures repeatedly; Krampus doesn't really appear until near the end. He's the titular character and we see a disappointing lack of this him. He's not really even a presence until the end. By that point he had hardly been established as a central villain and we didn't have a whole lot of reason to be afraid of Krampus specifically other than he looked kind of creepy.

With all the Christmas irony crammed into Krampus, it can be considered a horror/comedy. There's quite a bit of irony playing on Christmas special tropes, but that dies off rather early on. There's still humorous gems of dialogue strewn throughout the script. The relatives that come to visit Engel home are akin to the Cousin Eddie's family in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation with none of the charm. Angry with his hosts, Uncle Howard complains to his wife, "We should have gone to stay with my brother!" "Your brother lives in a barn!" she says. "Jesus was born in a barn!" Later "I just got my ass kicked by a bunch of Christmas cookies!" proclaims Howard after one of the more comical attack scenes. Some eerie remixes of ordinarily cheery Christmas songs make their way into the background during action scenes which add to the surrealism and irony of the scenes.

The horror bits were kind of fun and creepy, but it feels like the movie held back a lot on the violence. When there is an opportunity for gore, it mostly happens off screen. The monsters are kind of scary and creepy, but not terribly grotesque. There are a number of scenes when it sounds like the characters are about to drop an F-bomb, but are either interupted or the dialogue sounds similar but is obscured with loud sound effects in hopes that audiences wouldn't notice there was a lack of profanity. This is all fine and dandy, but seems to be a watered down version of what the movie had in mind. The movie stays safely within its PG-13 rating, it just seems like the movie is holding itself back, which ultimately weakens what the movie was aiming for. It's as if it's trying to be really scary without letting itself be properly frightening.

Krampus is an ironic and down-to-earth spin on the normally whimsical and saccharine sweet Christmas movies and TV specials that we are bombarded with around this time of year. It's got funny bits, but the horror aspect takes center stage more often than not. There's funny dialogue, B-movie horror schlock, and doesn't get preachy about what it thinks you should think about Christmas. There is little interaction with the movie's titular monster, which is a big letdown, and it doesn't explore the potential for commenting on how awful some people are around the holiday. It feels restrained and didn't allow itself to do all it wanted to do, which keeps it from its full potential. It starts out strong, but has a weak, vague, and disappointing conclusion. It's almost like Gremlins meets National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, but isn't nearly as good as either one. I can't recommend seeing this in theaters; it's just not worth the price of a movie ticket. If it does sound interesting enough for you to want to see, I'd wait to rent it from RedBox or something.

Are there other obscure mythological figures associated with holidays that you'd like to see star in a creature feature? Comment below to tell me all about it!

Chef Review

Jon Favreau initially started as an indie film favorite actor and director. He moved on to bigger and better things, but recently came back to doing independent films. His most recent endeavor was Chef (2014). This was a lot of fun on its own, but if you know what to look for, you can view it as a tongue-in-cheek autobiography of sorts. That aspect aside, Chef is a good solid film that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) is an acclaimed chef with a family life that seems as decaying as his artistic freedom. Those frustrations boil over into a raucous viral-videoed public confrontation against a restaurant critic (Oliver Platt) who panned his cooking of food that his boss (Dustin Hoffman) ordered him to make against his instincts. Now with his career ruined, Carl's ex-wife, Inez (Sofía Vergara) offers an unorthodox solution in Miami: refit an old food truck to offer quality cooking on his own terms. Now with his young son, Percy (Emjay Anthony), and old colleague, Martin (John Leguizamo), helping, Carl takes a working trip across America with that truck to rediscover his gastronomic passion. With Percy's social media tech savvy and Martin's enthusiasm, Carl finds that he is creating a traveling sensation on the way home. In doing so, Carl discovers he is serving up more than simply food, but also a deeper connection with his life and his family that is truly delicious in its own way.

We have Jon Favreau to thank for getting the Marvel Cinematic Universe rolling. He directed the first two Iron Man movies. If that first Iron Man movie hadn't as amazing as it was, there wouldn't have been additional Marvel movies and we never would have got to The Avengers and other fantastic films. As I'd suggested in my Age of Ultron review, Marvel seems to be constraining and limiting its directors. In the case of Favreau, he was flat out replaced as the director for the third Iron Man movie. I don't know if that was specifically why he didn't direct the third movie, but I'm inclined to think so. It was an influence, at least.

At any rate, Favreau got a big thing going but stopped to return to indie films where he would have more flexibility and creativity with less influence from studio executives controlling his creative process. This was similar to Carl stepping down from a nice restaurant to work in a food truck. Favreau said he also worked comparisons to Carl and himself, such as being a father while having a busy career and coming from a broken home. I get the impression that Chef was a kind of therapeutic means of self expression for Favreau; and I wish more celebrity therapy would result in excellent films like this.

The cast was fantastic in this movie. You can tell that Favreau, himself, threw his whole heart into the role and into the production. Leguizamo was a lot of fun as well, playing an optimist who was both laid back and a hard worker at the same time. This is the first time I've seen child actor Emjay Anthony on screen. His is quite talented for a kid actor; only once or twice did his acting falter, but only by a little bit. Some of Favreau's other actor friends were involved in small roles. For example, this was the second time Favreau, Robert Downy, Jr. and Scarlet Johansson all worked together on a project directed by Favreau. The cast was simply outstanding, and created some highly relatable and likable characters.

The food in Chef was just as important as the characters themselves. And it was positively gorgeous to look at. Watching things simmer, melt, sear, roast, and cook was delightful. Then seeing the succulent meats sliced, and exceedingly fancy dishes prepared was titillating. The food photography was every bit as tantalizing and fascinating as it was in The Hundred-Foot Journey and Julie & Julia. You will probably be famished by the time you're done watching this movie. Even if you aren't intrigued by the main plot, you won't be able to take your eyes away from the amazing food on the screen.

Chef is rated R for language. There are very few characters who don't work in the kitchen at one point or another during the movie. And having worked in a kitchen myself, I know how stressful, frantic, and fast-paced everything often is. Profanity abounds as part of the job. Having said that, the profanity seems perfectly at home in the scenes where it is used. Currently, a PG-13 movie can get away with no more than two F-bombs. Truly the only reason Chef has an R rating is because there are more than two F-bombs. I think it's reasonably applied to the situations and characters, so I don't view it as being bad. It's just maybe not something you would want to play in the presence of impressionable children.

Whatever you do, don't go see Chef on an empty stomach. It's a feel-good foodie film that will have you salivating within minutes. Whether it is an artistic statement or self-justification of film craft, Chef confirms the core talent of Jon Favreau. It's comfort-food-meets-comfort-movie. Favreau wrote, directed, and starred in this excellent film on a smaller scale than his previous films, but this is by no means a film of a poorer quality. The story is a modern telling of a familiar feel-good formula, but it's an excellent example of that formula. As of writing this, it is available to watch streaming on Netflix and I highly recommend seeing it, just not on an empty stomach. I liked Chef well enough to want a copy on my movie shelves.

Can you think of another simi-autobiographical movie like Chef where the movie makes indirect comparison to its writer/director? Comment below and tell me about it!