What’s a Krampus, you ask? In certain European Christmas traditions, it’s a freaky folkloric beast of pagan origin, sporting horns, hooves, and chains, and pouncing on children of the not-nice type as a kind of holiday penance. (Okay, mostly Austria and Germany – are you surprised?)
Ah, but what’s a “Krampus,” then? Following Hollywood tradition, it’s an optimistic stab at capitalizing on a creepy-funny ancient horror for a little yuletide money-harvesting. Though not exactly a punishment, director Michael Dougherty’s tongue-in-cheek monster movie is hardly a celebration, either, despite initial promise that we’d be getting a niftier-than-usual package of subversive comedy and chills to shake up the usual holiday-movie sameness.