Krampus is a new Christmas horror comedy that released this weekend with limited advertising… but it looked like it had potential. It is based on the Germanic folk tale of Krampus, an evil spirit known as Santa’s shadow. If you were not good for goodness sake, instead of coal in your stocking, you get this malevolent hate monster instead. The film is about this spirit coming for an extended American family during a surprise blizzard on Christmas eve and day.

And, wow, is this a really terrible movie. It looks good and there’s good actors in it, but they didn’t take the the idea seriously or humorously enough. They were making a horror comedy but it wasn’t very funny and they were making a bigish budget horror movie that might normally be made by someone like the Asylum or Troma but it took itself too seriously. It wasn’t schlocky enough. And, except for one short scene, it takes about an hour for anything resembling an attack by an evil Christmas spirit to take place.

And, when the silly attack does happen, it focuses way too much on Krampus’ minions of killer gingerbread men and jack-in-the-boxes. There are more demonic toys in the movie than anti-Santas so when Krampus finally does show up, you think something cool will happen… but it doesn’t and the movie has burned too much good will for it to matter.

Skip this a lot… it’s a real swing and a miss at whatever it should have been and completely lacks in scares or funny for a movie with this premise. I really hated this movie.

Score: 55