Krampus (2015)

Krampus (2015)

Director: Michael Dougherty

Cast: Adam Scott, Toni Collette, David Koechner, Emjay Anthony

To make a Christmas Horror film is a tricky thing, especially if you’re criticizing Christmas as a holiday, which is what most Christmas Horror films do. They either expose the lies behind the whole Santa Claus thing, or just talk about how the holidays can drive you nuts. History has shown that these types of films do not make it big at the box office because they attack the cash cow of consumerism: Santa Claus. Films like for example Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) died quick deaths at the box office because angry parents were furious at the idea of a killer Santa Claus, because you know, Jolly Saint Nick is supposed to represent goodness and happiness and we can’t have anything tinge that image that Santa Claus. But these movies keep getting made in spite of their sketchy track record at the box office. Take for example the super fun, ultra gory Santa’s Slay (2005). It also died a quick death at the box office and went immediately to dvd, but man, what a fun movie it is. It’s just that in it, Santa is a demon who kills a bunch of people with Christmas ornaments.  These movies aren’t “bad movies” perse, well some of the are, but most of them are actually good horror films; the reason they fail to make money is because they are shunned, put aside like an unwanted child. But whatever, usually I like these movies because they analyze the true nature of Christmas and its consumerist roots. I mean, come on, you all know Santa Claus as we know it was in large part created by the folks at Coca Cola right?  

Krampus is all about the Engel family; they are having a Christmas get together type of deal. You know, the kind where you have family members come over and visit you and everybody is jolly and merry together, drinking egg nog and reading Christmas stories. The only problem with the Engel family is that everybody hates each other. This family exudes so much hatred, that Max, the little kid in the family ends telling everyone that he hates Christmas and that he hates all of them. At this moment a demon known as Krampus shows up and starts killing family members because they didn’t celebrate Christmas properly, because the family hated each other instead of loving each other. The family must try and survive the night while creepy demonic creatures stalk them. Can the Krampus curse be broken? Is there a chance to survive this nightmarish night?

The director of this film, Michael Dougherty, is similar in many ways to Tim Burton in the sense that they are both obsessed with the holidays. Dougherty’s first student film was an animated short film entitled Season’s Greetings (1996), which was the basis for his first full length feature film Trick R’ Treat (2007), an anthology film where four different stories take place during Halloween night. Both Seasons Greetings (1996) and Trick R’ Treat (2007) are very atmospheric, creepy Halloween films that truly embrace the holiday, which is the same thing Dougherty does with Krampus (2015). On this film, Dougherty captures what Christmas is like for all of us. Dougherty paints a very contemporary take on the holiday by brilliantly starting out the film during Black Friday, with people punching each other over a television set. To the best of my understanding, no film has depicted Black Friday yet, so I thought it was genius that Dougherty captured the craziness of that day in which greed flourishes and I feel ashamed of humanity. On that day, people become monsters, consumerist zombies responding to the programming they’ve received through television. So yeah, I was glad that the film starts out this way, showing the ugliest side of Christmas, holding a mirror up to society.

Krampus also focuses on the spooky side of Christmas, which explains why during the first few frames of the film we see a television set showing Alastair Sim in Scrooge (1951), a Christmas ghost story. In this way, the filmmaker’s foreshadow the events ahead, they let us know from early on that Christmas mythology has its spooky side. What Dougherty did with Krampus is sort of the same thing he did in Trick R’ Treat (2007). If you remember correctly, in Trick R’ Treat there’s this story about an old Scrooge like character that hates Halloween and everything about it, so in comes this little monster that’s going to make him pay for not celebrating Halloween properly. Dougherty simply applied that formula to Christmas, which why Krampus is a demon that comes to kill you if you don’t celebrate Christmas properly. So in a way, Krampus is a film that while criticizing Christmas, it also promotes the celebration of Christmas. It’s  a film that says celebrate, be merry and love each other, or else!

I liked the premise of a family locked inside their house because of a raging blizzard because it amps up the creepy vibe. Suddenly the snowmen look evil, the trees are dead, the wind is howling…Dougherty expertly turns Christmas images into horrifying images. I loved the concept of Krampus, this giant demon with hooves, who looks like a zombified Santa Clause that has these evil ginger bread men, demonic teddy bears and clowns to help him carry out the curse. He also has an evil jack in the box to help him. At one point it was beginning to feel like Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys (2004), but with a budget? Actually, it reminded me most of Gremlins (1984) in the sense that it was mixing horror, comedy and Christmas all in the same film. Yet even Gremlins (1984) was more graphic in nature than this one. I only had two problems with Krampus, number one is that at some point it felt a little repetitive, with the demonic toys jumping on people and looking all scary but not really doing anything save for looking and sounding scary, and the other problem is that it felt very light for a horror film. I mean you got demonic Christmas toys attacking a family, why don’t you go all the way instead of shying away from the blood? The film tries to be scary, but not too scary so the kids won’t run out of the theater in terror. I can’t blame the filmmakers for catering to their target audience; these guys knew exactly the type of horror film they were making. For gorier Christmas horror go and watch Black Christmas (2006) or Christmas Evil (1980). Or if you want to watch a similar film to Krampus that is far scarier, I recommend you watch Rare Exports (2010), because at its core, Krampus is more about spooky atmospherics than blood splatter, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Rating: 3 out of 5    

      

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)

Title: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)

Director: Ben Stiller

Cast: Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Sean Penn, Shirley MacLaine, Adam Scott

There’s a couple of films out there that are about the blue collar worker, the quintessential “little guy” who makes the wheels of societies mechanisms turn. The guy often times treated like crap but without whom the big old company wouldn’t be able to run. That’s the kind of movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is, it’s the story of Walter Mitty, a guy who works deep within the bowls of LIFE magazine. The big guys at the top of the corporate ladder can’t even remember his name, but without him; they wouldn’t get that cool picture on the cover. Problem is that Walter is afraid of living life; he’s the kind of guy who drifts away into daydreams about what he’d like to do with his life, but never really makes them come true. 

I’ve always admired Ben Stiller both as an actor and as a director. Of course, just like any other actor or director, he’s been known to commit a cinematic sin or two but Stiller has demonstrated on more than one occasion that he is a mighty talented guy behind the cameras as well as in front of them. Take for example Tropic Thunder (2008); one of the few comedies to truly make me laugh, which is a hard feat on its own.  I call films like Tropic Thunder super comedies because these are films that are populated by real comedians and there’s nothing better than getting a bunch of really funny people together to make a movie. Films like these are usually nonstop funny; which to me was the case with Tropic Thunder. Another example of Stiller’s fine abilities as a director is The Cable Guy (1996), a dark comedy with some depth to it; I mean, behind all of Jim Carrey’s shenanigans lies an interesting social commentary about a whole generation raised in front of the television set. And speaking of depth and comedy, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty has a little bit of both of these elements as well; the film doesn’t just make you laugh, it also comments about life, or lack thereof.  

  

You see, though Mitty has a cool job; he’s afraid to have a relationship, he’s afraid to talk to women, he’s afraid of everything. Worst part is he knows it. He knows his life could be more exciting, he knows he could do more with it. One fine day Mitty and his co-workers are notified that LIFE magazine is closing down and that a lot of them are going to be fired. In a strange twist of irony, they still have to work hard to produce the last issue of the magazine! Thankfully, Sean O’Connell, the greatest photographer to ever walk the face of the earth (played by Sean Penn) is donating one of his best pictures ever to be used as the final cover; problem is that the picture is nowhere to be found! And nobody can get a hold of Sean O’Connell! And they need that picture for the cover! So Walter, feeling like his life is just passing him by, suddenly decides to takes it upon himself to have an adventure! So off he goes, in his search for Sean O’Connell and the picture for the final cover of LIFE! Will Walter Mitty learn to live his life along the way?

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty focuses on the struggles of the blue collar worker, a theme that’s been touched upon many times in previous films. I mean, we could go as far back as Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936), a film in which we see Chaplin’s Tramp battling his employers who want to turn him into just another piece of machinery, working like a robot, in fact, in Chaplin’s genius, he concocted a scene in which he actually becomes a part of the gears of the machines! In doing so he not only created one of the most iconic images in cinematic history, he also made a great visual allegory to man’s struggle with industrialization. Mitty is not without its allegorical images, in fact, since Mitty spends most of his time zoning out into dream world, the film overflows with them. In one fantastic scene we see Walter battling his boss as they both surf through a concrete jungle!  

Another film that we can compare The Secret Life of Walter Mitty to is one of my personal favorite films ever: Joe Versus the Volcano (1990). On that film Joe is the worker who hates his soul sucking job. He’s fallen in a rut. But when they tell him he only has a few months to live, he decides to partake on an adventure that teaches him that life is all about taking risks; same as in Mitty. Actually, strangely enough, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty also features a volcano eruption! Could it be a strange coincidence or could it be Stiller showing his influences? If we want to compare even further, there’s Strange than Fiction (2006), in which Will Farrell has fallen on the dreadful  “every day is the same” routine, not having any time in his life even for love. All these films I’ve mentioned have something in common, they are all about people who are disenchanted with life, they all deal with characters that are bored and have forgotten how beautiful life can really be if we just change things a little bit, if we choose to take risks, if we decide to make things interesting. The idea of doing something you are terribly afraid of is always present. In the case of Joe, he was terrified of jumping in the volcano. In Mitty it’s jumping onto a moving helicopter! It’s that age old idea of taking the leap and going for the unexpected! The idea of not living by the rules, of not feeling safe, of daring to take that leap into the unknown. In the end The Secret Life of Walter Mitty ended up being one of my favorites of the year, a very pleasant surprise. Not only does it have depth, but since it stars the often times hilarious Ben Stiller, well, it also has the benefit of being funny. I found myself laughing out loud on many occasions. So we’re talking about a funny and uplifting film here. It’s one of those movies that will make you want to go on an adventure, take that trip you’ve always wanted to take or tell that person how you really feel about them. I found it so fitting that Walter Mitty works at “Life” magazine, because the film attempts to define the meaning of life for us; I ended up loving what The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was trying to tell us: “To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other and to feel. That is the purpose of life.” Just beautiful.

Rating:  5 out of 5