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Karly Greenwell

Period: 3
February 11, 2016

Krampus- a Comedy or a Thriller?

This newly released holiday horror film known by the name


Krampus has viewers constantly questioning if the film is meant to
be a comedy or a thriller.
Focused around a European folklore, this film shows scenes of
Santa Claus evil shadow, Krampus. Krampus a large, horned,
hoofed, and demon-like creature comes to torture the naughty
opposed to Santa Claus who rewards the nice. Krampus comes to take
and destroy while Santa comes to give and spread Christmas joy.
Entering the theater my expectations rather high a frightful
film was being awaited. As the lights dimmed, and as the movie began
playing competing for my interest and attempting to frighten me I
could not help but notice that this movie was not satisfying my thirst
for a so horrific I cant sleep for three nights kind of film.
As the film had the intentions to scare the audience including
myself, it epically failed many times. At times when the movie was
hoping to generate screams and cries of terror, those screams and
cries of terror were replaced with laughter. For example, at one point in
the film, Krampus evil helpers come to help him in the monstrously
maniac mayhem. Krampus evil helpers seem to be the most cheesy,
unrealistic looking creatures ever, thus taking away much of the
suspense and terror of the film. Some of Krampus helpers were
gingerbread men, another was a teddy bear, a Jack in the box, and also
an angel; How are these helpers supposed to create an evil and scary
feel to a film without generating any laughter to occur?
In the movie, a family of five is preparing to have their rowdy and
rambunctious relatives to arrive. The main family is made up of Max,
the youngest boy in his pre-teens; Maxs parents, Tom and Sarah; the
teenage sister, Beth; and their Germanic grandmother Omi. Max and
Omi have a special bond that is shown in different ways throughout the
film. In the beginning of the film Max is reminded by Omi to finish his
letter to Santa Claus before his crazy cousins come.
After their relatives arrive and they are all sitting around the
dinner table, Maxs older cousins get a hold of his letter to Santa.
Maxs older cousins begin to mock, mimic, and laugh at Max because

Karly Greenwell
Period: 3
February 11, 2016

of his belief in Santa. This along with all of the other chaos Max is
engulfed in sends him rapidly racing to enter his cousin- free room to
hide. In the private room Max shreds the handwritten letter to Santa to
pieces and throws this out the bedroom window along with his belief in
St. Nick.
When Max throws the contents of the letter outside his window is
creates a mysterious and massive storm. Thus, knocking out all of the
power within miles around then leaving his cousins to stay longer that
planned.
The beginning of the movie had a strong build up with the storm
and everything else but after this point in the movie, everything begins
to go downhill. The scenes seem to rush from scenario to scenario.
Instead of giving each scene the appropriate time to be affective to
capture interest and suspense from the audience, it instead cuts the
scenes shorter leaving the scenes with lack of suspense.
The film was very predictable. The times when scary and
suspenseful moments were about, it was easy to see what was about
to happen. For example, detecting the pop up scenes were easy as well
as knowing who was next to go. This eliminated the surprise and
suspense from the movie.
The scary parts seemed to be overpowered by the funny parts.
Also the parts that were intended to leave viewers scared were the
same scenes leafing the audience laughing who wouldnt laugh at
gingerbread men shooting staple guns? To me, that isnt necessarily
frightening.
The movie overall was a bit disappointing. The ending leaves
many in pure confusion and disappointment. Expectations werent met
and more laughter occurred opposed to screams of fear. Although the
movie had a good message, it just didnt meet my expectations for a
scary movie.

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