Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

Cast: Adam Scott, Toni Collette, David Koechner, Alison Tolman, Conchata Ferrell, Stafania LaVie Owen, Emjay Anthony, Krista Stadler, Mark Atkin, Trevor Bau, Gideon Emery, Maverick Flack, Sophie Gannon, Felicity Hamill.

If only the list that Santa Claus made, dividing the world into who was naughty and who was nice, actually applied to the world of cinema also. If it did that weaving of Christmas spirit and forceful animosity on the theatres of each and every city then perhaps studios might think twice about making such films as Krampus, or at least find way to portray them in a better light.

Horror comes in for some stick at times, it gets accused of being up its own posterior, it has labels and badly made identifying marks placed upon it and it seems for every true great, every blistering celluloid statue of brilliance that comes the public’s way at least ten poorly thought out attempts to cash in on the audience’s need to feel something at Christmas other than the forced down the throat saccharine fluff that comes along with the season; it is a need that would certainly be best served with a direction notice offered to cinema goers, this way to a world in which horror takes you for a ride.

This might be seen as too cruel, especially where Krampus is concerned, a good idea, one worthy of coming from the pits of a Hell, of inhabiting the realms of The Brothers Grimm at one point in time, of even nestling alongside It’s A Wonderful Life as an alternative message of getting along with people and family. Yet its delivery, its overall prowess as a film languishes and struts with self-importance and doesn’t have that true horror ingredient to make it sit up and beg to be taken notice of. It has no humour, a true laugh in which tension can be relieved before the action cranks back up again.

This is perhaps surprising with the very talented cast that inhabits the film, a cast that includes Toni Collette, Conchata Ferrell and David Koechner should not be seen in such a way as not being able to hold its own in any type of film, let alone a horror picture. There is no gelling, no cohesion between the characters and that leads to a lack of empathy, a distinction of wanting a hero to emerge and finding that the sooner the family perishes the better.

Horror films are better than this, a serving of festive fluff which required more thought, Krampus should be avoided.

Ian D. Hall