Krampus

Krampus

krampus still

This seems to be the year of the Krampus. For this second week of our horror-themed Christmas films, we headed straight to the theater for this brand new film from the writer-director who brought us Trick-R-Treat.

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Krampus (2015)

Episode 12, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Welcome to another edition of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. I’m Craig. Today, we thought we’d do something a little different. We are watching a current film that’s in the theaters because we have that opportunity. It is crumpets or Krampus or something. And, uh, we went out today. We watched it and we’re here to report to you in case you’re looking at us, spicing up your holiday season with something a little more horrific.

Crump, what is that Scandinavian or I think I read somewhere that it’s Austrian. Um, and the Lord dates back to 2000 BC. I think, you know, it definitely predates Santa Claus, but interestingly enough, it’s only in probably the last three or four years that I ever even heard of. This or however you pronounce it.

Isn’t that weird. And I same here and I don’t know if it’s just the internet, it goes around, but you’d think something that old you would at least know something about it and that somebody would have made a movie. About it by now, because it’s so interesting, right? You wouldn’t think by now, but it’s funny that all of a sudden, whatever brought it overseas and kind of brought it to light for us, it’s really hit the ground running now.

I mean, there’s this big budget one, but there are also. Several Krampus movies that have come out, uh, over the last year is low budget stuff that I have not even really been all that interested in looking into, but, uh, we kind of been inundated a little bit, you know, this movie reminded me a little bit, anyway, of course this isn’t a foreign film, but there was that foreign film St.

Nick that I think was a. Uh, was it Norwegian? I think, so that sounds right. They came out a few years ago. Would you put that in the same category as this was that kind of a Crump was sort of yes. So I think, and I haven’t seen that movie. I’ve read about it. I think in that film, it is actually just an evil Santa Claus, but it’s, you know, it’s, it’s very much in the same vein.

I mean, that’s basically what Krampus is. That’s how he’s described, uh, in the movie. He’s Santa Claus’s darker shadow. He’s really. The anti clause. I mean, you take, you’re going to have that one prepped. It just came to, um, but you, you know, you take off the traditional elements that you know about, uh, Santa Claus and you flip them and make them dark.

And there you have Krampus. Yeah. And I did see St. Nick and this movie reminded me a little bit of it. At least obviously the evil Santa Claus coming through the comedy aspects of it. It took it a lot more straight horror than this one did. Although I, I mean, this one is kind of a straight horror as well.

It was, I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to define. Was it for you? Did you feel like the tone was almost all over the place? I don’t know. I don’t know if I would say the tone was all over the place I went in with really, really high expectations. I’ve been looking forward to seeing this since they announced it, because I knew that it was the same writer and director who did trick or treat, which we’ve talked about is, you know, one of my.

Favorite Halloween movies. So I’ve really been looking forward to this had, you know, really high expectations and I was not disappointed. Um, I thought that, uh, it was scary. I thought that it was funny in places, but it was also really dark. You know, I was, I was kind of glad that they weren’t afraid to go there.

You know, let it be a truly dark movie. You know, I was wondering with trick or treat, they did that. So I guess there should be no. Real surprise that they went the same direction, but there were even points in the movie where I thought, Oh, they’re going to turn it around. Things are going to be okay.

Something’s going to be all right. And, uh, yeah, once a month they set a certain tone in the very beginning when it’s all this slow motion. Um, well it starts with black Friday. Really? Yeah. All those slow motion, video, uh, footage of, uh, people tearing each other apart trying to get to presence. People had at a school pageant who were fighting on the stage and parents who were running up to break their kids apart simultaneously.

Well, people in the audience are like, like taping it for YouTube or something, but like clearly some are horrified. Some are getting a kick out of it. It runs through the gamut of all of the annoying, horrible things about the holidays that we do to each other and to ourselves. Well, and I thought that that was an excellent way to open it.

First of all, you know, it opens kind of with this traditional screen shot of like a holiday wreath and the title comes up and it’s, you know, in the festival lettering and everything. And you’ve got this traditional Christmas Carol playing in the background with this slow motion scene. And it’s funny because we, yeah.

See that in real life and to see it captured on film and to do it in a slow motion fashion, it’s funny, but at the same time, the underlying truth of it is horrible. It really, I mean, it just goes to show, you know, what we have made of Christmas, you know, with the materialism and just, you know, just brutal savagery of like, uh, black Friday.

It’s crazy and we just kind of accepted it as our reality, but I really think that what the filmmakers were trying to do with this film was point out how we’ve kind of spoiled Christmas and right. Yeah. It definitely sets off, uh, that this is going to be simultaneously funny, but also perhaps cynical.

Yeah. You know, you would expect a, sort of a will Ferrell comedy, Christmas comedy to start out this way or something like that. Yeah. It really sets that expectation, like, okay, maybe this is going to be one of those lighter horror films that I’m, you know, going to watch, it’s going to be more goofball. And then it definitely, like you said, goes to darker places.

It, that was, that was my feeling through this whole film was that I was being flipped around. My expectations were sort of being toyed with because it comes right out of that, into. Almost your stereotypical, uh, holiday movie to the point where it was almost a spoof really well, almost a spoof, almost, you know, very similar to other things.

We’ve seen the after the mall scene, our central family. Goes back home and they’re preparing for their relatives to arrive, to celebrate Christmas. And nobody’s looking forward to the arrival of the relatives. It felt very much like the early part of Christmas vacation. Um, even when the relatives finally show up, it’s kind of this ominous thing.

Nobody wants to let them in and they come in and they’re all of noxious and throw everything into disarray right away. It had me thinking very much, even the there’s an uncle Howard Howard is like spitting image of cousin Eddie. He really is. And I mean, he was channeling him throughout. Yeah. You had cousin Eddie there.

Uh, it was a little bit of home alone too, with the chaos of the house and the families who in a very realistic way. Don’t. Like people are annoying and don’t really quite get along with each other. The son max w very much had that Macaulay Culkin, like he’s the only one who sort of still has the Christmas spirit here.

And that’s really played up in the sense that he still believes in Santa Claus. And it’s not that. Necessarily that he believes that Santa Claus is real, but it’s like, he’s intentionally keeping the spirit of Santa Claus a lie. Exactly. And for a young kid about, I don’t know, what 12, 11, 12 something, something like that.

It was kind of an interesting attitude. Yeah. I, I thought it was, you know, I thought it was very much like home alone. In fact, up to the point where. The scary things start to happen. It follows almost that exact pattern. You’ve got this one kid who’s, you know, kind of feeling like the outcast in his family, because everybody else is concerned about their own things.

The dad’s worried about work. The mom’s worried about making everything look perfect in the house and, and this kid feels left out and like in home alone, he kind of has this blow up moment where he says, I hate you all. I don’t care about Christmas anymore. And it’s very reminiscent of what Macaulay Culkin does there.

And then it just goes in a totally different, it does like, well, the kid’s name is max. He has a sister Beth. Who’s a little older sister and she’s sort of the teeny, you know, kind of in her teen adolescent years, who has some boyfriend that she’s Skyping with upstairs, um, was trying to convince her to come over to his house.

Uh, they hit a cup, take some hits on the bong, away from the family. Max has written this letter to Santa. Right. Right. And it’s interesting. Max’s letter to Santa Max’s letter gets read by the cousins and the cousins are super annoying. Like knowing this is a horror movie, I’m watching this. I just want these people to die.

You know, you don’t have that feeling where you’re like, man, I can’t wait for these people to get. Cause you know, they’re going to. So obnoxious. Yeah. And the it’s like, you know, max kind of still wants to believe, and he’s got this German grandmother, uh, OMI, and he, and she kind of shared this special bond where it seems like she’s really trying to keep in the spirit too.

And, and, you know, she’s making all the homemade Christmas cookies and he talks to her, you know, the, he talks to his parents and his sibling about how he knows that Santa Claus isn’t really real, but yeah. He, he got in that fight at the nativity scene or the Christmas pageant, because there was this jerk kid who was telling all the other little kids that Santa Claus wasn’t real.

And he says, you know, I just wanted to keep the magic for those little kids. I didn’t want it to be spoiled for them. Um, and he, yeah. He’s and then the other family comes in Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Oh gosh. I’m so glad you guys have no idea. Accidents all over the freeways and meth have been crazy talk radio for six hours.

We brought you a little taste of home though. Didn’t we? Oh, wow. Thank you. It looks wow. You’re welcome. Let me move it, move it. We don’t have to keep the traffic jam going. Now. Let me help you.

Thanks Tommy. But with the night off, don’t worry about it. And it’s the mom and the dad, and then they’ve got. Three kids or four, four kids, four kids. Yeah, there, I think our twin girls that the dad apparently wanted boys. And so he’s pretty much tomboy them up as much as possible. And that’s kind of a running game then.

There’s and they’re the oldest, I think then there’s one younger boy, um, who doesn’t speak at all in the movie. He’s sort of the goofy fat kid who just sits there and stares, Slack jaw did everything that goes on and that’s it. That’s his shtick. And I know it couldn’t have been the same kid because too much time has passed, but he reminded me so much of that kid from trick or treat who gets killed by the principal, very similar appearance.

And then, uh, there’s a baby too, but they all sit down well for their first dinner. And of course the family is, you know, kind of making critical remarks about the mom’s food. And, um, the, the two girls, Jordan and Stevie have snatched, unbeknownst to max they’ve snatched his. Letter to Santa Claus and they pull it out and they read it to try to humiliate him, uh, at, at the family dinner.

But what they read is actually so sweet and heartfelt and innocent, I was like, Oh man. Yeah. Well, and what’s interesting about it is it’s not like your typical letter to Santa. Like Santa gave me this and it gave me that it’s like a prayer, right. He’s Santa is sort of this day-to-day to him. That sort of captures this Christmas spirit, this sort of, uh, I don’t know, I’m sort of like a secular God that he can pray to because in this letter, he’s, he’s written down really what he wants, but just his thoughts and his feelings about his family wishes for them.

Right. It’s not material things. It’s not, you know, I want a pony and I want a video game. He’s asking for things for his family. You know, he asks. For something. He asked that, uh, he and his sister could spend time together. The way that they used to, he asks that his parents could fall back in love with one another.

The family that has come to visit, he says, I know they’ve really been having a hard time. I wish that you could help them in some way over the next year. He really doesn’t ask for anything for himself, except for, I just want Christmas to go back to the way that it used to be. And then at the end, his very last thing is, and thank you for giving me OMI.

Um, so it’s a really, really. Sweet sweet letter. You know, it just kind of gets tarnished because then he’s embarrassed and, and they kind of explode, but for a moment there, it sort of gives everyone pause. Right. And that’s, it’s interesting this family that is so at each other’s throats and really brutally, I mean that honestly, If I were to sort of fault the script for anything, I would say that maybe it was just a little over the top with how direct and pointed everyone’s criticisms were for each other.

There was really no diplomacy in this family at all. Um, and the aunt who comes in, uh, and the uncle bring in there. It’s the aunt of the, of, of Max’s mother. Right. And she’s just wants to hit the booze all the time, but she’s extremely brutal. Oh, right. She doesn’t even want to be there. Yeah. And she’s played by Conchita Farrell who, uh, is hilarious.

Concerta Farrell. Excuse me. She’s been in so much stuff. She’s this large woman. What I know her most from, which is embarrassing. It’s a terrible show, but two and a half men, she was the maid on two and a half men throughout its whole run. And she plays that brassy brazen character. And does it really well here, but you know, you say over the top, but, and I think that it was okay.

But not so much under the top, over the top that it didn’t kind of ring true. Maybe you just have a much nicer family than mine then, you know, you know, sometimes there’s that aunt, you know, or maybe the great aunt who’s a little bit crotchety or something who will tell you that you’re. Turkey’s dry or, or, you know, the meal wasn’t as good as when she used to make it or something along those lines, it felt.

And at some point after the letter incident, the dad comes up to talk to max who is upset and says, you know, why do we have to hang out with these people? Just. Because we share DNA and he says, well, that’s what holidays are about. You know, it’s about spending time with people. You try to be friends with, even though you don’t have much in common.

Yeah. And they said, that’s what family is about. Right. Yeah. And there’s a, there’s a truth to that. You know, we, we love our families and we do want to spend time together, but sometimes yeah. It does pose challenges because you don’t always share the same values or the same lifestyle or whatever. Yeah, it’s interesting.

It just highlights that point about the holidays, where we feel this obligation to get together with our families. And it’s usually the same year after year and you see the same people and as he points out, these are people we don’t necessarily have much in common with except blood. Right. Yet we.

Obligate ourselves to get together every year, even though it’s perhaps going to be really painful. Well, and I think that that, and maybe I’m trying to read too much in it, but I really don’t think so. You know, I think that was part of the message. We shouldn’t feel obligated. You know, we should feel happy and glad to be able to spend times with the ones we love, even if we don’t always agree.

And I think that the fact that they don’t appreciate it. One another, and they don’t claim to the holiday spirit. That’s what gets them in trouble. You know, this, this really feels like a morality. Oh yes. Kind of movie. And it’s funny, you know, in, in one of the opening scenes, somebody is watching, it’s a wonderful life.

And I hadn’t really thought about this so much, but I was reading an interview that, uh, uh, Dardy, what’s his first name? The director. Do you remember? I can’t remember Michael. Yeah, I think so. Michael darty. Yeah, he was quoted as saying a Christmas Carol, and it’s a wonderful life. Our nightmares that show you these broken characters who experience a darker side of divine intervention.

They need to be scared straight. And I had never really thought about that before. I mean a Christmas Carol and it’s a wonderful life really. You know, those are kind of nightmare scenarios and that’s what happens here. You know, these people don’t honor the spirit of Christmas and they’re thrust into this nightmare to kind of teach them a lesson.

Yeah, exactly. And it does a really good job of setting. I mean, it’s pretty explicitly set up that way. I think after the opening credit sequence, we talked about the very next thing you see is that black and white Ebeneezer Scrooge, and the guy saying you will be visited by the ghost of the Jacob Marley and it pans out.

And the whole time I was thinking, okay, Uh, clearly it’s it’s foreshadowing. It’s setting us up for what kind of movie this is going to be. Okay. And it was true in a way, right? Yeah. Um, it definitely played with your expectations there as well, which I’m sure we’ll talk about later, right? Yeah. It was really interesting.

So at that point, the kid goes upstairs and he does this sort of symbolic gesture of ripping up the letter and throwing it out into the wind. And that’s what sets everything. Right. Right. It’s like in Mary Poppins, the pieces of his letter float off, up into the sky and all of a sudden, these. Ominous dark clouds, just start rolling in at a wicked pace.

And from then on and on, it’s pretty brutal. You know, we live in Missouri and we’ve been through some pretty brutal winters, but this is like, I never want to see this kind of storm in our house. It’s taken across the whole neighborhood. The lights are out pretty much. The electricity is out for the rest of the movie.

Yeah. The snow is so thick. You can’t see six feet in front of you. They don’t know what to do. They can’t call anyone on their cell phones. They can’t even get the radio there, no TV. They’re truly stuck there together for us to try to get along or make the best of the situation. At the same time, his older sister wants to go visit her boyfriend and see if he’s okay.

Cause she’s worried because she’s texted them several times and he hasn’t texted back and he just lives down the block. So she asked permission to go and you know, they’re a little, the parents are a little skeptical, but they figure she’ll be fine. It’s just down the block. Go on and then only be an hour and come back.

And this is only, maybe not even 15, 20 minutes into the movie. I mean, it doesn’t take very long to get to the scary stuff. And, uh, you know, she’s walking down the street and it’s presumably daytime, but just out of nowhere, it goes almost completely dark. Like it falls into the darkness of nighttime and Crump appears, you know, we don’t have to wait for the end of the movie to get a reveal.

The sister turns and sees on the rooftop. This kind of shrouded haunted figure, um, and, and she’s frightened and she turns around and starts running home. And crumpets starts running along the rooftops, leaping from rooftop to rooftop chasing her. And I thought, well, she has to get away. She has to get, but you know, this is the sister and the sister has been nice.

You know what I, what I’m thinking, you know, the lore of Krampus is that kind of the anti Santa Claus in that, uh, Santa Claus rewards, children who are good and crumpets. Punish his children who are bad. And I thought, well, the sister hasn’t been bad. You know, she’s been pretty nice up to this point. She’ll be fine.

Nope. No. Yeah. You really expect her to be the one to run back and say, Hey, I something’s going out there, but she’s the first one to get it. And it’s not only does it beat out that Santa Claus Krampus Lord, but it also is totally against sort of your horror film lore. You know, this person who hasn’t really done anything wrong right back, she’s been the only one who’s sort of stood up for him and said, I don’t worry about, you know, what’s going on.

Boom. Yeah, she’s a she’s and that’s it. She’s gone. Uh, and so then, you know, it goes back to the house and the family starts to worry because night has, and, and the daughter hasn’t come back. The, the dad and the uncle decided that they’re going to go out to look for, and they go out in the snow and very dark and very cold.

They find the boyfriend’s house, which is all in a shambles. And there is a gingerbread man. Stabbed into the refrigerator with a butcher knife. And the uncle makes some sort of comment, like whoever did this as a real psychopath or something along those lines. Uh, and they noticed that the chimney has been demolished.

It seems like it’s been destroyed from the inside and the uncle speculates that it must’ve been a gas explosion we serve do because they have these giant hoof prints to also, uh, right. Contend with it right down there at the bottom of this, they obviously get terrorized by the bus. The uncle almost gets pulled away.

Um, but, uh, the dad who at this point is really played against the uncle as the sort of he’s the Democrat, the uncles, the Republican, in a sense, the uncles are really all about that’s guns. He’s all about go on the gut. Let’s go out there. Let’s be bold. And, uh, the dad is more of a, let’s take this easy.

Let’s, let’s be careful. And as often happens in films, the dad sort of gets his. Moment to use the gun, to defend the uncle, which gives the uncle some, some respect for him finally, and sort of shows the dad, Hey, I can step up to the plate and actually come to it at that same time, that scene. I think I realized in that scene that this movie was going to be more than I expected because.

They didn’t play it. One note, you know, it wasn’t just one monster, you know, Krampus, wasn’t just acting alone. There were a lot, he had, you know, lots of little helpers and, um, when the uncle almost gets taken, it’s almost like one of the sand worms in trimmers or something like that. Something going under the snow and grabbing people from underneath and pulling them away.

And I thought now I have no idea what to expect. You know, I have no idea where this is going to go and it’s. You know, pretty legit they play it. Straight for the horror, for the most part, in those, in those scary moments. And it is pretty scary. It is, you know, I was sitting here wondering, because I actually had a friend of mine.

I told her I was going to see this movie. And she said, Oh, my five-year-old is, is so all about Krampus right now. And I’m, and I’m thinking, Oh, you don’t, do you think you’re going to take them to see the movie? And she said, I don’t know, maybe. I mean, he seen Jurassic park, those movies, you know, when people are sort of getting torn apart in there.

And I said, well, yeah, but. It’s not like graphically, they’re getting torn apart. And honestly, it’s not very graphic in this movie either, but there’s a different tone in this film. And I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it’s Christmas time, sort of a sensitive time of year and it’s a family time of year.

And what you’re really seeing here is the ripping and tearing apart of a family. And I. I feel like for a child that would be rather disturbed. I think so, too, you know, it might also go over kids’ heads. You know, they may not be as disturbed by it as we are, because I think we kind of know more about family dynamics and whatnot.

Five years old is awfully young. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t take my file now. Maybe your 12 year old, your 13 year old, but even then it’s kind of scary and I would be okay. I don’t know, it would depend on the sensibility of your, of your kid. You know, I think I would have been the kind of 12 or 13 year old who would have really thought this was really cool.

Um, but I think that, you know, the kind of deconstruction of all of these. Nice Christmas images and whatnot. That could be a little troubling for younger, a little bit less mature feels like the thing that could kind of stick with you for a little while. And it would also be the thing that you would make enough parallels with in life.

Oh, you know, the next time you see a little toy robot or you see a toy Teddy bear, you’re baking your gingerbread cookies. All of these elements come in to sort of be. Evil in this, as part of Krampus has helpers, I could see where it could spur some nightmares that you know, that, uh, you know, if you’re concerned about that sort of thing, frankly, I think he could give me nightmares.

I mean, it’s, it’s some pretty scary stuff, you know, now once the data and the uncle get back to the house at that point, it kind of becomes like a home invasion kind of thing, because they’re all just kind of trapped in the house. They don’t know what’s going on. At one point they hear scurrying on the roof, uh, and they try to explain it away as.

Squirrels, but then there’s a big loud thud and they still just kind of try to ignore it. But the grandmother OMI warns the father makes sure you keep the fire hot, make sure you keep the fire hot. Um, but then of course the uncle says, he’ll take, watch. He falls asleep. The fire goes out and this hook comes down.

The, a, this was a great scene and the hook comes down the fireplace and it’s got it’s on a chain and it’s got jingle bells and tied to it almost like. Tied up for ransom or something. Is this gingerbread cookie and the little dopey kid who only eats all the time and doesn’t talk wakes up first and he goes, and he grabs the cookie and he takes a bite out of it.

And then all of a sudden it comes to life. It comes to life and it jumps on him and it wraps them all up in the chains and it pulls him up through the chimney and the family tries to stop him, but it gets him, you know, it keeps getting people and it’s, and, and, you know, I expect this sort of moment where, Oh, you still realize the kid’s still alive, but he’s, uh, he’s just been taken and he, you know, they’re going to eventually go back and sort of rescue all these kids from the Krampus.

That never really comes. Now you realize no, the crop has taken these people and they’re never gonna see them again. Um, and that, yeah. Is where the tone, the tone of the movie shifts a little bit, probably you were feeling a little bit of gremlins throughout. Oh, definitely. Definitely. Especially with the gingerbread men appear several times and they have the giggly kind of gremlin thing going on.

We should have gone to my brothers. Well, it was similar to gremlins. Definitely the first one, you know, the CQL played for the comedy, but the original gremlins really, and parts was, was genuinely quite scary and violent. And it really shocked a lot of parents. I know my mom and dad, when they, you know, we, I think we saw gremlins in the theater, at least that’s what I remember.

And, uh, it definitely shocked them a little bit that this movie was a PG even, maybe I don’t remember. I think it was listed as PG at the time, if, maybe because PG 13, wasn’t it wasn’t even around. It really wrote that line where I know it probably gave a lot of kids, nightmare me to death. I’ve told you the story of my parents took me to see it in that scene where the first gremlin escapes in the lab and, and the.

Scientists reaches for the phone and the gremlins clock comes out. I don’t know how, how old I was when I came out, I want to say like six, seven, and I screamed, jumped up in my chair and spun around backwards in my chair. It definitely does have that kind of feel legit, scary stuff. It’s scary. And even a little gross at times.

Um, grandma’s actually probably grocer probably, you know, when he’d get gremlins, getting blown up in the microwave and they throw them into the blender, you know, and all those sorts of scenes. Uh, definitely not the kind of things you expect from a kids movie and here, you know, the victims really mostly just get taken away.

You don’t really see what happens to them. There is one point where another of, you know, Krampuses little tools is that he kind of dropped a Trojan horse on their, on their front porch the first day after the wish is this big Santa bag. And they take it in the house. And later on in the movie, The toys burst out and they’re demonic toys and this, um, uh, this giant clown Jack in the box swallows one of the twin girls.

And that’s really kind of the only time you actually see anything actually happened. To somebody and all, you really see there is the girl’s shoes going down into the gullet. Um, for the most part, other than that, it’s, it’s people just being dragged away. Uh, which I think is just, just scary. Yes. Oh yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s interesting.

How they really pull no punches in these toys. You’ve got that Jack in the box that you just described, that when it opens its mouth, its mouth kind of comes apart in sections. And it has these rows of teeth in there is pretty horrified. The Teddy bears got these giant rows of teeth and is pretty relentless and attacking.

Um, there’s a Christmas tree angel. Oh my gosh. I was like total demonic, like puppet master, kind of a bride of Chucky kind of. Kind of look to her, very scary, but also kind of isn’t it something you’d like to have  it’s a really cool design. I have to admit. Yes. And as you said, did not pull the punches in the horror department at all, but still they inject quite a bit of comedy.

I mean, the idea of this kid getting swallowed by this giant Jack in the box is pretty inherently funny. And then when you see this sort of lurching across the floor with it in its stomach, I was even thinking back to, uh, Oh, you know, beetle juice does it a nightmare before Christmas, when the giant snake eats the whole tree and you see the giant tree in there, you know, this thing like tr starts crawling through the vent where the duct work in the house and they send the dog after it.

There’s some moments where the dog has. It’s kind of funny how this little dog, who’s basically just been a log throughout the whole movie suddenly jumps up and surprisingly dispatches one of the. Gingerbread man. That was a great scene. Yes. That was really funny. Yeah. And it goes after him, uh, some really funny, cute, hilarious moments in the midst of this really pretty spooky stuff.

And, and there are some, uh, funny little one-liners just kind of dropped here and there. I can’t think of any off the top of my head, but, uh, they are funny and there are definitely are funny moments, but I would say that this is one of, you know, the comedy here. Is as dark as I’ve seen it in quite a while.

I mean, it’s not, it doesn’t bring you out of the scariness. You know, there were times when we laughed out loud, um, some funny stuff, but it doesn’t break the tone of, uh, of the darkness. Some subtle, funny things in there too. One of my favorite parts is when they’re like we got a board up the windows and stuff and the next scene.

They are they’re, they’re a middle-class couple in this almost like McMansion of a house suddenly has access to all these giant boards. And it looks like Barnwood or something. Like it’s not like two by fours. It’s easy. The old weathered stuff. I kind of wondered about that. They pull this crap from the basement, but it’s what you’d expect in a movie like this, you know, it’s very night of the living dead.

It had these random scraps of wood up there, uh, rather silly. Uh, but. You know, I chuckled at that. Yeah. I liked it. It didn’t bother me at all. No, no. I thought, you know, as, as far as tone goes, like you said earlier, a little uneven, I don’t think so. You know, I, I feel like they got exactly what they were going for and it resonated with me.

I liked it a lot. Well, people just get dispatched. We can’t go anywhere. It’s too dangerous. You got it. Howard. How much ammo do you have? A couple of shelves, still loaded, maybe a dozen in my pocket. Why? I think our best bet is to stay put. Board up all the doors and windows. And as soon as the weather breaks, we’ll go.

I told you we should have gone to my brother, Howard Christmas on a pig farm. Jesus was born in apart and we should talk about the old OMA. OMA. Oh, Oh yeah. Oh me. Yeah. Only probably talk about OMI for a second because she’s the one who really lays out the crop is legend to them right after the whole hook in the fireplace thing, they obviously know something messed up is going on.

And, uh, OMI who has only spoken German up to this point, speaks English. And that’s one of, you know, the little, uh, Yeah, Concetta, ferals. The aunt says English. I knew it. You funny, but then she relates this story and Oh my God was this one of my favorite parts of the movie. They go to this flashback sequence from Army’s childhood and it’s all done in Claymation.

And it’s gorgeous. I was thinking if they had chosen to do the whole movie in this style. I would have been absolutely thrilled. Yeah, it was, it was amazing. And the movie lended it well to that style, actually, you know, and again, a little bit more of that nightmare before Christmas aspect kind of coming in.

And what I thought was neat about that was they even played with that style. It was interesting that the girl, uh, OMI in the, in the story was pretty three-dimensional and all the adults in her world were these dark, um, two dimensional, almost paper cutout figures that were coming in and the 3d world.

And then even the crumpets. Her story was that she had gone through something very similar to max where, you know, their village had fallen on hard times. Her parents were struggling and eventually she just, you know, she tried to hold on to the spirit of Christmas, but eventually she just gave up. She gave up hope and the exact same thing happened to her.

Krampus came, took all of her family and left her. She says, as a reminder, Never to lose hope and the spirit of Christmas. Uh, and of course that’s important because it’s exactly what’s going on here. And, and because she’s been through it before, she can kind of give us the exposition and let us know what’s going on, even though it really doesn’t need much experts.

No, you kind of know what’s going on. You’re just wait. Actually, you’re just waiting for, I mean, you’re just like, is this the time when she’s going to come in and tell us, wait a minute. Nope, not yet. Well, she’s remarkably silent through all this until she has slowly needs to be, but he leaves a rebel. The bill that says Crump has written on it.

And that, that is his token to her and she pulls that out. Right. And they all kind of stare at it. So, yeah, that was, that was interesting. Uh it’s like, uh, the polar express sort of flipped on its head. Yeah. Kind of, yeah. I mean the, like you said, the little girl who me, she had kind of a core line kind of look, it was that kind of animation.

Um, But yeah, I mean the whole thing was visually cool. I feel like I may be repeating myself, but I think I got off on a tangent. The Crump has himself is just in silhouette too. He looks kind of like a black, uh, paper cutout in front of this lurid fire. And you can just kind of see his eyes. And as he’s walking out, one of the eyes winks at her.

And so she’s left, she’s been through this before. Yup. So she tells them this and the, and the father, they basically sorta decide we’re up against, uh, you know, something we can’t deal with here in our house. We need to get out of the house, which may or may not be the smartest move that I can remember.

That came before, after the elves broken, that was before. And it was funny because they decide we have to get out. But as soon as they opened the door, they know they’re not going anywhere because as soon as all of this. Started snowmen started popping up in the yard, these very kind of creepy looking snowman and, uh, My understanding was that these snowman were representative of the victims.

Is that accurate? You know, I didn’t think because there was only one first and then the, they found, um, or I think the, the daughter right before she was dispatched, didn’t she find a guy killed in his truck or something. And then she was attacked and then another one appeared. And then I know when the little boy got pulled up the chimney and this is when they, I tried to go outside the, his dad, Howard walks out and sees a smaller snowman and says, Oh, a little Howie.

And then they see these dark creepy, uh, shapes, giggling and running back and forth behind the snowman. And they, they just have to go back in and like scrap that plan, forget that. And then, uh, eventually that is a moment where they turn around and go, Oh God, elves or something in there. The elves burst in through the window.

Oh God. On the elves are terrifying. They’re in, you know, they’re in rags. Um, they’re not tiny, you know, they’re, they’re kind of like short statured, but not tiny. And they’re, so you don’t even know what these look like. Right. And you’re pretty much left your imagination, which was a good call. You know, it was just like keeping the Krampus sort of in silhouette, kind of in the distance, seeing bits and pieces of him until the very end.

Was it another very good call. I agree. And you know, one of the things interesting that I read was, um, in an interview with the director, the director said something about keeping some of Krampuses nature, a secret, and the interviewer said, But you show him full on at the end of the movie. I mean, we see what he is and the director said, Oh, well, that’s a little secret.

I’m keeping, I can’t say anything about it. Just in case there’s a sequel. It looked to me like Krampus was wearing a mask too, which is very reminiscent of trick or treat with Sam. You know, you kind of assume all the way through the movie that. That burlap sack head is his head, but at the end he takes it off and he’s got kind of this demonic alien, uh, look, it made me think that that may be the case with Krampus too.

And maybe hopefully that these two worlds, you know, exist in the same world that the trick-or-treat world and the Krampus world, they’re kind of. Um, the same universe, sort of a holiday, a horror universe. That’d be great. Next, we got the rabbit Easter bunny, you know, just keep bringing these characters in.

That would be nice. It was, it was a good choice. It was a very good choice. And they, they elves drag out the, the great aunt, great aunt who comes in and nobody really liked anyway, but she kind of stepped up to the plate after a little while I was, there was a fun moment where she got to. Have some shotgun action and it was fun and funny, but right after that she’s gone, you don’t tell them hater.

And from there on the movie really goes pretty quickly by the father breaks out his map and says, we’ve got to get here to the mall. And that’s where I thought, I thought, Oh, there’s gonna be a showdown at the mall. It’s gonna make another sort of statement on the holiday, you know, consumption and all that.

Nah, it doesn’t really know. They don’t get very far at all. And this was to me, the scariest part of the movie when the family, and it’s really, we’re now sort of down to what I’ll say, the good father and the good mother and a max we’ve been following out through this whole thing. One of the two sisters who’s left and the aunt is the uncle there.

Well, yeah, I, you know, I don’t remember when he goes. That’s I think he’s still there at that point. I think so. And, uh, they all basically typically join hands and try to brave through the ideas, to get out to the snowplow, start the snowplow and drive out to this mall and hole up there where presumably they’ll be away from their dangerous house and maybe be in a place where they have more resources and in our burial fight.

And chrom has just picked them off one by one, almost in quick succession, just this vision of, and again, we’re back to sort of the sand person Krampus or, or helper or whatever that just sucks. These people under one at a time. So max is sitting here and he’s watching each member of this family slowly get pulled away and they say their goodbyes to each other, essentially.

I mean, the father, the mother’s just sort of standing there, like she knows what’s going to happen. And she says, I love you. And she’s pulled under the snow and the father, like sort of turns around and faces it sort of steadfast closes his eyes poop. He’s pulled under. Um, and it’s just down to max, who is this kid who’s probably never been behind the wheel of a car.

Uh, has tried, got to try to start the snowplow. I mean, it’s ridiculous. There’s no way he’s going to get out of this. Um, And it’s down to him. Yeah, it does. It happens so fast. You know, people are getting picked off left and right throughout, you know, there’s never really any lull, but then right there at the end, when they realized they have to leave the house, because the elves have attacked, Krampus is coming, like he’s coming down the chimney, they have to get out.

And from then on you’re right. It’s just, boom, boom, boom. They are just gone until max is the last one. And I thought that scene was interesting too, even right up to before they left the house, I feel like early on in the movie. Somebody had said something about part of Christmas being about sacrifice.

Yes. I have said repeatedly in there. Yeah. I think the sacrifice of giving. Right. And in fact, the grandmother, when she’s talking about the crumpets legend sort of ends it when she talks about the bell and says he left the bell with me to remind me of the sacrifice of giving. You know, which is an interesting take on giving that you don’t think about, you think about giving, warming your heart and when you give to people, uh, it gives back to you.

But here they’re highlighting the fact that when you give you’re giving something up, you’re sacrificing something. And that is a take that. You really hear it, especially in a holiday movie when it’s supposed to, everything you do is supposed to warm your heart. Right. But, uh, you know, it kind of makes sense, you know, that is the true spirit of giving, you know, it’s, it’s, uh, you know what you’re talking about, you know, it would be a selfish to give just because you’re going to receive good feelings.

That’s exactly what I meant. And, and there at the end, You kind of get a sense of not even necessarily that these people were such bad people, that they need some kind of absolute redemption, but you feel like they get a little bit of redemption and realizing that they have to sacrifice Boomi when everybody else runs out, Boomi stays behind and locks herself in, and she’s going to try to confront the Krampus herself.

You know, the little boy says to the dad, who’s trying to get her to come out. You know, she, she wants to help. She’s going to face, she’s going to face them head on. Um, and she does, but it doesn’t. Work. And then, you know, when they’re running away and the sand monsters are coming, the dad is trying to hold them off.

He’s got this shotgun, but he realizes he’s not going to be able to hold them off. And so he turns to the mom and tells her, go take them and go get in the car and drive and don’t look back and she’s reluctant, but she goes, you know, and that’s kind of his sacrifice. And then as they’re running to the truck, the mother makes sure that she gets.

As many of the kids in the truck before she gets in and she’s able to get max and the one remaining twin girl, she’s able to get them in there. And yet she kind of looks into Max’s eyes and says, I love you as she is grabbed and taken away too. So you know, the adults here and they just go, boom, boom, boom.

They’ve kind of sacrifice themselves to try. To save the kids, even though ultimately it doesn’t work out. Yeah. Oh, and it’s a very bleak moment. I mean, to me, that was just so bleak and that was where I didn’t expect this movie to go was really to the heart of. It was a very depressing thing. I don’t know if you felt the same way, but I, to me that was the core, you know, when you’ve reached sort of the core of my heart, the core of my emotions and where you’ve been taking me through this film the whole time, wow.

They’re not going to outrun this thing. They know they’re not going to outrun this thing and they just give themselves to it. Well, and there is. You know, I think as can kind of be expected with this kind of movie kind of a twist at the end. And I feel like this is the point. We’ve already said a lot about what happens, but at this point, if you haven’t seen the movie, which I hope you haven’t listened to this without seeing the movie first anyway, but if you haven’t and you don’t want to know ultimately how things turn out, turn it off here, because this is really kind of the turning point.

Yeah. We have to talk about this. Right? So at this point it is straight out. You think anyway? Oh, okay. We’re looking at a retelling of a Christmas care. Yeah. Where grandpa’s in all of his cronies are he has a sleigh, his sort of demand. Yeah. Which is nightmarish. Yeah. Oh gosh. Everything about it. I mean, like I said before, Four.

It just takes everything that you think about Santa Claus and flips it and makes it dark and ugly and scary. And that sleigh with those beasts that are, I guess, his, his reindeer, um, very, very frightening. And the, the creepy elves crawling all over it. Um, his demonic toys in the bag, in the back. Super.

Yeah, super scary. He’s got the, the girl that, you know, he was in the truck with obviously tied up in the back. Basically you get the sense that he’s ready to usher all their souls away. Right. And, uh, uh, Krampus has walks up to max and looks at them and you’re thinking, Oh, is he going to get him to. And he hands him a present and his present is, is this the bell?

It’s the bell. And it’s wrapped in the shreds of his Christmas letter. Yeah. Yes. And he, he just drops it on the ground in front of him. Like, here you go. And you did this, this is all you’re doing. He picks it up and chroma starts to walk away and he looks at it and he said, he looks at him, which is exactly what you think is going to happen.

I want my family back and he rejects it. Right. Throws it on the ground. The crown starts to crack open this big pit going into hell, you know, and then, and you’re thinking, Oh, okay. You know, it’s going to swallow. Crop is what’s going to happen. You’re really guessing through this whole time, but you sort of think you have it figured out.

Right. And you know what I’m thinking is. Okay. He’s, he’s gonna give us the relief, you know, uh, and, and what max does is he says, you know, I don’t want this. He says, I just want my family back. Just give me my family back. Um, and he doesn’t really get any response. And so when he doesn’t get any response, he says, okay, then take me instead.

Um, and you think it’s going to be, you know, this kind of act of ultimate sacrifice for him. And it, it seems for a second. That Krampus might be considering it, you know, max is pleading with him, please, please. I take my wish back. I, I want my family back. Um, and you think for a moment, That it’s going to be that movie.

Oh, because it delves right into the cheesy myths of what that is and all the movies, he cries a tear and Crump, his big bite fingers sort of wipes his tear away. And, and at that moment I was starting to get a little disappointed. I was like, well, I guess it had to end this way, but yeah, I’ve seen that before.

Right. And then he just laughs it turns around. Thrill is the, the, the remaining girl into the pit and then picks him up, dangles him over that pit, drops him in. And what were you thinking? I. Kind of expected what happened next to happen? Me too, because it’s screwed. Right, right. That’s right. You know, it’s that last thing where, you know, in a Christmas, Carol, the, it looks like the third ghost to, is the ghost of Christmas future represents death.

Um, it seems like Scrooge is going to meet his demise, but then he wakes up and it’s Christmas morning. And everything is fine. Like nothing ever happened. You know, the, the house is restored. Everything is, you know, it’s bright, sunny, beautiful day outside. And he goes downstairs to find his family intact.

Seemingly unaware of everything that happened friendlier than ever friendlier than ever, you know, passing out hot chocolate is still, you know, there’s a little bit of a little, you know, little ribbing from the cousins and whatnot, but it’s kind of all in good fun, you know, it’s, it’s that thing where Christmas morning you do kind of just let go of whatever it is, you know, you’ve got a grudge or whatever, it’s Christmas just enjoy it.

And it seems like that’s. Uh, what it’s going to be. And at that point I was thinking, I get it. I understand why they would do this. Um, because you know, it is, it would be really dark to have it in with them, just all being plummeted into hell. I thought, you know, if you know, they went for a PG 13 movie, you know, they could have gone for the heart.

Our trick or treat was a hard art. They could have gone for it, but they didn’t. I was thinking maybe they’re considering their audience and thinking. We don’t want to end it on that note. Oh. And it reinforces the point that they’ve been hammering into your head this whole time. It reinforces the cause and effect the dishonor Christmas.

And this happens, but just like Scrooge sort of dishonors the spirit of Christmas, that Christmas is a time for second chances, you know? And so you learned your lesson, you get a second chance to make things right. And then, and then he opens, he had somebody hands him, a gift, little, little gift that opens it up and inside it’s the Krampus bell.

And he pulls it out and he looks at it and suddenly there’s this really creepy. Everybody starts kind of looking at it. Like they all know what this is. Yeah. Yeah. And you can see the memory or the realization wash over their faces. And they remember what happened the night before, and then it starts to pan out.

Quick quick pan out. And you find that a they’re happy holiday home is now in a snow globe in Krampuses later amidst hundreds of thousands, probably about snow Globes, a similar thing that, uh, That happy ending, just flies right out the window. Do you think it worked? Did I do I do. Um, because I, you know, we you’ve seen that before.

You’ve seen the, Oh, it was all a dream and then, no, not really. It wasn’t all a dream. Um, so it’s not like it’s a, a unique device, but it worked for me. And I, you know, as I was coming to terms with, okay, I get why they did this. Then when they pulled it back to the dark, I was like, okay. Yeah, that’s right.

That’s how it’s supposed to end. Yeah. Yes. Not only did they honor the spirit of Christmas, they honored the spirit of Krampus with this film. Yeah. It was a great way of, I thought put taking your sort of traditional holiday tale, telling it in what. At times it was a very straightforward cookie cutter holiday thing.

Well, and that’s what he was going for. That’s in an, in a interview, the director said, I felt he had been fascinated with Krampus since he was a little kid or the idea of an angle, uh, evil Santa Claus had fascinated since he was a kid and he’d always wanted to make a movie. But he could never really come up with the right approach.

And, and eventually he kind of shelved it for awhile and went with trick or treat and then after trick or treat. And that was a success. He decided to come back to it and he thought, really the only way to do this is to make it a true traditional Christmas movie. And in many ways it is very reminiscent of other Christmas movies and it makes its point.

It just makes its point in a sort of bleak way, which is what it should. I agree. I love this movie. Like I said, I went in with, uh, with high expectations. They were met. It’s maybe not as fast paced and mad cap is trick-or-treat, but it’s, it’s it’s well paced. Um, and the acting is good, you know, especially, yeah.

The, the main parents who were played by Adam Scott and Tony Colette and Tony collected a brilliant actress. Anyway, um, I was kind of surprised to see her attached to this film, but I think they must have been aware of the quality of filmmaking that this director is capable and they, you know, they, they, they feel like a real family.

You know, the couple feels like a real couple in the beginning. It’s a little bit strange, but as they kind of go through these trying times together, you really feel the connection between them and. Feel the affection and love, uh, between them and the same thing with max, the kid, you know, he seems very genuine.

Um, nothing is forced, even the funnier characters, you know, it’s, it’s, well-played it’s well acted. I just thought it was and God the cinema. Oh, Oh man. The colors, the lighting and everything. The contrast of the really bright and happy Christmas at the beginning with full of colors, very saturated look, um, very well lit.

To the interiors, when the lights are out, you still have this sort of warmth coming from the fire and coming from the candles. But there’s a lot of the cold blue in the shadow too starts to creep in. And then of course, when they’re outside, it’s just completely bleak. But what a challenge to shoot. In a snowstorm, firemen, an atmosphere, a to, to make that look the way it does and to make it look.

So it still looks so beautiful. It it’s almost other worldly. Yeah. In the way that trick or treat was, you know, uh, it’s like this. Is a, supposed to be a small American town, but this small American town doesn’t really exist. This is like your idealized version of this small American town. Uh, in a sense, this was sort of your idealized version of a Christmas movie.

Um, the way it was. Yeah, absolutely. And again, I just, it seems like so much care and that’s the same thing we said about trick or treat and it really seems like everybody involved. Wanted desperately for this to be a success. And for me it was a hundred percent. I mean, I would, I would watch and we’ll watch this again.

Um, I have a feeling that this will definitely get a repeat in my holiday rotation from now on. No, definitely. In fact, I think I’m going to take my family to see this when I go visit. A couple of weeks. Yeah. Yeah. My dad would love this. Oh gosh. My nephew. I invited my dad to come with us today, but he, he was unavailable.

He was visiting my sister out of town. Oh, what a shame? Kind of a bummer. Well, we’ve obviously gushed over this film. Please go out and check it out. If you get the chance this holiday season and celebrate it in a slightly different way. Yes. Thank you again for listening. If you liked this podcast, please share it with a friend.

Check us out on Facebook. We are actually now up on iTunes, iTunes, and Stitcher, if you want to subscribe to it. So if it’s easier for you to get your podcasts on your iPod or some other device, perfect way to do it as always, you can still go to our website and stream or just download DNP breeze yourself.

We will be back again next week with another Christmas themed horror film. Until then I’m Todd, and I’m Craig. Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas from Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

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