Krampus movie review (2025) | Little White Lies

Kram­pus

04 Dec 2015

A man wearing a jumper stands in a dimly lit room, lit by the warm glow of a fireplace.
A man wearing a jumper stands in a dimly lit room, lit by the warm glow of a fireplace.
3

Anticipation.

’Tis the season...

3

Enjoyment.

Fun while it lasts.

2

In Retrospect.

Can think of far better things than spending Christmas with the Krampus.

Adam Scott and Toni Col­lette have a Christ­mas to for­get in this enjoy­able crea­ture feature.

In the spir­it of Grem­lins and oth­er, less­er alter­na­tive fes­tive fare, Kram­pus con­cerns a white bread fam­i­ly whose Christ­mas descends into chaos after they unwit­ting­ly sum­mon dark forces. Though it lacks the inge­nu­ity and wit of that par­tic­u­lar cult clas­sic, it’s a fun and occa­sion­al­ly thrilling sea­son­al stock­ing filler which boasts a game cast in the shape of Adam Scott, Toni Col­lette, David Koech­n­er and Alli­son Tol­man from TV’s Fargo.

Accord­ing to ancient Ger­man folk­lore, the Kram­pus is a horned demon that vis­its naughty chil­dren on Christ­mas bear­ing not presents but pun­ish­ment (think of it kind of like the anti-San­ta). One issue with Kram­pus the movie is that the epony­mous antag­o­nist is large­ly restrict­ed to the shad­ows – instead a small army of sadis­tic gin­ger­bread men, blood­thirsty ted­dy bears and oth­er anthro­po­mor­phised mer­ry min­ions are sent to car­ry out its evil bid­ding. In prin­ci­ple this absence should cre­ate sus­pense and build intrigue; in prac­tice it achieves neither.

The main prob­lem here, though, is that it’s nev­er entire­ly clear who the film is for. While old­er genre fans will most like­ly dig the Joe Dante vibe, Kram­pus is ulti­mate­ly far too intense for younger view­ers. A dash more com­e­dy might have result­ed in a sol­id piece of fam­i­ly enter­tain­ment. As it is, direc­tor Michael Dougher­ty has suc­ceed­ed in deliv­er­ing a curi­ous crea­ture fea­ture that’s more unwant­ed gift than sur­prise package.

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