Krampus

For F*** Magazine

KRAMPUS

Director : Michael Dougherty
Cast : Adam Scott, Toni Collette, Allison Tolman, David Koechner, Emjay Anthony, Stefania LaVie Owen, Conchata Ferrell, Krista Stadler
Genre : Horror/Comedy
Run Time : 98 mins
Opens : 3 December 2015
Rating : PG13 (Frightening Scenes)

This Christmas, the weather outside is far from the only thing that’s frightful. Tommy (Scott) and Sarah (Collette) Engel, along with their children Max (Anthony) and Beth (Owen), are gearing up for the annual torture that is their relatives visiting for Christmas. Sarah’s sister Linda (Tolman) arrives with her husband Howard (Koechner), their four children and Aunt Dorothy (Ferrell) in tow. They’re stuck inside with no electricity due to a ferocious blizzard. Tommy’s mother (Stadler) begins acting strangely, as she usually does around Christmas, and soon the family is terrorised by some particularly nasty uninvited guests. It turns out that Max has inadvertently summoned the Christmas demon Krampus, Santa Claus’ evil counterpart, and good cheer is not on the agenda.

            Krampus, the cloaked, horned figure from Germanic folklore who punishes misbehaving children during Christmas, has only recently entered American popular culture. Krampus seems like a natural antagonist for a film of the holiday horror subgenre and we’re getting two this festive season, the other one being a Canadian anthology movie called A Christmas Horror Story. Michael Dougherty, who helmed the acclaimed cult anthology horror film Trick ‘r Treat, wrote and directed Krampus. While he does ensure the film is tonally consistent and doesn’t stray too far into campiness, Krampus is far from the hearty Christmas meal horror fans have been hoping it would be.  

            The Krampus mythology is one that most American audiences wouldn’t be familiar with, and the inclusion of a slightly creepy German grandmother figure hints that the film will dive headlong into the trove of tales surrounding this dark anti-Santa. We do get a haunting animated flashback sequence, but there is very little that makes Krampus and his minions stand out from being run-of-the-mill horror movie monsters. There are some fantastic creature effects furnished by Weta Workshop, but apart from CGI gingerbread men attacking David Koechner with a nail gun, there aren’t any particularly inventive set-pieces to be had. The justification that is given for Krampus selecting this particular family as his target is quite flimsy, and the moral of treasuring one’s relatives in spite of how annoying they might be comes off as half-hearted. The film’s scathing opening sequence is set to Bing Crosby’s It’s Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas and depicts crowds violently jostling each other in a frenzy while Christmas shopping at a mall. It suggests a bitter satirical edge which is not followed up on.

            Scott and Collette play it straight and their steadfastness in refusing to wink and nod at the audience does help the material. Anthony, memorably loveable as Jon Favreau’s on-screen son in Chef, is a convincingly earnest good kid. While none of the performances are terrible, everyone here is a family comedy cliché: we have the harried mother who has to hold the fort when the relatives descend on her home, the teenage daughter who is never more than a minute away from rolling her eyes, the boorish uncle, and the belligerent, alcoholic grandaunt. Austrian actress Krista Stadler does lend the film some texture, keeping “Omi” from being a full-on “creepy grandma” type ala The Visit.

            The first half of Krampus has dysfunctional family members squabbling, the second half has said family members chased through the house by an assortment of Christmas-themed monsters and the ending is vague at best, a howl-worthy cop-out at worst. The Krampus legend has all the makings of a terrific horror flick, showcasing the dark side of a holiday that’s associated with commercialised cheeriness. There are some effective atmospheric touches, such as the incorporation of the already-kinda creepy Carol of the Bells into the soundtrack. At times, the film almost feels like it could be something in the vein of Gremlins, though it lacks the demented energy to reach that level. Unfortunately, Krampus doesn’t make optimal use of the legend and its PG-13 rating does somewhat hamper the scares it can provide.

Summary: There’s talent behind this horror comedy, but the rich, fascinatingly spooky Krampus legend is left largely unmined.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

For F*** Magazine

THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY

Director: Ben Stiller
Cast:         Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Shirley MacLaine, Adam Scott, Kathryn Hahn, Sean Penn, Patton Oswalt, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Comedy
Run Time: 114 mins
Opens: 25 December 2013
Rating: PG

This reviewer looked up a list of songs which contain the word “dream” in the title. We’ve got “Dream a Little Dream”, “All I Have to Do is Dream”, “California Dreamin’”, “Sweet Dreams are Made of This”, “Dream On”, “Daydream Believer”… it seems “dream” is probably just behind “love” on the “most-used words in song titles” chart. The science of dreaming is a fascinating and inexact one and many have become preoccupied with dream interpretation; dreams being associated with escapism and wish fulfilment. Ben Stiller takes on the role of daydream adventure king in this adaptation of James Thurber’s 1939 short story.

Ben Stiller plays the title character, a negative asset manager at Life Magazine. It’s his responsibility to process the photo negatives that will eventually make it into the magazine’s glossy pages, and life can get a little dull. So, he's given to flights of fancy every so often. In real life, he’s too timid to ask co-worker Cheryl Melhoff (Wiig) out, but in his daydreams, he gallantly rescues her dog from an explosion. Enigmatic photojournalist Sean O’Connell (Penn) has sent in his pièce de résistance to be put on the cover of the final physical issue of Life Magazine. Unfortunately, Walter discovers that the negative is lost, and with his mean new boss (Scott) chasing after him, he has to break out of the doldrums of his existence, embarking on a journey across exotic lands and going all carpe diem in search of the prized Negative #25.



In addition to playing the lead, Ben Stiller helms The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. This film is a change of pace from Stiller’s last two films as director, the manic, over-the-top and raucously funny Tropic Thunder and Zoolander. This is a film that purports itself as being more contemplative and more grown up, its title character embarking on a dramatic journey of self-discovery with nary a fat suit-clad Tom Cruise in sight. However, this is very much a conventional crowd-pleaser which barely nudges the mind, let alone provokes it. Beneath the fantastical imagery and the far-flung locales lies the hoary message of “follow your dreams”, addressed in a disappointingly superficial manner.

Yes, there is an appealing aesthetic to the film and cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh has lensed some beautiful images of the lone figure of Walter traversing barren vistas, location filming in Iceland lending plenty of atmosphere. The film also captures the old-timey glamour and romanticism associated with the publication that is Life Magazine. However, it seems that Stiller’s sensitivities as a filmmaker are too commercial for him to truly embrace the weird and wonderful and he always has one foot firmly planted in formula. A film powered by whimsy, at no point does The Secret Life of Walter Mitty effectively sink its teeth into the consciousness of audiences, content to ply viewers with eye-catching sequences bereft of much substance.



Walter Mitty is yet another in a long line of “beleaguered everyman” characters Stiller has portrayed and he does have fun with the part, his most common screen persona meshing with the archetype of the Thurber protagonist. Even though he has fashioned the film as a less juvenile venture, glimpses of somewhat self-indulgent Stiller silliness are more than visible. There's a fantasy action sequence involving a Stretch Armstrong doll and an odd bit paying tribute to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button that seems pretty out of place, even in a film about a daydreamer.

While this is clearly Stiller’s film to carry, he is backed up by an able supporting cast even if they don’t get a lot to do. Kristin Wiig’s Cheryl is sweet and approachable, emphasising Walter’s timidity in how hesitant he is to approach her. Wiig also performs an acoustic cover of David Bowie’s Space Oddity (possibly related to Bowie’s cameo as himself in Zoolander). Adam Scott does make for an effectively unlikeable corporate slime ball, the particular style of facial hair he sports enhancing the “jerk factor”. Sean Penn’s role is small but important to the plot and though this most likely wasn’t anything of a challenge for him, his presence does lend a smidgen of gravitas Stiller himself would be unable to provide.



The Secret Life of Walter Mitty sees Ben Stiller attempt to expand his horizons, the end result being a frothy globe-trotting adventure that is pretty to look at but nowhere near as deep as it would like to be. There are humorous moments that land and Stiller does affect a style that has shades of Michel Gondry, but the film can’t quite connect on an emotional level, the approach to telling the story creating too much of a distance with the audience.

SUMMARY: Conventional in the story it tells in spite of some inventive imagery, Walter Mitty’s isn’t a Life lived to its fullest.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong