On December 6th, two days after the release of Michael Dougherty’s Christmas-themed horror film Krampus, the movie theater was overcome with hysterical laughter at the hilarity of a terrible movie.

Krampus is based on a piece of German folklore, in which the evil monster, Krampus, a half-goat, half-demonic beast, arises on the sixth of December wearing a chain of bells and swatting naughty children with a bundle of wooden sticks before hauling them off to the underworld.

For years, the tale of St. Nicholas’ evil counterpart has been told to incite fear in the hearts of European kids. In fact, around December 6 each year, a day which has become known as Krampusnacht, German children step outside their houses to see if the boot he had left the night before contains a reward for good behavior, or alternatively, a rod or direct visit from Krampus to punish his bad behaviour.

In Dougherty’s interpretation however, the myth is modernized in an attempt to bring the theme of  “spooky santa” to Western culture. The supposed horror-comedy film follows Krampus’ attack on a family lacking Christmas spirit.  

After Max, a young boy played by Emjay Anthony, is fed up with his emotionally distant father (Adam Scott), pessimistic mother (Toni Collette), and rude, redneck cousins, he declares his hatred towards christmas, summoning Krampus and his adorable assistants and evil elves to terrorize the family.

Although the film is under the horror genre; featuring jump scares and suspense music, few audience members found it frightening or startling. Instead, at scenes which were clearly intended to scare the audience, such as a group of evil gingerbread men attacking Uncle Howard (David Koechner) after soft violin music, and a silent pause, audience members including young children laughed in amusement of the mere stupidity of such a topic.

Now one might use the excuse of child-friendliness in order to justify this movie’s lack of terror quality; in fact, Dougherty addresses this in an interview he had with Bloody-Disgusting magazine:

“One thing’s for sure — Krampus is definitely family friendly. It’s meant to be, I think, a family holiday horror movie,” said Dougherty.

Making Krampus a family movie might have excused its serious lack of potency if only the film was not so unfit for children. With multiple well-dispersed uses of profanity, along with some other foul language, scenes of gory violence, the use and constant glorification of guns, there is no doubt that children should not be taken to see this movie.

This being the case, it appears that Krampus is a failure on every front. As a horror movie, it is not scary. As a family movie, it is not family friendly, and as a comedy, the only humor present is the film’s almost comical lack of effectiveness. 3/10