In 2015, Michael Dougherty brought us Krampus, a darkly comedic festive tale with the titular demon terrorising an unfortunate family. A festival hit, Dougherty’s film presented the mythical child-punisher as terrifying adversary, a creature from folklore who could be summoned intentionally or otherwise to deliver (in)justice to his hapless victims. In Krampus Origins he looks like a gym freak who’s glued a couple of horns to his steampunk fancy dress costume.
Set in 1918, the story centres around an orphanage and the accidental summoning of the vengeful beast, and that’s really all you need to know. There is a rambling and largely unnecessary prologue set at the tail end of the war regarding some American soldiers but, like much of what follows, it feels largely like filler as the filmmakers draw out an agonisingly ponderous plot to an unnecessary and rather tedious 86 minutes. Somewhere in Joseph Mbah’s bloated film is a seasonal short story wallowing in a snowdrift of exposition and lingering, overly long fixed camera shots that distance the viewer rather than adding the intended tension.
Drawn out certainly, but the story is also rather confused and character motivations remain largely unclear. One of the older girls is set up as a spiritualist, all potions and spells, but how an orphan would acquire all the trinkets and ingredients she possesses is never addressed. The nuns are largely peripheral and there is a bullying thread that is included to deliver a final act pay-off but never feels truly earned. You never really know enough about any of them to care, so when Krampus does begin offing the unfortunates there is no sense of peril.
One particular irritant is the sound quality. For large periods of the film, characters sound like they have a bag over their head. Either through bad design or a lack of care, this provides a further distraction and serves to distance you further from the film.
Every year it seems there is another Krampus film churned out by filmmakers keen to cash in on the horned one’s strange popularity. While Krampus Origins is not as bad as some – note Krampus: The Christmas Devil (2013) as a particular low point – it provides little hope that there is a cinematic future for the character. Apart from Dougherty’s film, Krampus has been used woefully as producers and directors seek to cash in on anything remotely seasonal. Perhaps it’s time to leave this particular character alone.
KRAMPUS ORIGINS / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: JOSEPH MBAH / SCREENPLAY: ROBERT CONWAY / STARRING: MARIA OLSEN, ANNA HARR, AMELIA HABERMAN / RELEASE DATE: TBC
