I should've watched this at the beginning of my movie marathon, closer to Christmas, but it's still cold outside so I thought 'why not'. The frozen Universal Pictures and Legendary logos at the start are a nice touch (I like that kinda thing), followed by a slomo sequence showing carnage at the Christmas sales as the opening titles roll. It's going to be a nice cynical take on the season I thought, but then... It's like National Lampoons Christmas Vacation (a great Christmas movie) meets Gremlins, except not as good as either. Half the cast are vile, hate-filled, gun-toting American idiots, to which you're not in the slightest bit bothered about coming to a grizzly end, thus eliminating any real scares. The best bit is a lovely animated sequence explaining the Krampus story (apparently there's some legit origin folk story at play here), but this is a short-lived respite. There's some freaky CGI puppets but the best Christmas film remains the ever faithful Die Hard.
5/10
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