Krampus

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Michael Dougherty/Starring: Adam Scott, Toni Collette, David Koechner, Conchata Ferrell, Emjay Anthony and Stefania LaVie Owen

In this season of manufactured goodwill and canned cheer comes a comedy/horror flick called Krampus; which proves to be neither funny nor scary. The film seems like a Hollywood studio's anemic attempt at cynicism and mordant satire. It at least takes a stab until the film's sentimental message about family unity and happiness surfaces. I'm not a fan of family-gathering holiday movies. I can't think of one that is worth the time or admission price. A recent film in this this woeful genre was Love the Coopers, which got its ass heaved from the multiplexes before it could wither and rot (I guess no one really loved the Coopers, eh?). Krampus Wants to be darker but the story clings too stubbornly to genre conventions.

Two families gather for the Christmas holiday season. One of the families; nuclear and typically suburban, play host to their relatives; a course, uncultured family of gun enthusiasts who couldn't be more unlike the people putting them up. The host-father; Tom (Adam Scott), is the antipodal version of his wife's brother-in-law Howard (David Koechner). Where Tom is refined and liberal-seeming, Howard represents conservatism and maleness at its most brutish. Even his daughters; a tough pair who make fun of Tom's son Max (Emjay Anthony) for writing a letter to Santa, seem more like Howard than their mother Linda (Allison Tolman), who is sister to Tom's wife Sarah (Toni Collette). The family's initial contact is awkward and unpleasant as Howard and his family show little but disdain for their hosts. Even their initial dinner together becomes one of discord as Howard complains about the food. Adding another dysfunctional element to the mix is Sarah's Aunt Dorothy (Conchata Ferrell), who makes herself an unwelcome presence from the get go.

Howard's family is but one problem Tom's family faces, as his own threatens to fracture from its own lack of unity. The lack of inter-familial connection and a general feeling of malaise becomes the prevailing mood. Just when relations couldn't become more strained, the neighborhood suffers a power-outage during a blinding snowstorm. When Tom's daughter, Beth (Stefania LaVie Owen) sets out for her boyfriend's house after he fails to answer her texts, she sees a monstrous behemoth leaping across house roof-tops, wreaking havoc. Before long, she learns the thing has unholy minions (no, not those minions), who join their master in his agenda of terror. When she fails to return, Tom and Howard set out on their own mission with Howard's arsenal of guns. When the men arrive on the scene, they too encounter the strange creatures; including one that almost drags Howard away. Terrified by what they've seen, the men return home to alert their families. After the family seals themselves in, they eventually learn the creature's identity. Omi, Max's German grandmother, tells them about Krampus; a demon she inadvertently summoned during her childhood; who has returned to unleash hell on the holiday season. The demon's return is supposed to be a kind of reckoning, but for the characters, it serves as an opportunity to unite the family and remind them about the true meaning of Christmas.

Aside from Krampus' imaginative depiction, the movie is just a bore. It is never frightening and hardly (if ever) funny. The syrupy message about family is trite but the writers at least saw fit to give the film a bummer ending. About mid-way through the film, any pretense of being a darkly funny movie gives way to self-seriousness that bleeds all the fun from the story.

Though the film opens with a slo-mo sequence inside a large retail store, where mobs of shoppers snarl and scrap for merchandise on what is presumably Black Friday, the rest of the film doesn't live up to the beginning's nasty promise. Krampus is too timid to go for the throat. Rather than skewering the holiday for all its hypocrisy and phoniness, it really wants to sell us the idea that Christmas really used to be about love and family togetherness.

If the much-anticipated films of the season; The Revenant, Star Wars, Carol or Joy had opened the same day I saw Krampus, I might have waited or not bothered to see it at all. The movie was really just an alternative to The Peanuts Movie; one of the few late Fall releases I just can't summon any interest (or squander dollars) to see. I really hope there isn't a Krampus 2 but as the movie demonstrates, some curses never never die.

The Overnight

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Patrick Brice/Starring: Adam Scott, Taylor Schilling, Jason Schwartzman and Judith Godreche

The Overnight tells the story of a couple newly transplanted to L.A. from their former Seattle home who are eager to make friends in their new surroundings, only to find their endeavor comes with complications. Penned and directed by Patrick Brice, the story's tone shifts slightly from comedy to drama midway through the film and becomes progressively weirder as the narrative unfolds. The psychosexual hang-ups that surface at a get-to-know-you dinner become something to explore rather than lampoon, which the film accomplishes with a light but respectful earnestness.

Adam Scott and Taylor Schilling (Orange is the New Black) play Alex and Emily; former Seattle residents who have just occupied new digs in Los Angeles with their young son. When we first see them, Alex and Emily are in a coital embrace and near climax. She urges him on; directing his pelvic movements but before the act can be consummated, the couple stop to stimulate themselves (for reasons that become clearer later). Their son chooses this moment to barge into the room to humorously interrupt the couple's auto-stimulation.

Anxious about making friends in their new community, we see Alex and Emily discuss the possibilities of meeting new people.
In a subsequent scene, we see Alex watching over his son at a playground. While Alex makes friendly eye contact with other adults, he finds his amiable overtures go unreciprocated. He is relieved when Emily shows up to provide company. While watching their son play with another boy, they see the father approach the two kids. They become puzzled when the father make his way to them while holding up a gummy worm their son offered to the other boy. The father, Kurt (Jason Schwartzman) is indignant about the dietary transgression until he assures Alex and Emily he is only joking. A friendly conversation is struck as Kurt's son plays happily with Alex and Emily's boy. Before long, Kurt invites Alex and Emily for dinner. Seeing it as a opportunity to make friends, they accept.

Alex and Emily show up at Kurt's home, only to find it more luxurious than they anticipated. Alex and Emily meet Kurt's lovely French wife, Charlotte (Judith Godreche) and the evening proceeds swimmingly at first. After pleasant dinner chit chat, Kurt and Charlotte persuade Alex and Emily to allow their son to stay the night to allow the adults children-free time.

We know instinctively that the evening will veer into stranger territory and it does. After Charlotte mentions her dual professions of masseuse and actress, Alex asks if they might have seen her in anything they might know. Eager to show his wife's acting, Kurt plays a DVD of Charlotte in a room with another woman. The woman asks her to remove her shirt and when she does, we also see her pull down her bra while a breast pump is applied. Alex and Emily's stunned reaction is one of the highlights of the film and is quite funny. The evening becomes stranger when Kurt shows Alex his paintings of anuses while Charlotte and Emily chat in the bedroom.

The audience can easily guess at this point where this all might lead, especially after the following scene of the two couples sitting around the pool. A bong is brought out and shared by all, which only intensifies Alex and Emily's suspicion that Kurt and Charlotte may have a swinging agenda, which induces much anxiety. When Kurt decides to swim in the nude, he is joined soon after by Charlotte, who also shares her husband's unselfconscious attitude about swimming naked. Alex and Emily are naturally reluctant and employ several excuses about not wanting to join them. Alex calls Emily inside briefly to discuss the situation and reveals his hang-up about what he feels is an inadequately sized member, which is made more acute when Kurt's prodigiously-sized version is seen by all. When Kurt feels insulted by what he perceives as the couple's disdain for being in the pool with them, Alex explains to everyone present how self-conscious and ashamed he is about his feelings of proportional inadequacy. Feeling reassured by Kurt and Charlotte, Alex strips off his clothes and exuberantly jumps into the pool, while Emily remains in her underwear.

As a strange evening slowly evolves into something bizarre, Kurt coaxes Alex into posing for one of his paintings, albeit with his pants on. Meanwhile, Charlotte and Emily drive to what is presumably a spa-like establishment. Emily discovers to her horror that the place (in the wee hours of the morning, what else could it be?) is more dubious than she thought, particularly after she witness Charlotte perform an act on a stranger.

On returning home, all the doubts and suspicions come to a head when Alex discovers Emily has been concealing dark secrets of her own while he levels accusations at Kurt for wanting sleep with his wife. The truth that emerges is quite surprising, and just when the roil of the evening looks to be dispelled by rapprochement, the film takes another unexpected turn.

The Overnight is hardly spellbinding cinema, but it is funny and daring in a way that few films care to be. It doesn't treat everyone's issues, which are all sex-related, as excuses for adolescent tittering. It instead finds the humor in situations and hopes the audience can commiserate with the character's psychological frailties rather than see them as something to be glibly ridiculed.

The success of any chamber piece is always contingent on the performances, which this quartet delivers expertly. Adam Scott is an actor that can elicit one's sympathy and irritation at the same time. Alex is a nice challenge for him, for many reasons; one being his willingness to appear as an un-endowed man. It's been awhile since I've seen Judith Godreche in any movie but she makes the most of her time here, as does Jason Schwartzman, who in a way plays against type.

I can only give credit to the producers--one of them being Mark Duplass--for having the brass to release the film during the blockbuster-laden summer season. It certainly is welcome relief.

The Overnight isn't a great film, but it is quite satisfying and often funny. A chamber drama is hard to pull off; Brice has managed to mostly succeed with his own. The story suggests that hang-ups are common though diverse in many fascinating ways, even if we may think otherwise.

What might have become a tedious farce is instead a light romp. As the mid-summer movie mark rapidly recedes, it is nice to know that films like Brice's can still be found where we least expect them.