You would think that the Christmas holiday is the happiest, most wonderful holiday of the year. A holiday where you and all of your loved ones come together to celebrate family and friends.

No. Not in this film.

Krampus is about a family who haven’t been blessed with getting along and once extended family come to the door of Tom (Adam Scott) and Sarah (Toni Collette), things start to turn a bit a bit sour With Uncle Howard (David Koechner) and Aunt Dorothy (Conchata Ferell) jabbing at Tom, Sarah and their family, everyone loses it. After Max (Emjay Anthony) has written his letter to Santa Claus asking for their family to get along and then realises that he will never get his wish, he tears the letter up and throws it out of his window. Which is when things start to get nasty. Krampus comes to town.

This is a fantastic film, at times the lighting is bad but you hardly notice. One of the brilliant things about this film – and a lot of people would disagree – is the very beginning. The opening credits. It shows a hoard of people racing into a mega store and fighting over Christmas decorations and presents. People are getting punched, crying and screaming and it’s perfect. Because it’s true. Christmas shopping is a horrible nightmare, it’s chaos and it gets people down. It couldn’t have set up the characters and their family environment any better.

Another fantastic element of Krampus is when Omi (Krista Sadler) is telling a story about her experience with the anti-Santa when she was a child. Instead of showing her past with realism and actual cast members, it’s shown through animation and the animation is brilliant. It diverted away from the usual way of showing flashback and it added a good twist.

The monsters are brilliant bur warning! If you don’t like clowns, dolls, or toys coming to life, then don’t watch this film (I’m scared of both clowns and dolls so I was cowering in my seat). Krampus himself was extraordinary. His face was gaunt, his eyes sunken. It wasn’t scary but it was well done.

The ending! It was a huge plot twist. You think that everything is ok, everything is going to be fine, they’re one happy family and they’re going to finally enjoy their Christmas but again, this film surprises the audience and does something that you’re not going to expect.

Overall, this film is incredible. It’s not perfect (the comical gingerbread men were a bit too much of a push) but it’s got a brilliant cast from a range of genres, it’s got the jump-scares and it’s a good horror/comedy Christmas film.