The movie Krampus, which expands on the old German legend of Saint Nick’s companion, tells a (rather average) tale of how those on the naughty list are punished.

The subjects of the film, a dysfunctional family of 11, are all together for the holidays, and as expected, there is a good amount of tension. It’s only increased by the arrival of an unexpected aunt, who no one in the family likes. Finally, the friction between the gun-toting, rough-and-tumble side of the family and the uptight, Martha-Stewart-decorating side of the family makes for an unpleasant Christmas that everyone is dreading. But when the power goes out, and the antagonists come in, the family is forced to work together to escape (with the least amount of death possible).

The movie really goes and pulls out every trick in the horror movie book. There are evil clown-type things, crazy relatives, demonic toys, electrical outages, family fights, all-knowing grandmothers, clanking chains and more. Even the ending followed a very cookie cutter pattern, although it was suspenseful enough up to that point to make up for it. However, these cliches only persist due to their everlasting quality and constant scares. Although Krampus was not original, it still was a fun movie that had an interesting enough subject to make the cliques tolerable. What’s not to love? A relatable family, an anti-santa with evil servants and possessed toys and cookies are perfect for Christmas—at least for those who are bored with traditional festive movies.

Krampus was decent. The festive theme made it a fitting holiday movie with a cheery feel, and the amount of jump-out-of-your-seat-screaming parts were enough to make it scary, but limited the scares in a way where I wasn’t nervous the whole time. Additionally, the actors were well-cast, especially Adam Scott, who plays the father of the uptight family.

My main criticism of the movie, aside from the various cliches, was the stupidity of the characters. This is my problem with a lot of horror movies, but this one in particular fell into the trap of having characters act like idiots throughout the entire movie.  From deciding to go off on their own numerous times, even after it had been shown to be a bad idea, to eating food that appeared out of nowhere on a massive chain, these characters seemed to not only have no common sense, but to lack any brains whatsoever.

For those worried about the rating, Krampus is PG-13. The movie isn’t sexual in the least bit,  but the movie has a substantial amount of cursing—so much, that in order to stay PG-13 the second half has many curse words bleeped out due to overuse.

As a whole, Krampus was a fun movie to see on a quiet day. The movie lacked originality and sane characters, but made up for its shortcomings with a festive feel and a good set of actors. Overall, I would recommend this movie for those who want a fun way to continue Christmas after break has ended, and who want a fun way to pass time.