K-PAX (2001)

Some plot devices have been used so much that there’s really nowhere new to go with them.  Ambiguity, for instance, can only take you so far.  If you’re using that as the focus of your story, you had better be able to do it well.  K-PAX relies on a fair amount of ambiguity.

A man appears in a train station.  He’s taken to a psychiatric hospital, mostly because he’s a little off.  When I say a little off, I mean he claims to be an alien named Prot from the planet K-PAX.  Dr. Powell is the one who catches his case.   The only thing that’s unusual is that Prot can see ultraviolet.  Other than that, he’s an ordinary guy that was walking around without any ID who happens to claim to be an alien.  Dr. Powell sets out to figure out what Prot’s major malfunction is.

Prot’s story is pretty well developed.  He’s able to describe aspects of K-PAXian society, like children being raised by the community.  When presented to a group of astronomers, Prot is able to describe his solar system in great detail.  It would be a pretty lame trick except that it explains the wobble that had been observed in the system’s binary stars.  (The movie was released in 2001, when wobble was how we inferred planets around other stars.)

So, we have ambiguity.  Prot can’t really prove that he’s an alien, since he rode in on a beam of light.  It makes sense that an alien civilization would come up with some strange method of interstellar travel, but it’s convenient that it’s one that doesn’t give Prot a spaceship to show off or get back to.  On the other hand, he’s in human form.  There’s no test that any doctor could run that would prove or disprove the claim.  His ability to see UV rays could be nothing more than a random genetic mutation.

Prot can’t be an alien because its absurd.  Except that he seems to know stuff that makes his claim somewhat convincing.  Except that, when put under hypnosis, he has memories from before his arrival on Earth.  The memories are presented as those of a friend, which we take in the context of, “I have this friend who has an embarrassing question.”  So, is Prot really an alien or is he a person repressing some bad memory?  We have Prot’s impending departure to look forward to for answers.

As the saying goes, absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence.  As much as Prot’s story is self-reinforcing, we can’t take that as proof that he isn’t what he says he is.  When Prot disappears for a few days, it’s possible that he really did go off to Iceland and Greenland.  It’s also possible that he was hiding in a ventilation duct the whole time.  There’s no way to be certain of either, short of finding footage of Prot at a 7-Eleven in Reykjavik.

It is an interesting story.  I wish it went into more detail.  The movie seems to want to walk the fine line between Prot being an alien visitor and a crazy human.  It is based on the first book in a series.  It would be interesting to get ahold of them just to see how the source material handles Prot’s claim.

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Krampus (2015)

We’re all familiar with Santa Claus.  He brings presents to the good girls and boys.  Americans aren’t that familiar with Santa’s opposite, Krampus.  Legend holds that Krampus comes to kidnap and punish those boys and girls who made the naughty list.  Krampus is better known in Europe, where films like Rare Exports have been made.  Shortly after watching Rare Exports, I had heard of a film to be released in America called, of all things, Krampus.  This week, I have some free movies from on demand courtesy HBO.  Lo and behold, one of those movies was Krampus.

I honestly had such high hopes for this movie.  It focus on a family that’s getting together for Christmas.  It starts a few days before Christmas.   Sarah and Tom are parents to Max and Beth.  Aunt Linda and Uncle Howard will be joining them until the big day along with their kids and dog.  Oh, and Sarah’s outspoken Aunt Dorothy will be coming along, too.  Surprise!  Rounding out the group is the grandmother, who seems to prefer German to English.

Sarah, Tom, Max and Beth are not looking forward to this.  They have varying degrees of hatred for Linda and Howard and their spawn, to say nothing of Dorothy.  Max is picked on by his two female cousins.  Dorothy asks Sarah why she hasn’t served ham, going so far to ask if she’s Jewish now.  Yeah.  This is the kind of petty family stuff we’re talking about.  It gets to the point where Max wishes it would all go away.  He just wants a normal Christmas like they used to have.  Big mistake.

What follows cannot really be described as a horror film.  Sure, it has it’s dark moments.  It also has a few throwaway lines, but can’t really be described as a comedy.  There are a few scenes that would suggest that those who created the film wanted a horror film, but they seem to have failed.  For instance, Beth goes missing quickly, prompting Tom and Howard to take Howard’s Humvee in search of her.  They come to her boyfriend’s house where they find a gingerbread man attached to a refrigerator door with a chef’s knife.  It’s funny, but in a foreshadowing way.

We have already seen a hit of Krampus at that point.  He jumps from rooftop to rooftop.  He’s meant to be scary.  At the very least, he’s ugly.  I may even end up with nightmares tonight.  That’s how bad it is.  It’s his helpers that I’m not sure about.  For some reason, he likes gingerbread men, who come off as comical, but will attack people.  They even take a nail gun to Howard.  (Who leaves a nail gun lying around, anyway?  Especially when they know children of varying ages will be around.)

Krampus also has some large porcelain dolls helping him.  Imagine if a porcelain doll were made in the image of a Predator.  And it wants to eat your kids.  It sounds scary, but it doesn’t always work.  Part of it is that you’re trying to scare the audience with something that’s cute.  You can’t go for flat-out horror with porcelain dolls and gingerbread men.

The other part of it is that the characters don’t elicit sympathy.  Max is the most sympathetic, in that he seems to act only when provoked, even if he is provoked easily.  He also just wants a normal Christmas.  The only other characters I didn’t come to hate were the grandmother, the baby and the dog, mostly because they were background characters.  By nature, the dog and the baby didn’t have any lines.  (The dog did have a few good moments, though.)  The grandmother was there mostly for background information, letting us know what Krampus was.

Howard, Linda and Dorothy are all adults that you want to take into the next room and slap.  You’re rooting for Krampus to get them, even when you earn a little bit of respect for them.  You soon realize that they’re still less than respectable.  Howard and Linda’s kids are the product of their parenting and can be forgiven to an extent, but are still responsible for their own actions.  Also, when I said Dorothy was outspoken, I imagine you get the idea that it’s in an obnoxious way.  I was hoping she’d go first.

That’s another thing.  Building tension requires some hope that the characters might make it out.  Krampus quickly lays waste to their surrounding area.  A utility truck is left idling, presumably as Krampus took the driver.  It’s just a matter of time before the family is eaten.  The only real question is how and when each family member will be taken.  There is a chance Max will be spared.  Even if he is, what then?  Will the town be restored?  Will Max be sent to a foster home?  How do you end a mess like this?

The movie is different, to say the least, but this is one of those cases where different isn’t always good.  It’s like the SyFy channel finally got a theatrical release.  It’s that level of mediocrity.  I was expecting so much more.  I was hoping for some level of depth.  No.  We have some scares and some one-liners.  That’s about it.  Krampus takes everyone in town and for what?  Because some kid wished his family away?  The twist ending doesn’t leave you wondering what just happened so much as why.

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