Review: CHRISTMAS AT THE KRINGLES Will Have You Begging For A Lump Of Coal Instead

There's plenty to appreciate about Christmas at the Kringles—until you actually watch the movie. Kevin Lewis, best known for Willy's Wonderland, assembles a crackerjack cast of funnymen and women for a Christmas Horror slasher with sour Christmas Vacation vibes. On paper, sign me up. But Christmas at the Kringles is as appetizing a genre offering as unseasoned and oversteamed figgy pudding. Lewis might deck the halls with a Griswold-approved avalanche of holiday decorations, but it whiffs on the comedy-to-horror front and earns its place on Krampus' naughty list in minutes.

Ron Livingston and Rachel Bilson star as Mark and Julie Severson, city folk who move to a quaint suburb with their son, Bobby (Jack Jewkes), right before Christmas. Mark doesn't care to assimilate with the community, but the Kringles next door refuse to go unnoticed. Nick Kringle (Thomas Lennon) and his wife, Carol (Arden Myrin), roll over in their convertible singing Christmas carols with their three children: Rudolph (Zeke Jones), Merry (Alexis Kemp), and Elf (Elliott Egler). It's more than Mark can handle, but Julie and Bobby welcome their cheerful hospitality. Mark's a work-at-home-aholic, which drives Julie and Bobby to spend more and more time with the Kringles—but is there something wrong with a family who celebrates like it's Christmastime all year 'round?

Yes. The answer is yes.

It’s a premise ripe for the picking. Rob Riggle plays a cigar-chopin' drunk mall Santa who's part of a secret society of badass Saint Nicks. David Wain pops on the television as Noah Tannebaum, the psychotic leader of a Yule cult preaching a lifetime of joyful purity. Lennon tackles a rare villain role as the toxically positive patriarch who waves a chainsaw when he's not nice-guying the heck out of fake charms. Zack Imbrogno's screenplay gives Lewis plenty to work with, and he's gifted an enviable veteran cast, but it feels like the budget went almost exclusively toward the talent on screen. Lewis relies on high-school-ass drama-club workarounds to bring the picture home, which would be noticeably laughable in the final cut of any theatrical release.

Christmas at the Kringles rests on the shoulders of actors who are left out to dry by an all-around awful display of cinematic execution. Cinematography might have a split-diopter fetish, but don't let the technique fool you—scene framing is otherwise flat, ugly, and uninspired. The prop department has a smidge of fun designing "Frosty" cannons and chainsaws to use as weapons, but Lewis doesn't know how to make anything look believable, including a stab wound that's clearly just Myrin shoving a sword blade into [redacted's] armpit. And then there's the hokey-as-sin presentation of Mark's bah-humbugery that drives his family away, which is harder to swallow than a Hallmark special wrapped in dry, expired fruitcake. It's all so bottom-of-the-barrel, a DUPLO-brick version of a phoned-in horror-comedy.

Whatever commentary about hiding behind Christmas' happiness is lost on Christmas at the Kringles, which boils down to Mark needing to save his family from the tinsel-tossing maniacs next door. It's a shame, because there are brief spots of enjoyment. Donald Faison screams with the best of 'em as Mark's bachelor bud and sidekick. Beverly D'Angelo unleashes a Christmas gimp named Jingle. Between Lennon's full-chested commitment to Nick's energetic yuletide derangement and Riggle's cut-rate but still-funny Violent Night riff, you'll get a few laughs. But Lewis' inability to elevate the material through his directorial vision undercuts whatever highs defy filmic odds, leaving the experience bafflingly bland and frigidly forgettable.

It's telling how Christmas at the Kringles is never better than its gnarly opening slasher kill, and even then, most of the gore happens off-screen. Lewis attempts to joke his way into holiday horror infamy, but forgets the most important part of the subgenre equation: horror.  There's not even enough budget for graphic designers to deliver title overlay quality above MS Word, which had me worried for good reason. What plays like a paycheck movie for all involved produces nothing but lumps of coal for the audience.

Movie Score: 1.5/5