Book Review: The Art of Krampus

This is a surprisingly good companion for the movie. The director's Michael Dougherty who also directed Trick 'r Treat (check out the artbook).

It's nice to have a twist for Christmas. When everyone's expecting warm and fuzzy feelings, out comes this movie. LOL.

The Art of Krampus is an artbook and film production book. It collects stories of the film making process with lots of accompanying behind-the-scenes photos and wonderful artworks, storyboards.

It talks about the history of Krampus, inspiration for the film, and then looks at all the other macabre characters that appear in the movie. Each character comes with concept artworks, and also the costumes worn by the actors, dolls and other animatronics. Reading about how they create the characters for filming is like revealing the magician's tricks,

The concept artworks are fantastic. There are numerous 2-page spreads with dramatic scenes digitally painting. These are for key scenes and at one glance you can tell what's going on, and hence they work really well visually. There are other concepts like how reindeers were forced, by whip, to run in a wheel like those hamster wheels, snowmen like those in Calvin and Hobbes, demonic dolls and more. Even the dark elves look more ghastly than those from Thor: The Dark Work. Too bad the artists aren't credited.

All the art and photos are accompanied by commentary that explains the script, characters and the filming process. There's quite a lot to read.

Overall, it's a wonderful companion for the movie and also a very insightful one.

-

This book was borrowed from Basheer Graphic Books for review purposes. You can order the book from them. Check with Basheer on Facebook.

The Art of Krampus is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

Visit Amazon to check out more reviews.

If you buy from the links, I get a little commission that helps me get more books to feature.

Here are direct links to the book:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.co.jp | Amazon.cn

This book was borrowed from Basheer Graphic Books for review purposes. You can order the book from them. Check with Basheer on Facebook.