Krampus: The Christmas Devil (2013)

'Krampus: The Christmas Devil' drew me into seeing it, with a cool poster/cover, an intriguing if not particularly original premise and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. That it was not high-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive as well as the low rating and poor reviews.

It is sadly however yet another film seen recently, hence some reiteration because the exact same strengths and flaws those films have are present here, that to me was incredibly disappointing considering its potential which it doesn't do anywhere near enough with. 'Krampus: The Christmas Devil' is terrible, with a plethora of enormous problems. Generally Krampus films (especially low budget ones) have not fared well and 'Krampus: The Christmas Devil' does nothing to change that. There is next to nothing to recommend.

Lets start with the sole positive. The setting is atmospheric and spooky.

Unfortunately, it is not done justice by the rather direct to video schlocky way it's shot and edited and the drab colour palette, so much so it was hard to appreciate it, it was very clear that the film was made in a rush with no care or enthusiasm. In particular, the camera work was a nauseous assault on the eyes with its excessive amateurish-ness.

Going on further to the negatives, the story does feel paper thin, disjointed and over-stretched and some of it feels vague, under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less scary. Too many characters are too sketchy and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. Their annoying and illogical decision making and behaviours frustrates.

Making the film feel bland and forgettable with not enough heart put into The sound quality is obvious and utilised cheaply (being too loud in the build ups and people's reactions) and it's best not mentioning the uniformly lumbering and histrionic acting that shows a huge indifference to the situation and what is going on and extremely awkward prolonged pauses.

Dialogue can be stilted and rambling, with lots of clichés, lots of unintentional humour that makes some of the film play like a really bad spoof and no depth whatsoever, while the pace goes to a standstill very quickly and drags on forever with very little going on worth caring about and useless padding, never recovering. The minimal action wouldn't have mattered so much if the character development was present or engaging, instead not enough is learnt about the characters, the exposition is too heavily relied upon and is neither interesting or illuminating, actually dragging things down. Found too many of the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the supposedly creepy atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness, a lot of dumb and vague moments and explanations and the lack of tension and suspense. Would not have minded the lack of originality (the film is extremely derivative and in a dumbed and watered down way) if the story and atmosphere were at least alright in execution, in reality they were both very poorly done.

A lot of 'Krampus: The Christmas Devil' has underdeveloped plot elements and often nonsensical and confusing character motivations, while too many of the things to make you jump or shocked are far from creative or scary and are pretty tame. The ending didn't satisfy and felt

Fmovies: A low budget horror that is pretty damn bad. This one has Krampus taking orders from Santa as to who goes and who doesn't then before you know it a kid will be in a burlap bag headed for the frozen lake and he can only kill kids until midnight Christmas Eve. Krampus has a kid escape and decides to get him years later at the same time a psycho killer (Bill Oberst Jr.) gets out of jail hunting down the same guy for putting him in jail. You think this could be interesting well it just sucked. A different side of Krampus is shown as he keeps naked women chained in his lair to play with.

This one doesn't have anything going for it at all except for some scenes with Bill Oberst Jr. who always does a good job. Krampus never really comes off scary. In some scenes he was moving like the sped up Benny Hill. Santa looks like a drunk getting ready for a mall gig. Avoid this flick. Maybe just watch your toes wiggle instead.

Far from being one of the best of its kind, Krampus manages to be somewhat entertaining whenever the actual Krampus shows up and murders people.

Its a very serviceable exploitation film with enough gore, monster screentime and topless women chained in a cave to be a bit enjoyable but it suffers a lot from pacing issues, seemingly effortless sound design, clunky acting, disposable characters and an uninteresting plot executed quite blandly.

Krampus: The Christmas Devil fmovies. Stars : Bill Oberst,Jr. and Rich Goteri. Written & Directed by : Jason Hull. Have to digress abit,In the '90s critiqued a video ( VHS ) ELVES which starred Dan Haggerty as Santa vs Nazi Xmas Elves.Watched it every Christmas after till tape broke,KRAMPUS has given us a new viewing tradition for next annual ritual . So, We don't want to do spoilers and such, But,Santa is in Krampus along with the demon himself. Actually well told script has a cop who was on Naughty List and grew out of it. Lots of violence and cool deaths,Is that a oxymoron statement ? Winter equals snow and locale adds lots to look of film. This has all the makings of a cult film,Would build a better poster and maybe push the great soundtrack.

Following a rash of child abductions, a police officer with a connection to the killer from his own child abduction story learns that his perpetrator was none other than the evil Krampus who's out carrying out his deeds for the year and tries to put aside his feud with an ex-convict to bring the demon down.

There wasn't much to like with this one. Among the more enjoyable features here is the film's general setup that clues him into the goings-on in the village. Based on the early abduction and escape he endured as a kid to have gotten away from the Krampus who tried to drown him in a river, the experience he has from that situation to drive him into changing his ways to become a cop that specializes in the missing kids' case that's taking place here is a fine move. It allows for a solid investigation angle in the first half with him and the other guys tracking down the missing children which is how they manage to track it down to the creek in the woods where they first encounter it. With the situation tying nicely into the guilt he experiences over what's going on with the public outcry over the incidents being reported which gives this a nice sense of guilt for the finale, these here are the only elements the work for this one. There are quite a few issues here. The biggest problem is the fact that, for a film as short as this one is, it tends to take forever to get going as the pacing here is exceptionally slow-going. The exploits of the child-kidnapping demon that take center-stage, for the most part, are carried out at snail's pace speeds, rendering them far more comically ineffectual than anything else while the same could be said for the absolutely laughable confrontations with the creature. The police's encounter with the Krampus in the middle of the snowy woods is full of cringe-inducing action, from the slow-motion photography to try to impart a sense of grandeur to the situation to the agonizingly lame way the creature gets the advantage over them since they can't land a single hit to stop it but yet it can knock them out no problem to bring them back to its lair. These manage to hold up the running time quite severely. That also leads to the other central problem where the main figure here is so underutilized that it's hard to remember how he ties into the story at all. The storyline for the film revolves around the Krampus coming after kids in the small-town for only a brief portion overall as the shift in priority to the escaped convict and his revenge motivation against the cop for locking him up rightfully for no reason. The home invasion plot that comes of this is so poorly handled and adds nothing of any interest to the film as a whole that it seems tacked on to add another star for the poster art but is otherwise unimportant due to keeping the Krampus off-screen for the duration of this section of the film, much like the brief plot about the other cops being upset about the dead officers on his watch that goes nowhere but eats up time to keep the figure hidden. Given how bad it looks anyway, that's a mixed blessing but still stands out, keeping this one down as well.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Violence and Nudity.

It's really tough to find anything good about this. I reckon if you like very low budget movies (amateur films would be more apt), you may find something to your liking here. But you really have to set a low bar. The editing, the framing, the acting and obviously the script are not really something to get excited about.

It's not for a lack of trying (with different color lighting sets and whatnot), but it's all low key if you are being nice about it. I guess it has some funny ideas too, but it's all overshadowed by that very damning dreadful feeling that surrounds the movie from the start. You should be able to tell, if you can and want to endure this for its whole running time ...