Hey gang, Valkor here. With the Christmas season in full throttle, everyone who does celebrate the holiday are out and about (or nestled indoors) searching to get the very best for those they care about. And in betwixt the hustle and bustle of the malls or point and clicks in the cyberverse, you might be relaxing with a holiday favorite. This round in MediaView, I thought I’d be bringing something new to add to the holiday rotation, but after watching horror film “Krampus: the Christmas Devil”, I’d rather put this on the “toss it out the window” pile.
The first time I heard of the name “Krampus” was in the Christmas episode of american Dad - “Minstrel Krampus” (season 9, episode 8), where Steve Smith gets a much needed spanking from Krampus plus other hilarities that ensue. Just go watch the episode, it’s 20 times better than this film – trust me. But to my surprise, the creature known as Krampus is a “legit” folklore with stories surrounding his undertakings; in short he hands out punishments to kids for being bad as opposed to Santa who hands out gifts to the good kids.
But back to the film, “Krampus the Christmas Devil” puts the focus on an older Jeremy Duffin (A.J. Leslie), who as a child had been abducted by Krampus and tossed into a frozen lake to die. Luckily Jeremy was able to escape and whatever bad deeds he had done to gain Krampus’s attention scared him straight as he grew up to be a cop. But now the killings have started again, all in the month of December and Jeremy believes it’s the same guy who was responsible for his abduction plus any and all killings that has happened at the time of his kidding up to the present. Plus he'll have to find him fast because he knows that the filler will vanish come Christmas night. So the big question is: can Jeremy discover who is behind the killings in time and put a stop to him… or it, once and for all?
Jolly old St. Nick aka Santa Claus (Paul Ferm), makes an appearance as the brother of Krampus and the one really calling the shots with "the list". It’s pretty creepy watching Santa ordering Krampus on what to do with naughty kids. It’s this type of scene parents should show their children and say “See! See what happens to bad kids? Santa will order Krampus to come and get you”.
The Good:
Krampus: the Christmas Devil actually has a decent – though disjointed – opening. It sets things up with the relationship between Jeremy and Krampus as Jeremy is the one who got away, with the whole ordeal haunting Jeremy into his adulthood. I also enjoyed the relationship and interaction between Krampus and Santa – it’s pretty twisted to see Santa gives such orders towards children. You would think a guy who spends his years making toys for kids would show a little compassion; he kinda does towards one kid, but he chews him a new one before letting him go. DAMN SANTA!
The Bad:
The film overall is pretty terrible. I mentioned the disjointed opening and to go further into it, we dive right into Krampus’s abduction of kid Jeremy without any backstory as to why Krampus was kidnapping him in the first place. Later it’s explained that Jeremy was a bad kid, but we could have been given some glimpses into his badness at the jump. Things take a turn for the weird and sexual when Jeremy is captured by Krampus, but is able to escape. And instead of Krampus chasing after him, he stops to play with titties – I’m not kidding! Titties! I can’t hate on that actually because if I had a choice between chasing some dick or titties, I’m taking titties all day, errday! Also there is a huge gap that has nothing to do with Krampus but some dude named Hat, who Jeremy had arrested years ago. That plus he has a fight with a bunch of cops and well… Jeremy ends up on his ass a lot! Seriously, you could play a holiday drinking game with all the times Jeremy ends up on his back. You’d be nice and toasted by the end of the film. Moving on, The editing also hurts the film as its mad choppy – like obvious choppy where you can see scenes, when switched, look all out of place. Finally the acting is also cringeworthy bad; I’ve sat through my share of indies with bad acting, but this one was really bad.
The Ugly:
That Krampus costume is pretty disgusting. Nothing that’ll make you gag, but it is creepy at the right angle.
If, after reading this or any review of “Krampus: the Christmas Devil”, you’re still interested in watching this train-wreck of a film, then you’ll have to do some searching. But trust me it’s not really worth it. The film has a few moments of shine, but the rest is just “ugh”. So out of TOV 5 stars, I give Krampus the Christmas Devil a 1.5.
