Krampus: The Christmas Devil

Dir: Jason Hull

2013

*

Following a fantastic illustrated intro and some beautiful old-school horror compositions, Krampus: The Christmas Devil goes downhill very, very quickly. Never judge a film by its poster - Krampus: The Christmas Devil promised so much but in the end it is one of the worst horror films I've seen in a long time. I'm not sure how you can go so wrong with a character like Krampus. The story is awful and never convincing, the characters are mostly pointless and Krampus himself is more of a creepy pervert rather than the half man, half goat anti-Santa that he is. I did like the inclusion of Santa in the film, he and Krampus are partners of sorts after all but I'm not sure this was a good representation of him either. Once again with low-budget horror films, the makers add too much of themselves into the story and are a little too self-congratulatory towards the end. Our main character, a cop who was once captured by Krampus as a child, is a clean cut stereotype for most of the movie but is seen in one scene to be listening to hard thrash metal in his police car. I'm not suggesting that people in law enforcement can't listen to loud music but it wasn't in keeping with the story or theme and it came as a distraction and a reminder that this was cheap horror film made by heavy metal enthusiasts. It's all show and no content, I almost feel duped into watching it, it's clear that they know that Christmas horror films are on the rise but it's a poor effort all round. The annoying thing is that they probably made a profit as it seems that all you have to do these days is churn out any old crap, give it an amazing cover - suggesting things that don't necessarily happen within the film, and watch suckers (like myself) give up their time and hard-eared cash on it. Evil Dead showed the way but it seems the lessons have been forgotten. It's awful, avoid it.