The Overlook Theatre Reviews: Krampus: The Christmas Devil

1 of 6 viewers "Liked" "Krampus: The Christmas Devil" (USA, 2013)

Here's what the citizens of the Overlook Theatre had to say:

Lord Battle - "Krampus: The Christmas Devil makes The Room look like Oscar bait. Only the most loathsome and foul of "B" movie fanatics will find enjoyment in this torturous indie horror film, with that said I am most definitely one of them. The ridiculous plot, terrible acting/casting, and horrible script are what I found enjoyment in, it's the lack of gore, cheap creature effects, eye rolling, cringe worthy surprise twist that everyone saw coming yet hoped it wasn't, that makes me give this film a low score. Don't make horror films to exploit horror fans, we are loyal to our genre and get angry when you market your film as something its not!" - 3.5 Stars

Speed Demon - "Mind blowing! ...In a ridiculously bad way. You will be asking yourself questions like. Wait why are they doing that? Many many times. The musical score was brutally horrible. The ambient background music sounded like they had the character Krampus from the movie produced this on a Casio 90's keyboard with his dumb ass rubber werewolf gloves on playing the keys. I am a fan of metal music, painful is all I have to say for those parts where they made an appearance. Definitely the worst bar fight seen in movie history for me. Were they practicing on what moves they were gonna use for the scene and they decided to just use the footage from that? I'd say so. Someones idea to put the bloopers at the end of the movie was a very bad idea. Why you may ask? ...Well because the movie was one large Blooper. Boooooo!" - 1 Star

Huntress - "The beginning of Krampus: The Christmas Devil was in no way great, but it was at least fun to watch (with a group of like minded people of course. I can't imagine watching this alone), but that all died less than half way through the movie. I don't know how a movie made two years ago can feel so dated, but this one found a way. It felt like a super long episode of Duck Dynasty that was trying to be "adult" but just made everything feel redneck. The Krampus was insanely cheap and spent most of the movie somewhere else, which might have actually been for the better. This movie hit a point where all the crappy everything started getting me really angry. Maybe the fact that the whole thing felt like it was made just to see an actress's boobs and to stroke some egos had something to do with it." - 1 Star

Math Mage - "Narrative! Dialogue! Pacing! This movie has none of those things! What passes for plot is given through painfully forced exposition, the Krampus is a cheap werewolf costume, and the soundtrack was wildly inappropriate. Guy wants his 10 years back, fuck that, I want my 90 minutes back. Give me back the 90 minutes you stole from me!" - 1 Star

KillDozer - "If you are looking for something to not only worsen your Holiday spirit but also make you fearful of cheap creature features, then look no further. Still fun to view with a clever riffing group of monster kids in the Christmas spirit (or drunk). People pretending to fight in slow motion, rubber mask monsters, cool aid fake blood, boobs, and a "what the hell is going on here?" plot. Every now and then you just have to take the challenge and sit through something terrible. Take this one on with friends." - 1 Star

Dabbles - "Krampus The Christmas Devil would probably get a B- in a community collage film course." - 1 Star

The Overlook Theatre Final Rating*

(Below is for after you've seen the film)

As Lord of the Overlook I choose about 90% of what we screen. Choices are based on popular trends, suggestions, or film covers. Since Michael Daughtery had announced he was working on a Krampus film, it seems many sprang up over night. This Krampus double feature was supposed to help thin the heard so our loyal fans wouldn't waste their time on crap. I also should mention I had stacked two odds on this screening, waiting till our most experienced fiends were in attendance: KillDozer & Speed Demon are veterans of the video rental days, where a terrible choice was one you paid for and lived with. Math Mage is perhaps the most experienced, taking extreme pleasure in deconstructing plots, predicting twist endings, and riffing the film to death when pinned down in the trenches. Huntress is ever faithful to the cursed theatre, attending even the worst features but always remaining, quite, vigilante, and respectful, unless she falls asleep. Lastly the poor creature Dabbles found his way to the theatre and wound up being hazed by two terrible Krampus films (that didn't really star a Krampus..), to our surprise the goblinoid actually liked one...

With the return of Mystery Science Theater and films like Troll 2 and The Room, it's not completely unreasonable for someone to find enjoyment in Krampus: The Christmas Devil (this time it wasn't Dabbles), it's just highly unlikely. I myself enjoy some of the most torturous of "B" films, I often sneak them onto the big screen and force the more frequent and hardy creatures of the Overlook to review them (see Blood Tracks/Blood Beat). It quickly became clear that Krampus: The Christmas Devil was not going to be good but entertaining I definitely found it to be...
The early imagery in the The Christmas Devil would have worked much better as a metal video, specifically a Black Metal video seeing as they normally are low-fi and offer brutal black and white imagery.

Krampus drags a naughty boy to a pond.

The Christmas Devil is juxtapose the boy who survived his drowning 

The story only gets stranger as it moves away from the black & white flashback. Assuming you've seen the film or aren't planning to after the reviews above, let me just sum things up... The boy grows up to be a cop. He attempts to take his own life during a metaphorical game of russian rulet with the pictures of Krampus' victims, her fails. A large majority of the town is reveled to bald. The cop hires a pair of Dog-esk bounty hunters to take into the woods to try and track the bum looking Santa kidnapper, he doesn't explain this to the bounty hunters until several minutes of film time passes of them stalking slowing in the woods. Krampus reveals his special ability to fast forward the film and move slightly quicker as a result. Krampus kicks their asses in a lame way and drags one of the bounty hunters to his wizard lair.

**Krampus in his wizard lair, reading from his naughty list.

There it is revealed that Krampus is part cheap Halloween costume werewolf and that he has an almost naked woman chained to his wall. Santa joins his brother Krampus and scolds him from playing with a girl so late in the season and reminds him he should have done that 2 days ago.

**Krampus and his chained victim (stick around after the bloopers for some more of her)

Now if this sounds remotely interesting to you, I'd recommend you check it out as there is still Brain Hat, a terrible bar fight consisting of cops vs cops that ends in murder but is laughed off, and a twist that makes Krampus not the bad guy?

For those of you that are fans of this film and are craving more, here is a link to the FanBacked page that ended before I came across it. Yes they were trying to make a squeal and for the humble price of $75,000! Since I know most of you wont even bother to click the link I've attached their campaign video below, your welcome!

- Lord Battle

*Based on the star ratings turned in by character reviewers, others viewed and got to "Dislike" or "Like" but that does not effect the rating.
**These moments were filmed in color. Lord Battle changed them because he thought it was cooler.