As i pointed out in the review of Mother Krampus (a.k.a. 12 Deaths Of Christmas), this isn’t really a sequel, even by the usual lax requirements you find in horror movies there’s no connection whatsover, but was ultimately called Mother Krampus 2: Slay Ride by the american distributor to cash in on the Krampus craze of these years, only to have the UK release confusingly titled just “Mother Krampus”.
At least on the box, the movie itself still says “Mother Krampus 2” (as you can see).
To fuel the confusion, technically this was slated for release in 2016 as “Naughty List”, and at one point was gonna be called “Lady Krampus”, i guess (and this is just speculation) because the other working title “Slay Bells” didn’t exactly wooed any marketing committee.
Written and directed by Eddie Lengyel, Mother Krampus / Heaven’s Feel Part Deux is not about a witch that comes back from the dead in search of children and revenge, but four girls that are completing their mandatory 30 days of community service in Cleveland, Ohio. The last day of “service” happens to be Christmas and has them going around and paying in-home visits to the less fortunate and the elderly. On their last visit/stop, they are invited to spend the evening by a kind, quite pleasant old lady, but soon they find out there more than meets the eye, ladies in disguise
(whrr-tschzz-tschzz-tschzz-chk)
The only thing these two movies have in common is a douchy character bringing into the house her/his uninvited fianceè, but even that is a stretch. This does sound like the crappy movie one could expect to see from something called Mother Krampus… and it is, in ways i didn’t fully expect.
As in, this one feels like a random mash up of the 2004 Black Christmas remake, Crazy Fat Ethel II, and Halloween, as in they basically took a cheapo Halloween store Michael Myers’ mask, attached a more messy wig onto it, draw thick eyebrows on it and slapped on the crazy old lady who’s the killer, we know right away, no frigging clue why she has it on while she slaughters the old folks in the house she slipped in, aside from letting the audience know.
Really, you can tell most elements are straight up ripped off (badly) from the aforementioned movies, and i would complain about this one having really no business being called “Mother Krampus” when there’s no Krampus or connected themes… but this is the last of the film’ problems.
The plot already sound incredibly thin from the synopsis on IMDB, and it chugs happily along with a lot of dull, really fuckin boring padding about mostly unlikable but all stereotyped to hell characters. The dialogues could be worse, but with these characters and acting that’s the definition of “amateur hour”, like, especially the naive girl is really bad, just awful. Sorry but she is.
Of course this wouldn’t be complete if the movie didn’t lack a lot of action and had you wait 1 hour of droll padding to see the obviously creepy old lady start the killing spree, but also has inconstincies, like in one scene she briefly traps a girl in the attic… by just leaning with her back to the attic door’s, but later, while in “Michael Myers’ grandma” mode, has to work a lot to open it.
The kills are also unoriginal, boring and incredibly flat, there’s no gravitas to them at all, barely any gore, but then again, there’s no taste to the direction overall, which is at least functional. Doesn’t change that the movie has an insultingly slow pace, it’s boring, tiresome, and it ends on a shitty sequel bait finale. Yeah, when the most interesting scenes are the improv strip-dance at the old folks’ home and the night shopping for christmas gifts… don’t bother. This is 2/10 crap, let’s be frank.
According to IMDb, the film budget was under 2000 dollars, and while i’m surprised it doesn’t look worse than Krampus The Christmas Devil despite the obvious near-to-no-budget production, i have to agree with the review by IMDB user “gothic-fiction”, Krampus The Reckoning was marginally better, that one as well was atrocious in itself AND had no business being sold as a Krampus movie.
So yeah, not exactly a winner this one.
12 Deaths Of Christmas is definitely better, no doubt about it.
Wise Cafe (International) 