Mother Krampus 2: Slay Ride (2018)

Some unlikeable people with terrible attitudes go to a soup kitchen for their last day of community service. There they barely work, undermine the staff, ditch their responsibilities to go to a bar, and eventually get stuck delivering Christmas Eve dinner without supervision.  

While Victoria is sweet, Candace, Gracie and Athena are entitled, miserable assholes. They’re the type of people who think nothing is ever their fault and are condescending to everyone. It’s the cops fault they got arrested. It’s the judges fault they have community service. It’s the parole officers fault they’re at the soup kitchen. 

After doing a little cleaning, the women are sent to deliver  Christmas meals and told to spend up to a half hour with the recipients. Do you really want people with bad attitudes who are on probation going into peoples homes without being supervised? The obvious answer is no.

They end up on Dorothea’s doorstop. When she says she doesn’t want the meal, they say they have to come in for a half hour because it’s part of their duties.  Surprisingly she lets them in, but then again, she’s a psycho who has already killed the family who lives there. So I guess it doesn’t matter if she murders more people.  

There are so many questions.  What sort of parole officer brings gifts for the parolees into a charity recipients home? Who thought it was a good idea to put hobo style dirt smudges on the faces of the homeless? Why did the girls randomly sing a Christmas carol to a woman on the street who did not look pleased? Do they really have community service on Christmas Eve? How long did it take them to run out and buy a gift for Dorothea? Why did they stay longer than a half hour? Why was there a lock on the inside of the attic door and a decorated Christmas tree up there? Why would Candace bring her boyfriend to someone’s house, have sex, and then take a shower? It’s her last hours of community service. Why risk it? Oh wait, we can answer that last one because Candace is an entitled asshole. And the most important question, was anyone assigned to work continuity? Because the snow varies from shot to shot on the front porch.

Dialogue by entitled unlikeable people

Okay I’ll drink your damn cocoa.

Honey I am the naughty list.

Listen, no offense or anything…. (Words said by someone who is about to be offensive)

If I did drop this thing and break it, I’d be doing the old woman a favor.

Honestly, we have to spend a half hour here. It’s part of our duties.

We’ll only stay until our ride is here.

The homeless would be offended by this portrayal

Never let anyone force alcohol on you.

I thought the doors in this house were really cool. Then she
opened the window in one of them. Coolest doors ever.

Gracie is glaring, Victoria is drunk, and Athena is lying.

What a nice outfit for community service.

Making themselves comfortable in someone’s home
so they can open their presents from the parole officer.

Continuity issues. There’s no snow on the front steps.

Now there’s a lot of snow on the steps.

Now there’s less snow on the steps.

Slayed (2020)

Five years ago, there was a massacre at the Harris County Water Plant.  Crandall, the lone survivor, wants to make sure it doesn’t happen again. He and security guard Tom will be the only ones at the plant this Christmas Eve. But instead of Tom showing up for his shift, Jordan arrives saying Tom asked him to cover.  Crandall tells him to just stay in the office since there is evil in this place.

Later that night the news reports a woman was snatched from her house, which is how the problem started five years earlier.  When Jordan finds the woman alive but wrapped in a plastic tarp on the lawn near the water plant, Crandall realizes the killer is back.  He tells Jordan to take the woman off the property, but the gate is locked and they can’t get out. This doesn’t sound like it will end well.

This movie is better than the Krampus Christmas Devil movies, but then again, what isn’t?  The biggest question in this movie is why the water plant keeps copies of the newspaper article about the massacre on their wall. There’s a copy in the office and in the plant.  No one wants a daily reminder of a massacre that took place at their business.

She the worst. She nicknames him Creepy Crandall,
but will still use him to bum a cigarette

Why would they ever put the massacre story on their wall?

Continuity is out the window. He get axed in daylight…

…but when he slides down the wall, it’s night.

She’s wrapped in plastic but it’s not taped or secured in
any way. Does she also have trouble with blankets?

Christmas cheer in the plant. Is that up to code?

Krampus 2: The Devil Returns (2016)

Ah crap, there’s a sequel to Krampus: The Christmas Devil, and it’s even less appealing than the first one.  Five years later, Jeremy lives in isolation and the police want his help. The missing kid problem has ramped up and he’s the only one who’s seen Krampus or his cave.  

Jeremy and his hulking friend head to the police station and meet up with a task force which includes Lori, a woman whose child was also abducted the same year as Jeremy’s daughter.  The police decide the missing child issue must be dealt with… five years after Jeremy pointed it out… thirty five years after Jeremy was abducted. Yeah, these police suck.

This movie has so many things that don’t make sense:

1. An abandoned house that is decorated for Christmas
2. Kids drinking open bottles of beers found in an abandoned house. It may not be beer, kids.
3. The real Santa appearing as Santa where kids line up to sit on his lap and request gifts
4. Santa and Krampus have upgraded from a cave to an isolated house
5. Krampus beats a kid to death while Santa hangs out watching
6. The revelation that Jeremy killed Santa’s daughter???  When did Santa have a daughter?
7. Santa says he’s not a vengeful person, yet he’s giving Krampus lists of children to murder because they are naughty.

There is also a completely unnecessary subplot about the brother of the criminal that vowed revenge on Jeremy in the first movie.  The brother is out for revenge and you won’t care.  It’s filler and if you skip it, it won’t matter.  Actually you can skip the entire thing. 

Hey kids, want to watch Santa torture a child?

What is up with this franchise and the outlets?
Now we’ve got wires hanging out of the wall.

Who would hire meth Santa to be around children?

Ah yes, nothing says cool like drinking an open beer
you found in an abandoned house. It’s probably piss.

So I’m guessing they didn’t get a permit to shoot on the street.

Again with the outlets.  There’s a hole where it used to be.  
Also Santa should kill them for their spelling.

Silent Night, Zombie Night (2009)

Frank and his partner Nash are on patrol when a zombie apocalypse starts. There is no explanation.  Nash has put in for a transfer because Frank punched him in the face.  It’s never revealed exactly why that happened, but Nash is  in love with Frank’s wife, who is planning on leaving him because he’s an asshole. 

The three of them hole up in Nash’s apartment. But Frank is concerned they’ll run out of food so he goes out to see what he can find. The biggest thing he finds is a guy hiding in an attic.

Shortly after that a Hummer shows up with other survivors. But nothing can go right in the zombie apocalypse. So when Frank sends the potential rescuer over to get the guy in the attic, you know that either they are done for, or only a few are coming back.

This is basically a drama about a husband and wife on the brink of  divorce, with some zombies that appear occasionally.  So much of this is people talking about their feelings and realizing their own flaws. I don’t think a zombie apocalypse is suddenly going to make Frank self aware.  Also I don’t care about the characters and I don’t care about their feelings.  They’re not that likable. 

As with any movie that takes place in Los Angeles or where there is no snow, it never looks like Christmas. The only reason you know it’s holiday time is they mention it and Nash already bought gifts.  

Cringeworthy dialogue:

That’s kind of the difference between streamers and roamers. Almond Joys got nuts. Mounds don’t.

The zombie who is never in focus peaks out from behind the car

Why?!?  Why is she never in focus?

She has this look for most of the movie.

This may be the most awkward running I’ve ever seen 

Krampus: The Christmas Devil (2013)

Santa has a brother named Krampus and when children are bad, they get put on his list. Unlike the stories where Santa gives coal to bad kids, in this movie, Santa tells Krampus to take care of them.  This means putting them in a sack and throwing them in the river. Yes, that’s right, Santa is involved in murdering children.

When Jeremy was a kid, he was abducted and thrown in a pond in a sack, but managed to get out.  Thirty years later, he’s a cop. He’s noticed a lot of kids disappearing and thinks it’s the same guy. He’s got a map in the basement and missing child posters all over the walls.

When he and two other cops go looking for the killer, Krampus finds them and drags them off. Jeremy is the only one who manages to survive.  His Captain, who previously scoffed at his theory of a serial killer, tells him to hand in his gun and his badge.

Meanwhile based on a throwaway line you’ve forgotten was even mentioned, the criminal who just got out of jail after ten years and vowed revenge on Jeremy, has tracked down his home address and taken his family hostage.  I’m sure everything will be just fine.

This is a strange movie in the sense that most evil Santa movies are about some psycho who dresses as Santa and kills people. But in this movie, Santa is actually a dick.  He colludes with Krampus to dispose of bad children. Plus he threatens a crying child in a cage, telling him he’ll murder him if he ever messes up and is bad again.  What the hell, Santa?

The wall of missing children in Jeremy’s house, in which he’s
pinned up multiple flyers for the same children. Once I noticed
it was like a game to find the double.

Krampus has a list of children he’s put in sacks

Nothing suspicious about this

The news anchor looking at the ceiling as she reports the news

In the history of news, no anchor has ever sat staring at a camera,
while they play an audio statement made by the man in the photo.

I thought this kid was the best actor in the film because it looked
like he was really crying. Then I saw in IMDB that the guy
playing Santa actually did make him cry. What the hell?

The slightly crooked outlet was so distracting

Red Christmas (2014)

Serial killer Tara is filming her legacy. She doesn’t feel like she’ll ever get caught, but if she does, she wants to make sure that her expertise and thought process are documented.  Tara explains she was emotionally abused by her father after her mother died and was the weird kid in school. She’s also a psychopath who has no feelings, but is adept at pretending to have them.

Tara only kills men and has killed 2-3 each December for the past four years.  She believes she won’t get caught because she’s thought about how to fool the profilers.  Usually serial killers work within their comfort zones near where they live. Tara travels an hour or more to pick her victims.  Also since serial killers usually have a type of victim, Sarah picks a different type each time.

But this year, she’s doing her first kill close to home. She gets dressed up and goes to a nearby cafe that she’s never been to before.  She’s easily able to get someone to come to her car, and then go home with her. 

Up until this part, the movie was okay. Watching Sarah talk into the camera wasn’t the most exciting thing, but there were some bits that made me want to know what was going to happen next. But after she got her victim home, it’s just Sarah torturing him, or philosophizing to the camera.  Things mix it up when an axe murderer gets into her house.  The movie is only 55 minutes long, but it would have been better as a short film.

Axemas 2: Blood Slay (2018)

A year after the killings at the storage facility, Sarah is still the only suspect in the murders. The police don’t buy her story about a killer Santa.   

The news does a report on the storage units reopening and Sarah decides it’s time to try dating again.  At her friends urging, she goes to a bookstore to try to meet someone and literally runs into Eric, who asks her out to dinner.  Even though a date is what Sarah was looking for, she is suspicious as to why he’d ask her out since they don’t know each other.  But Eric persuades her to meet at the restaurant.

During the conversation, Eric mentions he’s seen her on the news. Sarah becomes wary since the police suspect she’s the killer. But Eric believes her story and commends her for being a brave women. At these compliments, Sarah’s self preservation shuts off and she asks if they can go back to his place. Before Sarah knows it, she’s blacked out, is back at the storage facility and there’s another killer Santa on the loose.  

So the lesson here are never go home with a man you don’t know, and if you’re hiding in a storage unit from a killer Santa, shut the hell up because sound carries in those places.

There are a couple of continuity issues, with the biggest being the news report says there are three bodies still missing. Yet later, Sarah says they found her friends, but never found the bodies of the two killers.  So are we missing two or three bodies?   

This sequel is around thirty minutes but doesn’t hold up to the first one. What else can you do in a storage unit, except run around and find that the exits are locked?  It looks like they did crowd sourcing to raise money for two more films. The good thing about short films is they cut out the padding and get down to business. I appreciate that. 

He’s got two axes now. Please tell me he has
three axes in the third movie.

This guy wasn’t even at the storage facility.

Sarah contemplates her life after an axe attack

The fabulous framing for the news report.

Axemas (2017)

Dave works in the office of a storage facility and invites his friends over for a Christmas party in the storage units. I’m not sure why this would be appealing unless they were living with their parents, but they look too old for that.

The facility locks down at 11pm and doesn’t open up again until the next morning.  There is also no bathroom in there so it seems like a bad idea all around to be locked in and drinking.  When they go inside, they ask if they should pull the garage door shut.  Dave says it’s fine to leave it open, which kind of defeats the purpose of a lockdown.

The three couples end up in an empty storage unit with a few bad beers and several folding chairs. That’s right, they don’t even have six chairs.  One couple wanders off to find an empty unit for privacy, leaving two couple left to enjoy this amazing party. But the couples are not alone because wandering around the halls is a killer Santa.  

The best thing about this is it’s less than 30 minutes. They set up the scenario, and then we’re right in the thick of things. So if you don’t like it, it’s over quickly. We don’t know the characters, so we don’t care about them at all. However the final girl is harmless enough, although she forgets how an elevator works at one point, and later is alone screaming “why are you doing this? What did we do to you?” That’s usually what you say to the killer when he’s with you, not while standing alone after having gotten away and hoping he won’t find you. 

The anticipation for the amazing storage unit party

The party of all parties is in full swing

Yeah, that would be scary even if he wasn’t a killer Santa

Once Upon a Time at Christmas (2017)

When a mall Santa is murdered in the parking lot, the Sheriff asks the mayor to shut down the mall. It’s a close the beaches moment which follows the typical trope where the mayor is more concerned about the towns income than it’s inhabitants.

The murders are being committed by a psycho Santa and his younger wife.  No one can figure out the murder pattern, even though they are on the 12 days before Christmas and align with the song. For example, six geese were  killed on day six and there is a drum party on day twelve.  

When Jennifer closes down her work area after the mall closes, she finds a gift box on the floor and opens it.  There are five fingers with gold rings.  When Jennifer reports this to the police, they ask her to take a polygraph to see if she’s giving them all the info she has.  Why they think a teenage girl would hide info on severed fingers is not explained. 

Later Jennifer is home alone and hears the front door open.  Tension mounts as someone appears to creep down the hall while Jennifer repeatedly asks who it is.  Oh look, it’s just her friend Courtney who was the only teenage survivor when the killers hit a nightclub. Between the two, you’d think they’d be more concerned for their own safety. Questions abound.  Why did Jennifer leave her door unlocked? Why did Courtney not confirm Jennifer would be home?  Why would she walk into someone else’s house without knocking? If that’s a normal thing they do, then why not shout for Jennifer or announce she’s there? And why not answer Jennifer when she was asking who was in the house? Gah!

While it’s not good, it’s got better production values than most Christmas horror. So I guess it’s got that going for it.  But to be clear, the only thing I liked about this was the Jaws mayor trope.

All Through the House (2015)

If you’re looking for a movie where characters shout to other characters who aren’t in the room, and then become irritated and sarcastic when there is no response, then this is the movie for you.

 Rachel comes home for the holidays to visit her grandmother and inexplicably volunteers to help her neighbor Mrs. Garrett decorate for Christmas. I say inexplicably because both the outside and inside of the house are excessively decorated already.  There is no need for further decoration.

Rachel feels sorry for Mrs. Garrett because her daughter Jaime disappeared fifteen years ago and her husband is no longer around.  After her friends invite her ex boyfriend to their night out, Rachel  manages to guilt her friends into helping her with decorations.  

The whole situation is odd. There are multiple Santa mannequins in the living room and other mannequins around the house.  Mrs. Garrett isn’t going to help because she’s going out for a few hours, plus the bathrooms are the only rooms not decorated. Maybe forego the bathroom decorations this year then. They aren’t integral to holiday decorating. Just put some small item on the toilet tank and call it good.

One of of Jennifers friends takes a gown off a mannequin and wears it around the house.  Are there really women who do this?  I’m not sure if it’s a movie trope, or there are actually people who are fine with trampling what seems to be a pretty clear boundary of not wearing other peoples clothing without asking.

We know there is a killer Santa running around, although there is no info provided regarding where the killings are taking place. The killer likes to castrate the men and stab the women with garden shears.  So it stands to reason Rachel and her friends will be in danger since Mrs. Garrett eats dinner with mannequins as if they are her family.

The biggest question of the movie isn’t how no one realized Mrs. Garrett was crazy in fifteen years, or why Rachel would volunteer to help decorate  a home that is already decorated to excess. But rather, why does Rachel not understand how knots work? If someone puts you in a cage where the door is secured with twine, the first attempt to escape would be to try is untie the knot.  However Rachel takes the curious tactic of pounding furiously on the cage door with all her might, hoping it lets loose.  

This is unsatisfying in every way and only worth a watch if you’re looking to watch every Christmas horror movie, which for some reason I find myself doing. Also I’m tired of movies promoting themselves as throwbacks to 80s slasher flicks when there is nothing stylistically like that about the movie. This is just a modern slasher.

Nothing creepy about this in the living room

Lights and decorations already done inside

Excessive outside lighting yet Rachel was not suspicious

The list of things to do that don’t need to be done

Why does Jaime have black eyes in the portrait?

Rachel furiously pounds on the cage door, alerting us
to the fact she doesn’t understand how to untie a knot.