Director: Joseph Mbah
Year: 2018
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
At the end of WW I, the new teacher at an orphanage finds that a lost trinket sent by her husband from the war has been used by the curious children living there to summon the mystic demon Krampus who begins a deadly rampage at the location forcing them to band together to stop the creature.
Review:
While it does have some flaws, there is some positives here. The most likable element present is the rather nice backstory throughout here, which manages to include some intriguing real-life connections. The opening in WW I, with the soldiers shown infiltrating the German bunker to stop the creation of the creature as the scientist attempts to bring it to life, gives this a solid lead-in to the scenes at the orphanage where the same materials infiltrate their grounds starting up the creature's return. This is all handled rather nicely here as the build-up of the life at the orphanage as well as how the introduction of the summoning artifact to the building takes place provides a pretty intriguing start to this one.
Once the introduction has been handled, this one does pick up rather nicely as the terror of their newfound visitor carries a lot of weight. With all sorts of strange maladies and physical interactions caused by his presence while in human form introduced at first, there's a nice setup present here that gives way to the creatures' attacks in the final half of the film. As the creature starts to get more involved with chasing down the kids and the other staff members, the darker lighting and mystic fog that sprouts up offer somewhat creepy images as the creature walks through the dark corridors trying to stop it while the occasional flashes to the group preparing their own vigils against it. These here are what hold it up over it's flaws.
The main flaw in the film is that the low-budget nature of this one shines through rather prominently, giving off a pretty overwhelming tone throughout here. The few soldiers used to denote the war taking place, the singular location of the orphanage and the utterly awful CGI used for the Krampus which looks like cut-scenes from a video game all come off truly apparent of what it's like here. The bland pacing and overly cheesy storyline don't help much, and there's a pretty blatant series of simple sets where it's placed at just hamper this one down as well. The other problem here is the sloppy and utterly underwhelming finale, which has no real bearing on the storyline brought up previously as the inclusion of mysticism and spell-casting is just lame, and the flat-out abrupt ending is simply jarring with the way it's handled. These here are what hold this one back.
Overview: **/5
Granted, there are some issues here which the film isn't really able to overcome, but the enjoyable elements here do manage to keep the film from sinking completely. The flaws do hold it down so only go into this one if you're forgiving and willing to go into these low-budget genre efforts, while those that have no time or tolerance for these kinds of films should heed extreme caution.
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