Where do I start? Let's start with the technical and say the sound is truly awful. It's like they only had one mic between all actors so in scenes with background noise you can't hear what people are saying. This happened all through the movie where actor sound levels were below background sound levels causing whole scenes to be inaudible (actually a blessing when looking at the film as a whole). Another is atrocious editing. Meaningless long single scenes with no cutting, pregnant pauses, protracted shots that are pointless and moronic fade outs for no reason. The FX were laughable. A guy in a dodgy mask and laughable sound FX. I've seen better CGI on a smart phone (This is not a joke!). Now the story: Contrived and a painful joining of a stupid story line to just add more running time to to the original shaky one. This was a terrible idea and just makes you shake your head in disbelief. Finally the acting. It was awful. Kids with no acting ability and adults with about the same. Scenes of meaningless terribly scripted small talk, protracted scenes of more terrible small talk and lots of ham.It was just an obvious way of filling time. A scene of a news reporter was hilarious. His sole job was as an exposition vehicle due to the poor editing and dialogue up to this point. This film just reeked of minuscule budget, no imagination and someone delving into a dressing up box for costumes. This was dire on all fronts and a waste of 119 minutes.
13 Reviews
This is the second film to krampus (2013) the Christmas devil
dave-3691710 October 2016
At the time i am writing this there is only one other review posted they thought as i did at first that this was a second film to the popular Krampus film released last year but in fact this is a completely different film series.
The first film of this series was released in 2013 and was called Krampus - the Christmas devil its rating as i write this review is 1.7 stars
This is a real B film with B grade everything i'm sad to say from the writing to the acting.
I only managed to watch the first 20 minutes before i decided i would rather bang my head against a wall for the next 50 minutes for better entertainment
Good luck to the makers and actors of this film i'm sure they had a very small budget but sadly for me this is rock bottom and not worth watching.
The first film of this series was released in 2013 and was called Krampus - the Christmas devil its rating as i write this review is 1.7 stars
This is a real B film with B grade everything i'm sad to say from the writing to the acting.
I only managed to watch the first 20 minutes before i decided i would rather bang my head against a wall for the next 50 minutes for better entertainment
Good luck to the makers and actors of this film i'm sure they had a very small budget but sadly for me this is rock bottom and not worth watching.
Devillish yuletide
TheLittleSongbird29 July 2018
'Krampus: The Devil Returns' drew me into seeing it, with a cool poster/cover, an intriguing if not particularly original premise and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive as well as the low rating and poor reviews.
It is sadly however yet another film seen recently, hence some reiteration because the exact same strengths and flaws those films have are present here, that to me was incredibly disappointing considering its potential which it doesn't do anywhere near enough with. 'Krampus: The Devil Returns' is terrible, with a plethora of enormous problems. Low budget Krampus films have not fared well and 'Krampus: The Devil Returns' is one of the worst examples. There is next to nothing to recommend.
Lets start with the sole positive. The setting is sometimes atmospheric and spooky.
Unfortunately, it is not done justice by the rather direct to video schlocky way it's shot and edited and the drab colour palette, so much so it was hard to appreciate it, it was very clear that the film was made in a rush with no care or enthusiasm. In particular, the camera work was a nauseous assault on the eyes with its excessive amateurish-ness.
Going on further to the negatives, the story does feel paper thin, disjointed and over-stretched and some of it feels vague, under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less scary. Too many characters are too sketchy and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. Their annoying and illogical decision making and behaviours frustrates.
Making the film feel bland and forgettable with not enough heart put into The sound quality is obvious and utilised cheaply (being too loud in the build ups and people's reactions and dreadfully recorded) and it's best not mentioning the uniformly lumbering and histrionic acting that shows a huge indifference to the situation and what is going on.
Dialogue can be stilted and rambling, with lots of clichés, lots of unintentional humour that makes some of the film play like a really bad spoof and no depth whatsoever, while the pace goes to a standstill very quickly and drags on forever with very little going on worth caring about and useless padding, never recovering. The minimal action wouldn't have mattered so much if the character development was present or engaging, instead not enough is learnt about the characters, the exposition is too heavily relied upon and is neither interesting or illuminating, actually dragging things down. Found too many of the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the supposedly creepy atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness, a lot of dumb and vague moments and explanations and the lack of tension and suspense. Would not have minded the lack of originality (the film is extremely derivative and in a dumbed and watered down way) if the story and atmosphere were at least alright in execution, in reality they were both very poorly done.
A lot of 'Krampus: The Devil Returns' has underdeveloped plot elements and often nonsensical and confusing character motivations, while too many of the things to make you jump or shocked are far from creative or scary and are pretty tame. The ending didn't satisfy and felt anaemic and the whole thing felt like an over-stretched-to-beyond-breaking-point short film.
There is not enough threat, and what there is of it tends to be used poorly, is just as poorly designed and so laughably done it doesn't frighten at all. The film is completely unimaginative and more odd than creepy, completely failing to show any sense of horror or creativity. Everything here is neither creative, suspenseful or nail-biting. Some badly sagging momentum too. The direction is leaden and like their heart was not in it or ill at ease, with the chemistry between the characters and actors coming over as constantly random and aggressive with the subtlety of an axe. The Christmas spirit is completely lost underneath all the gratuity, dreariness and mean-spiritedness and the deaths are neither creative or scary with a complete lack of suspense or sense of horror.
Overall, awful with no redeeming value apart from an element that is difficult to appreciate with it being complemented so badly. 1/10 Bethany Cox
It is sadly however yet another film seen recently, hence some reiteration because the exact same strengths and flaws those films have are present here, that to me was incredibly disappointing considering its potential which it doesn't do anywhere near enough with. 'Krampus: The Devil Returns' is terrible, with a plethora of enormous problems. Low budget Krampus films have not fared well and 'Krampus: The Devil Returns' is one of the worst examples. There is next to nothing to recommend.
Lets start with the sole positive. The setting is sometimes atmospheric and spooky.
Unfortunately, it is not done justice by the rather direct to video schlocky way it's shot and edited and the drab colour palette, so much so it was hard to appreciate it, it was very clear that the film was made in a rush with no care or enthusiasm. In particular, the camera work was a nauseous assault on the eyes with its excessive amateurish-ness.
Going on further to the negatives, the story does feel paper thin, disjointed and over-stretched and some of it feels vague, under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less scary. Too many characters are too sketchy and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. Their annoying and illogical decision making and behaviours frustrates.
Making the film feel bland and forgettable with not enough heart put into The sound quality is obvious and utilised cheaply (being too loud in the build ups and people's reactions and dreadfully recorded) and it's best not mentioning the uniformly lumbering and histrionic acting that shows a huge indifference to the situation and what is going on.
Dialogue can be stilted and rambling, with lots of clichés, lots of unintentional humour that makes some of the film play like a really bad spoof and no depth whatsoever, while the pace goes to a standstill very quickly and drags on forever with very little going on worth caring about and useless padding, never recovering. The minimal action wouldn't have mattered so much if the character development was present or engaging, instead not enough is learnt about the characters, the exposition is too heavily relied upon and is neither interesting or illuminating, actually dragging things down. Found too many of the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the supposedly creepy atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness, a lot of dumb and vague moments and explanations and the lack of tension and suspense. Would not have minded the lack of originality (the film is extremely derivative and in a dumbed and watered down way) if the story and atmosphere were at least alright in execution, in reality they were both very poorly done.
A lot of 'Krampus: The Devil Returns' has underdeveloped plot elements and often nonsensical and confusing character motivations, while too many of the things to make you jump or shocked are far from creative or scary and are pretty tame. The ending didn't satisfy and felt anaemic and the whole thing felt like an over-stretched-to-beyond-breaking-point short film.
There is not enough threat, and what there is of it tends to be used poorly, is just as poorly designed and so laughably done it doesn't frighten at all. The film is completely unimaginative and more odd than creepy, completely failing to show any sense of horror or creativity. Everything here is neither creative, suspenseful or nail-biting. Some badly sagging momentum too. The direction is leaden and like their heart was not in it or ill at ease, with the chemistry between the characters and actors coming over as constantly random and aggressive with the subtlety of an axe. The Christmas spirit is completely lost underneath all the gratuity, dreariness and mean-spiritedness and the deaths are neither creative or scary with a complete lack of suspense or sense of horror.
Overall, awful with no redeeming value apart from an element that is difficult to appreciate with it being complemented so badly. 1/10 Bethany Cox
What the heck is this
loveisforeverwithyou24 November 2017
This was one of the worst movies i have seen. Bad picture, sound, acting. I thought this was a sequel of Krampus: The Christmas Devil but it wasn't and that ruined my happiness for this. It was so fake and terrible. A dang shame this wasn't any good. Hopefull Michael Dougherty will do a sequel to his own that will be spectacular. But this? Just awful. Please do not watch. Waste of time.
Cringey and hard to watch
mamamonsterr13 February 2020
How in the world did somebody film this and think, "yeah this is good, let's put it out" dude, my nine year old could've done a better title screen, wtf was the fog??? what is going on in these peoples heads when they're putting all of this together lmao. at first I was like, is this a parody? like there's no way that somebody made this and thought it was good afterwards. the camera angles are so bad. bad directing. awful production. the acting is the worst part. I mean listen- I love a good b movie. but this is just..so unbelieveably bad I honestly want to go throw the whole thing in my firepit and try to wipe it out of my brain forever .
Just pathetic
mygrtkdz11 February 2018
Simple horrible
arjunafederico5 February 2017
Three words ''Low budget SH*T'' this is a horrible movie, with an awful scrip, an awful colorization, awful effects, don't waste your time watching this. At first time I thought this was the second part of the first Krampus movie, but it's not, this is the typical project of some guys, who were scratching their balls, and decided to do something with their lives, so they did this. Also the shots are disgusting, you almost feel the breathe of the actors in your screen, the shots are way TOO close. I just took five minutes on seeing this, and that's way more than it deserves. I think it should be a crime to do such lame versions of very good movies
Worst Everthing
psycholover28 January 2021
So bad it's fun to watch!!!
farchettiensis3 November 2023
I love the Krampus franchise! The movies are bad through and through, and the acting is generally so bad! The writing is quite the achievement being this bad!
Yet I hold it close to heart. For me, it's one of those so bad it's good kinda movies. I bing watched them on Prime one day when my girlfriend was asleep. I fell in love with it right away.
This one in particular has one of the worst fight scenes I've ever seen in my life, and some incredible dialogue to make it better. All fight scenes follow this standard, so get ready for some amazing sequences!!
All in all, I definitely recommend this horrible movie!
Yet I hold it close to heart. For me, it's one of those so bad it's good kinda movies. I bing watched them on Prime one day when my girlfriend was asleep. I fell in love with it right away.
This one in particular has one of the worst fight scenes I've ever seen in my life, and some incredible dialogue to make it better. All fight scenes follow this standard, so get ready for some amazing sequences!!
All in all, I definitely recommend this horrible movie!
Straight up terrible
stuss-1304523 January 2022
This is a low budget dreadful movie I highly recommend never watching
kevin_robbins8 December 2021
Krampus 2: The Devil Returns (2016) is a movie I recently rewatched on Tubi. The storyline follows Krampus' return to the same small town we recently saw him in and he's out for revenge. Jeremy returns to town when he hears about the murders to stop Krampus and hopefully discover what happened to his daughter who disappeared in the last movie.
This movie is directed by Jason Hull (Chasing Darkness) and stars R. A. Mihailoff (Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III), Shawn C. Phillips (Ghost Shark), Melantha Blackthorne (Deathrace) and Tiffani Fest (Circus of the Dead).
The good - Santa's ball busting in this is hilarious and it's always fun seeing Krampus dragging children in a bag. Unfortunately the storyline is awful, Krampus' voices is poorly done and the acting is miserable. The entire romance elements in this is painful to view. There aren't even any worthwhile kill scenes in this.
Overall, this is a low budget dreadful movie I highly recommend never watching. I'd score this a 1.5/10 and recommend skipping it.
This movie is directed by Jason Hull (Chasing Darkness) and stars R. A. Mihailoff (Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III), Shawn C. Phillips (Ghost Shark), Melantha Blackthorne (Deathrace) and Tiffani Fest (Circus of the Dead).
The good - Santa's ball busting in this is hilarious and it's always fun seeing Krampus dragging children in a bag. Unfortunately the storyline is awful, Krampus' voices is poorly done and the acting is miserable. The entire romance elements in this is painful to view. There aren't even any worthwhile kill scenes in this.
Overall, this is a low budget dreadful movie I highly recommend never watching. I'd score this a 1.5/10 and recommend skipping it.
Awful movie
coryshort3282226 December 2020
Solid improvement over the original but still somewhat flawed
kannibalcorpsegrinder15 December 2019
After a series of child abductions, a former officer whose wife was murdered and daughter went missing several years earlier is called back to his home-town to deal with the new crime-spree and finds the deranged Krampus at the cause of the missing children's cases and sets out to stop it once and for all.
This one wasn't as bad as the first one. One of the strongest aspects present here is the stronger scenes of the child abductions which are far better than the original. They're still not that great, but the opening abduction of the two kids from the abandoned house or a later scene of the creature stealing the kid from his bedroom while his mother smokes unaware outside are much creepier than the original. The demented torture scene where the kids are tortured in the shack by Santa and Krampus while eerie Christmas music plays over the scene as the demented characters dole out cruel torture and punishment to children is a fantastic idea overall to show what's going on. There's a fine energy to these scenes that were missing from the previous entry and serves the purpose of its true origins taking out naughty children that need it. Likewise, the film also manages to get some enjoyable aspects out of the enhanced screen-time they actually get in the film. The abduction scenes in the beginning are just one example of that, while the scenes of them sitting around discussing the various children they need to collect and how to do it to avoid suspicion adds a lot o their scenes as this keeps the action moving smoother than expected. The finale, bringing together both storylines in the raid on the hideout where the biker has taken them for revenge against his brother as well as the final revelation about the historical connections that have been running throughout the two films which get rather dark with the truth about what happened to him and his daughter. As well as the much more imposing Krampus mask that looks much better than before as well as the enjoyably grim ending, these here hold the film up overall. The film does have some issues. One of the biggest problems is the unnecessary plotline throughout here about the biker seeking revenge on the policeman for the death of his brother, which is a fine carry-over from the original but serves the same function as the original did in not serving a purpose beyond adding to the running time. It's an issue you don't care about at all and serves to get the name guest-star involved in the proceedings but beyond that is just a useless segment that doesn't need to be in a film barely over an hour and ten minutes. The cheapness of the film is still quite apparent and obvious throughout here, ranging from the backyard guerrilla filming feel to the lack of real lighting in the night-time scenes and the flimsy martial arts choreography for the fight scenes that give away what a low-budget tone this one has. These here are what hold this one back.
Rated R: Graphic Language, Violence, Brief Nudity and a sex scene.
This one wasn't as bad as the first one. One of the strongest aspects present here is the stronger scenes of the child abductions which are far better than the original. They're still not that great, but the opening abduction of the two kids from the abandoned house or a later scene of the creature stealing the kid from his bedroom while his mother smokes unaware outside are much creepier than the original. The demented torture scene where the kids are tortured in the shack by Santa and Krampus while eerie Christmas music plays over the scene as the demented characters dole out cruel torture and punishment to children is a fantastic idea overall to show what's going on. There's a fine energy to these scenes that were missing from the previous entry and serves the purpose of its true origins taking out naughty children that need it. Likewise, the film also manages to get some enjoyable aspects out of the enhanced screen-time they actually get in the film. The abduction scenes in the beginning are just one example of that, while the scenes of them sitting around discussing the various children they need to collect and how to do it to avoid suspicion adds a lot o their scenes as this keeps the action moving smoother than expected. The finale, bringing together both storylines in the raid on the hideout where the biker has taken them for revenge against his brother as well as the final revelation about the historical connections that have been running throughout the two films which get rather dark with the truth about what happened to him and his daughter. As well as the much more imposing Krampus mask that looks much better than before as well as the enjoyably grim ending, these here hold the film up overall. The film does have some issues. One of the biggest problems is the unnecessary plotline throughout here about the biker seeking revenge on the policeman for the death of his brother, which is a fine carry-over from the original but serves the same function as the original did in not serving a purpose beyond adding to the running time. It's an issue you don't care about at all and serves to get the name guest-star involved in the proceedings but beyond that is just a useless segment that doesn't need to be in a film barely over an hour and ten minutes. The cheapness of the film is still quite apparent and obvious throughout here, ranging from the backyard guerrilla filming feel to the lack of real lighting in the night-time scenes and the flimsy martial arts choreography for the fight scenes that give away what a low-budget tone this one has. These here are what hold this one back.
Rated R: Graphic Language, Violence, Brief Nudity and a sex scene.
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