Mother Krampus 2: Slay Ride

2 stars for this movie! Without wasting precious time or words, lets dig in: actors did a horrible work as they are all amateurs. Laughable acting from start to finish. The dialogue is not the worst out there, someone did take his work serious, but made sure that it covered all the stereotypical characters, because they weren't bad enough, it had to accentuate their pain!

We have something of a camera work but not quite, no special effects whatsoever, completely disbelievable deaths, a little blood and no nudity. There is a plot to all of this, I know, I was surprised as well, it is your usual trapped in a house with a killer horror, but it felt over stretched. As the action itself is missing for most part of the movie, we got an incredible detailed and long character development, so we know for who to root and who to expect to be the first to be gone.

Anyway, sadly, this ain't something to be recommended. You should clearly stay away from this one. Krampus: The Reckoning , got 3 stars from me! It is actually half of step higher. You have been warned!

Cheers!

The first few scenes (after the pre-credits bloodbath) didn't inspire a lot of confidence, but I ended up having quite a lot of fun with this. Four young ladies coming to the end of their community service are invited into the house of a seemingly nice old lady who, to be fair, puts up with a lot of nonsense from some of the girls, and, when he arrives uninvited, Paul, the drug dealer.

This is all played knowingly, as if inviting the audience not to worry about the micro budget and just to enjoy the ride.

Co-writer Roger Conners plays one of the main characters with a lot of gusto and camp humour. Also very appealing is Victoria, played by KateLynn E. Newberry. Perhaps Newberry overdoes the wide-eyed cutesy thing but the character is very appealing. In fact, I grew fond of all the characters.

The effects are surprisingly good and gloriously bloody, and various creepy moments remind us that although there are light-hearted moments, this is not a comedy. My score is 7 out of 10.

While I did watch the 2017 movie "Mother Krampus" and didn't enjoy it one bit, I still opted to watch the 2018 sequel "Mother Krampus 2: Slay Ride", though I harbored zero expectations to the movie. But on account of never having watched the 2018 sequel, I opted to give director Eddie Lengyel's movie a fair chance, maybe it would prove better than the predecessor.

Writers Eddie Lengyel, Roger Conners and Kris Smith didn't exactly put together a particularly thrilling or enjoyable script. So I have to say that it wasn't an outstanding horror experience sitting through "Mother Krampus 2: Slay Ride".

Needless to say that I was not, of course, familiar with the actors and actresses on the cast list. I will say, though, that the acting performances were fair enough, despite the fact that the script was a garbage heap.

The movie was a slight improvement on the 2017 movie, but not by much. And certainly not enough that I would recommend you to waste 96 minutes on watching this.

My rating of director Eddie Lengyel's 2018 movie "Mother Krampus 2: Slay Ride" lands on a two out of ten stars.

'Mother Krampus 2: Slay Ride' 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. 'Mother Krampus 2: Slay Ride' is terrible, with a plethora of enormous problems. Low budget Krampus films have not fared well and 'Mother Krampus 2: Slay Ride' is one of the worst examples. There is next to nothing to recommend.

Lets start with the sole positive. The setting is 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 it's best not mentioning the uniformly lumbering and histrionic acting that shows a huge indifference to the situation and what is going on and extremely awkward prolonged pauses.

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 'Mother Krampus 2: Slay Ride' 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

Krampus 2 (2018) is a movie that I recently watched on Tubi. The storyline follows a community center that includes many workers that are required to be there as part of their community service. On Christmas Eve an unexpected guest arrives to determine who is naughty and whom was there for authentic reasons. The punishment for being naughty is this will be their last day at the community center...or any place else alive.

This movie is directed by Eddie Lengyel (The Curse of Lilith Ratchet) and stars KateLynn E. Newberry (Homecoming Revenge), Tiffani Hilton (Whatever it Takes), Robbie Barnes (Whatever it Takes), Roger Conners (Meat) and Daniela Simms (Chosen).

The movie has a fun opening with a great ax kill and some great corresponding sound effects. The kills for this are a step above the original. However, I never like when they have the monster/demon inside a human and a human is doing all the killing for the viewer, it always feels a bit like a copout. The acting, dialogue and scenarios were about equal to the first one, not overly good.

Overall, this was a step in the right direction from the first film but still not good. I would score this a 3.5-4/10 and recommend skipping it.