KRAMPUS UNLEASHED (2016)

Studio:       Uncork’d Entertainment
Director:    Robert Conway
Writer:       Robert Conway
Producer:  Robert Conway
Stars:     Amelia Brantley, Bryson Holl, Caroline Lassetter, Taylor Buckley, Tim Sauer, Emily Lynne Aiken, Daniel Link, Tori Osborn, Michael Harrelson, Linda Cushma, Travis Amery

Review Score:

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Summary:

A dysfunctional family’s holiday turns into terror when a forgotten outlaw’s ancient summoning stone unleashes Krampus.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

After ten years of terrorizing the American Southwest, German-born outlaw Eric Klaus buried his loot on an Arizona hilltop in 1898. Sensing lawmen closing in, Klaus swore a curse to unleash a living Hell upon anyone who disturbed his treasure.

Looking for Klaus’ loot many years later, a group of treasure hunters finds the burial site and digs up a stone. The group’s German guide warns that it is an ancient summoning stone made of coal that Saint Nicholas used against his enemies. An oil lamp is knocked over and it burns the stone. Krampus appears and kills everyone except for a young man named Coop.

Present Day – Will and Amber bring their teen daughter Fiona and young son Tommy to visit Amber’s parents Alice and Dale Henderson for Christmas. Amber’s brother David, his wife Vivian, and their son Troy also come to the Henderson house.

David convinces Will, Tommy, and Troy to pan for gold with him. Dale’s neighbor Bonnie Tyler comes across the group while hiking and briefly makes acquaintances. Tommy finds the summoning stone in a creek and brings it back to the house. Troy later takes the stone from Tommy and unknowingly heats it with a discarded cigarette.

That night, Krampus appears and kills Bigfoot hunters Roger and Terry.

Having gone inside after sex, Bonnie returns to her hot tub outside and finds Krampus disemboweling her boyfriend James. Bonnie runs away when she shoots the creature and realizes it is not harmed by shotgun buckshot.

Bonnie flees to the Henderson house and calls 911. Dispatcher Fran puts Bonnie’s ex-boyfriend, trooper Dan Schilling, on the case.

Dale, Will, and David go outside with a gun to look for the creature. Krampus tears apart Dale and Will.

David runs back to the house and insists that everyone should leave. Over David’s objections, Amber, Alice, and Tommy run outside to look for Dale and Will.

Krampus kills Alice. Tommy watches in horror as Krampus murders his mother Amber.

Tommy makes it back to David’s van and escapes along with Vivian, Fiona, Troy, and Bonnie. In his rush to get away, David crashes the vehicle. Vivian dies. After everyone else flees from the wreck on foot, Krampus appears and murders David.

Bonnie, Tommy, Troy, and Fiona make it to the home of Bonnie’s friend Coop, who survived the treasure hunt expedition many years earlier. Coop tells them the story of the stone and the legend of Krampus. Troy reveals he brought the stone with him in his backpack. Coop explains that Krampus can only be stopped by burying him underneath the earth. Coop devises a plan to lure Krampus to an old mine using the stone and then explode the surrounding mountain with dynamite to bring it down on the creature.

Everyone goes into the mine. Krampus gives chase and attacks Coop, but Coop is able to light the dynamite before dying. Krampus is caught in a cave-in while the others escape outside.

Bonnie, Tommy, and Fiona are found by Trooper Schilling. Troy lags behind and is attacked by a baby Krampus.

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Review:

“Krampus Unleashed” comes from Robert Conway, the same writer/director responsible for 2015’s “Krampus: The Reckoning” (review here).  It isn’t a sequel though, so you don’t need to have seen the previous film.

The good news is you don’t need to see this movie either.  The bad news is I already did.

America’s west was still wild in 1898.  After a 10-year spree of committing cowboy crimes, German-born outlaw Eric Klaus (groan) finally felt lawmen closing in for the kill.  Klaus quickly buried his ill-gotten goods in the ground, but not before warning that Hell would descend upon anyone who dared to disturb his loot.  Klaus’ curse was forgotten some indeterminate amount of time later.  Now a group of treasure hunters searching for gold sets out to do the very thing Klaus grimly advised against.

That premise has potential for period piece action, except the movie’s micro-budget doesn’t have moolah to depict any of it.  Momentarily ignoring its existence in a visual storytelling medium, “Krampus Unleashed” instead delivers all of the above information via seven screens of text.  As any first-year filmmaking instructor can confirm, when the only option for introducing an audience to a setup and immersing them in a narrative is an out-of-the-gate word wall, there is a fundamental flaw in the screenplay’s structure.

Playing loose with the Krampus legend, additional background is some mumbo jumbo that isn’t half bad about a summoning stone Saint Nicholas used to conjure evil for crushing his enemies.  What outlaw Eric Klaus (sigh) buried in the desert was a cursed coal lump that when touched by flame, can unleash Krampus to kill.  A carelessly kicked oil lamp does exactly that and the ambiguously outfitted treasure hunters meet their promised fate in cheesy B-movie fashion.  At least we get to see it rather than have to read about it.

Fast forward again.  It’s present day and two sides of the Henderson clan are uniting their extended families at grandma and grandpa’s house for the holidays.  Circumstances are awkwardly uncomfortable for everyone, particularly viewers, but Uncle David (not Dave) convinces his brother-in-law and their two boys to go panning for gold in a creek.  Because what could be more entertaining to a teen and a 10-year-old in 2016 than swirling dirt around in some water?

Little Tommy finds the stone.  Bratty bully Troy flicks a lit cigarette.  The two items touch and the film’s title comes to fruition.  From a pair of hillbilly hunters to some guy in an inflatable hot tub, no one is safe from the Christmas Devil, including every last member of the Henderson family.

The characters and storyline of “Krampus: The Reckoning” may not carry over to “Krampus Unleashed,” but the same sorts of technical troubles do.  Sad to say that one year has not made an appreciable difference in what this filmmaking crew can bring to the screen.

Indie horror efforts sometimes struggle with inconsistent color timing, absentee light sources, and other pimples indicative of a low-budget look.  Rough edges are par for the course in this territory and “Krampus Unleashed” is in it deep.  But should there be a third Krampus film from this team, the only thing they should ask for from Santa is someone to show them how to record room tone and edit it into consistent ambient noise.

The audio quality in “Krampus Unleashed” is absolutely atrocious.  An off-key vocalist in an opening credits Christmas carol sounds like he is singing through a cardboard tube.  Characters will have conversations where crickets chirp in one person’s close-up, but not in the other’s.  Sound consistently cuts so harshly between shots that there may not be a single scene whose audio doesn’t confess it comes from multiple takes.

“Krampus Unleashed” runs only 75 minutes and can’t competently fill that short span.  While the ADHD storyline routinely interrupts itself to check on whatever boring thing is happening in one of seven subplots, the audience is subjected to unused background about a local lawman being one woman’s ex-boyfriend, overlong yuk-yuks with two dimwit Sasquatch trackers, and countless more minutes of ultimately irrelevant material.

As with the previous film, Krampus again has nearly no bearing on the plot.  He is a guy in a horned gorilla suit standing in as a slasher that could all the same be a supernatural clown, a smoke monster, or any average demon.  Lack of snow in the Arizona setting doesn’t help stir any Christmas spirit either.

Performances are marginally better this time around than they were in “Krampus: The Reckoning,” though that is a low bar to beat.  These colorful characters come close to making “Krampus Unleashed” a slightly more entertaining watch.  However, the horrible audio quality is such a persistent distraction that the overall viewing experience is nearly unbearable, earning a thumb pointed down just as far.

Review Score:  15

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