MOTHER KRAMPUS (12 DEATHS OF CHRISTMAS) (2017)

Studio:       Cinedigm
Director:    James Klass
Writer:       Scott Jeffrey, James Klass
Producer:  Tara MacGowran
Stars:     Claire-Maria Fox, Tony Manders, Faye Goodwin, Tara MacGowran, Michelle Archer, Oliver Ebsworth, Tom Bowen, Dottie James, Sian Crisp, Amy Burrows, Tim West, Penelope Read

Review Score:

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Summary:

Small town secrets threaten to tear apart families cursed by a witch who kidnaps children at Christmas.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

In a church outside the small English village of Belgrave, supernatural witch Frau Perchta lures young boy Perry using candy. Perchta kidnaps Perry.

At their school, Callum professes his crush on classmate Amy. Classmate Kevin bullies Callum into a fight, prompting teacher Miss Kitchen to give both boys detention. During detention, Perchta emerges from the classroom cupboard to kidnap Kevin.

Afraid to tell her daughter Amy that her husband Wildon left for another woman, Vanessa takes Amy to her father Alfie’s house for the holidays. Amy secretly calls Wildon and invites him to come to her grandfather’s place for Christmas by lying that Vanessa wants him there.

Vanessa, Amy, and Alfie’s first night together is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of a woman named Leslie. Leslie privately has a cryptic conversation with Alfie in which she warns that local children are going missing again, indicating that a witch’s curse against townspeople may be real. Alfie dismisses the notion, but agrees to attend a meeting at the church the following day.

Alfie attends the meeting, which includes Leslie, Joe, Martha, and other townspeople as well as their priest Heidi. Everyone discusses how a rash of gruesome child murders in 1992 led to them lynching suspected witch Molly Fletcher for the crimes. Before being gutted and hung, Molly proclaimed her innocence by summoning Frau Perchta, a legendary witch who steals children’s souls over the twelve days of Christmas, to one day come for her killers and their children. The townspeople now believe the curse is being fulfilled 25 years later.

Meanwhile, Perchta kidnaps Joe’s daughter Tilly after killing the young girl’s babysitter. Joe comes home to find the babysitter strung up like a holiday decoration.

Alfie, Vanessa, and Amy return home to find the number 12 written in blood on their front door. Alfie is forced to tell Vanessa the truth about Molly Fletcher’s murder and the curse of Frau Perchta. Alfie admits he was involved due to the death of a sister Vanessa never knew she had because she was only three when Alfie’s other daughter died and he never told her. Vanessa later finds a photo revealing that Leslie is her real mother.

Following two previous sightings, Perchta reappears to Amy as she cleans the bloody door. Callum interrupts, sending the witch away. After Amy and Callum exchange gifts, Callum’s aunt Martha pulls the boy away to walk him home.

Martha and Callum are stopped in the forest by the sight of cookies made from human flesh grilling over a fire. Perchta kills Martha and uses her flesh to make more cookies before kidnapping Callum.

The next day, Wildon arrives at Alfie’s house with his new girlfriend Debbie, which creates considerable tension amongst everyone. Over the course of the evening, the family engages in several conversations to reconcile their relationships.

Alfie and Vanessa visit the church to discover no one else appears to be left. However, a corkboard of clues indicates that Amy is being targeted as the fifth and final child for Frau Perchta’s blood ritual. Vanessa and Alfie race back home.

Under the witch’s spell, Amy allows Frau Perchta inside the house. Perchta attacks all of the adults, eventually killing Debbie by carving her up and cooking her like a turkey. In a daze, Wildon accidentally murders Vanessa with an ax. Perchta chokes Wildon with Christmas lights and rips out his heart.

Leslie arrives to rescue Alfie. At the same time, Perchta gives Amy a vision that reveals Leslie was actually responsible for the child murders in 1992 and framed Molly Fletcher. Alfie then murdered their other daughter so that no one would suspect Leslie was involved. Although he killed Vanessa’s sister to protect Leslie, Alfie then disavowed the woman.

Amy confronts Alfie and Leslie with the truth. Amy ends up stabbing Alfie. Perchta puts an ax into Leslie’s throat. Perchta then walks Amy through the woods to meet Krampus.

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Review:

After enduring the absolute awfulness of “Krampus: The Christmas Devil” (review here), “Krampus 2: The Devil Returns” (review here), “Krampus: The Reckoning” (review here), and “Krampus Unleashed” (review here) over a poorly spent four-day span, it was an easy matter to conclude that the only holiday horror film with the word “Krampus” in its title worth watching is Michael Dougherty’s eponymous Universal Pictures hit (review here).  The arrival of “Mother Krampus” doesn’t alter that sentiment, though in fairness, Krampus has next to nothing to do with the movie.

“Mother Krampus” is actually “12 Deaths of Christmas,” retitled for its North American home video release because obviously, fright flick fans will watch anything remotely related to the infamous Anti-Claus.  Look no further than my own self-inflicted sadism of continuing to abuse eyes and ears with DTV Krampus krap despite the terrible track record outlined above.

“Mother Krampus,” or “12 Deaths of Christmas” depending on your distribution region, takes inspiration from the urban legend of Frau Perchta, a witch said to steal children’s souls.  Perchta’s Christmas curse creatively combines with Freddy Krueger’s origin story as a small English town faces the anniversary of condemning a local woman to be lynched for supposedly slitting five children’s throats.  Molly Fletcher professed innocence, yet the angry townspeople cut open her stomach and hung her anyway.  But not before Molly summoned Frau Perchta to come for her killers as well as their kids.

25 years later, Perchta finally gets around to fulfilling the curse.  The wicked witch’s arrival coincides with some family melodrama involving little girl Amy, her newly single mother Vanessa, and grandfather Alfie, whose connection to Molly’s murder hides more than one dark family secret.  Those secrets are exposed as adults start dying, children start disappearing, and Amy’s family learns its real role in bringing Frau Perchta’s blood ritual full circle.

Throughout the film’s first half, I was really rooting for it to win out as a respectable production for what is clearly a micro movie made with inexperienced actors.  “Rough around the edges” doesn’t fully describe how jagged those lines are, yet a British flavour and seeming sincerity in the effort buffered tolerance for its low budget limitations.

Then the back half’s rudder falls off completely, leaving “Mother Krampus” to sputter and stall as it flails to fill a 90-minute film with only a 30-minute idea.  By this point, tidings of goodwill evaporate and the warts on this witch’s nose obscure every other feature on her face.

Bluntly put, none of the kids featured in the film could act their way out of wet wrapping paper.  Adult performers fare a bit better, though not by much.

Part of the blame falls on writing that isn’t synched to the staging.  “I think there’s something inside,” says one boy to another after a tent five feet from them violently shakes and moans.  “There aren’t many of us left,” one man says later to an assembly of nearly ten people.  At this same meeting, everyone receives a warning that the witch is kidnapping children and likely hiding out in the woods.  It thus makes a lot of sense when immediately after, one woman walks her nephew home alone in the dark through those woods.  Guess what happens to them?

If gore lights your Yule log, “Mother Krampus” at least features several Christmas-themed kills.  One mutilated corpse is turned into a festive light display.  Another’s flesh is cut into cannibal cookies.  One more gets carved up and baked like a turkey.  So the movie has that much I suppose, although you still have to swim through a Swiss cheese screenplay, wince-inducing acting, and shoddily edited scenes to get there.

Way off timing fails to create any tension whatsoever.  One scene of the witch coming for a girl and her babysitter plays out over a 10-minute sequence alternating with a second story thread.  Temptation to yell, “get on with it” rises high when the witch chokes out victims for prolonged periods, or when the camera continually cuts to someone choking on her own blood or otherwise dying slowly.  For the finale, several characters die repeated deaths as though they are concluding “Lord of the Rings” in the movie’s attempt to draw out its climax.

There are forgivable sins when working within indie horror constraints.  Slipshod scripting isn’t one of them.  Although delightfully daffy, the eventual outcome is more absurd than entertaining because the broken pieces putting “Mother Krampus” together function even worse when they are out on the board at the same time.

Alas, the search for a second recommendable Krampus-related movie continues, as “Mother Krampus” definitely isn’t it.  All the while, the quality bar for approval continues sinking lower, lower, and lower.

Review Score:  40

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