Horror Movie Review: Krampus 2: The Devil Returns (2016)

Released in 2013, Krampus: The Christmas Devil got the rare distinction of being given our first 0/10 for a Christmas horror movie. We absolutely hated it and had this to say:

Krampus: The Christmas Devil is an absolute shocker from beginning to end. If it doesn’t make you want to claw your eyeballs out, it will leave you curled up in a ball crying for Santa to bring you a brick so you can bludgeon yourself to death. Anything to escape the memory of this horrible horror movie.

If you had told us that it would get a sequel, we’d never have believed you. Or we’d at least begged it not to be true. Yet, here it is. Krampus 2: The Devil Returns, released in 2016 and once again, written/directed by Jason Hull. It stars A.J. Leslie, Melantha Blackthorn, R.A. Mihailoff and Paul Ferm.

To the surprise of no-one who saw the original, Krampus 2: The Devil Returns is a wretched movie. Easily as bad as the first, perhaps even worse at times. Whatever low standards you have, you’ll still come away shocked at the piss-poor quality of this movie.

The ‘story’ is set 5 years after the events of the first movie. A.J. Leslie reprises his role as Jeremy Duffin, who has gone into exile after his wife was murdered and his daughter was taken by Krampus. He has never given up hope that he might be able to find her alive though. So when police officers Dave Kane (Darin Foltz) and Paul Sharp (Darren Barcomb) ask him for help with solving increasing child disappearances, he agrees to help. Although his stories of Krampus, the Christmas Devil aren’t taking seriously.

The hunt for Krampus is on but complicated by the arrival of a local gang. Led by Stuart (R.A. Mihailoff) who wants revenge on Jeremy for his brother’s death years before. Oh, and Paul Fern reprises his role as the foul-mouthed Santa who is in control of the horny beast.

A painful watch. The lack of improvement over the original is genuinely surprising. Nothing has improved, it looks just as bad as the original. The acting is beyond dire, the story is mind-numbingly boring and does a horrendous job of trying to ‘shock’ in the latter portions of the movie.

The only convincing thing about this movie is the obvious desperation for everyone involved to get it over and done with. It would be easy to call this an embarrassment, a black stain on anyone’s IMDB page, but as most were involved in the first movie too, they knew what they were getting into.

To put such little effort in is unforgivable. We’ve seen many a horrid Christmas horror over the years but this is too much. This is more than a lump of coal in the stocking, it’s a runny turd caused by month old turkey meat that was sitting in the sun.