Gremlins meets The Griswalds in this Christmas comedy horror movie, based on the Bavarian folklore legend of a horned figure who, during the festive season, punishes children who have misbehaved in a polar opposite of the Santa Claus principal. While it has the feel of classic 1980 B-movie stock it fails to reach the heights of the classics of that era such as Night Of The Creeps or Tremors.

With acting talent such as Toni Collette and Adam Scott the script and dialogue are all very plain with more emphasis on the back story told by Scott’s Austrian grand-mother Krista Stadler leaving most of the acting talents wasted on screaming and wistful looks when the time requires. The best character is the obnoxious Aunt Dorothy, played by Conchata Ferrell in a similar vein to her role in 2 and a half men.

The effects are the one shining area of this movie as Krampus and his minions look great but most of the monsters are limited to quick close ups when it would have been nicer to see some more detail shown but the excellent the use of puppetry needs to be commended. It’s far from the worst movie of it’s kind but the humour takes away from the horror and vice versa so if director Michael Dougherty had leaned a bit further one way of the other (as he did with this previous effort Trick ‘R’ Treat) he may have had a cult classic on his hands.

DJ Speaks Rating: 4 out of 10

 

The demon Bughuul is back and is looking to recruit more children to assist in adding to his library of Super 8 snuff tapes but this time it’s without any of the surprise that the originality of the first installment gave us and where the original had the over the top performances of both Ethan Hawke and Vincent D’Onofrio this offers nothing in the acting stakes.

We are supposed to believe that a mother would knowingly move her kids into a house with the history it has without any other obvious reason than the fact that she is trying to hide from her abusive ex-husband. At least in the first movie Hawke wanted to do research into the murders so it gave some purpose behind his logic.

The ex-deputy from the first movie, who seems to be the only person that actually knows what is going on, decides that the information that he has is best kept to himself and never advises the family of the danger they are in. Instead he hangs around like some form of macabre rubbernecker waiting on the bloodshed to begin and acts like the David Arquette Officer Dewey character from the Scream series of movies.

Where the idea for introducing the Ham radio came from is a mystery as it takes the premise of how the movie operates and pushes it in a whole different direction. Remember, this demon can already control laptops and TV sets so presumably this change is only done to try and keep the medium of the equipment that Bughuul uses retro for the inevitable third installment.

The fact that director Ciarán Foy tries to use the demon as representation of the abuse the children suffered through their father is touching upon an interesting concept but this gets lost in the attempts at pointless jump scares and the only sequence which has any real sense of dread is the final fifteen minutes which is mainly shot from behind the lens of the old school camera and the cuts from in front of the camera to the silent views from behind the camera, is the only ‘sinister’ thing through the whole movie so, if you haven’t seen the first film watch that instead as at least there are some memorable moments and also because this sequel presumes you have the knowledge of the events of part one. Then once you have done that don’t bother watching this one.

DJ Speaks Rating: 4 out of 10

This is a ‘based on a true story’ movie about a detective investigating a possible molestation case who uncovers a hidden satanic group in a small town using, now generally unused, regressive therapy. Heard it all before? Pretty much. Anything new to be found in this movie? Not really.

Making matters worse is that the ending just leaves the rest of the movie being inconsequential so you’ve just wasted your time with the ninety odd minutes that preceded it.

To try and find some positives the movie does have a very Roman Polanski like feel and there are some good eerie moments but it just never seems to take a leap in any direction and plods along until the shocking (and not in a good way) climax. Ethan Hawke does his best to look intense and confused in equal parts and Emma Watson plays the doe eyed victim quite well but in the end all their effort is ruined by the disappointing final fifteen minutes.

DJ Speaks Rating: 4 out of 10