Christmas is descending on Cleveland, Ohio, and a group of three hot young girls are gathered together to serve their last bit of community service right before the holiday to clear their criminal records. They meet with their officer, another hot young lady, and travel to a homeless shelter where they are to serve food for the evening meal. Afterwards, they are to take packaged meals to poor people in the community who are of need. The girls do their job but not without a lot of moaning. They all want to be done with this and get on with their lives. But, duty calls. It is when they arrive at the last house on their list that they run into a kindly older lady who invites them in. The girls are also supposed to help out around the house with any cleaning or whatever the lady needs. She’s an odd woman, not expecting their arrival, but very friendly. She makes them some soup as they straighten the house out and wash her dishes. Thing is, the lady is crazy, a killer on the loose, and soon, the girls start dying, one by one, as they fall into a night of slaughter. The Slay Ride has begun; who will survive?
So, this one was originally titled “The Naughty List,” I believe, and has nothing at all to do with the original Mother Krampus. Like that film, this one was retitled and sent out into the world to confuse Krampus fans even more: two movies and no Krampus at all? That’s right. This one is basically a Slasher film, with the killer dressing up somewhat like Leatherface and the bad guys in The Strangers and offing her victims using knives and whatnot to inflict wounds full of Karo Syrup and what looks like bits of cake batter. In other words, the FX are pretty bad and the kills are terrible. But here’s the thing, all the actors in this are pretty damned good, and each one sells their situation and brings some much-needed sympathy to the story. They’re fun and funny and real. I also have to admire the audacity of the director to try and work a couple sex scenes in there (no nudity, though) and somehow pull that off. The whole thing moves along at a good pace and I found myself more interested in the foibles of the girls and their “evening gone wrong,” than I did the actual Horror stuff. Once the killings start, it gets less interesting. Still, not a bad movie at all, just very limited due to budget.
Mother Krampus 2 is much better than the original, and I know that’s not saying much, but it’s the kind of movie that if you saw randomly on TV, you might stop and watch a little and get stuck in it. You know the kind: not very good but somehow compelling enough to get you to stay for the ending. When it’s done, you kind of scratch your head and wonder why you bothered, but you don’t feel let down. It’s that kind of movie, and now you know if you’re interested enough to see it or not. But if you have to choose, take this one over the original Mother Krampus.