It's Christmas Eve, and three cosplaying women come across the malevolent Christmas demon Krampus. The girls must team up with Santa Claus himself to battle the creature and save the world.It's Christmas Eve, and three cosplaying women come across the malevolent Christmas demon Krampus. The girls must team up with Santa Claus himself to battle the creature and save the world.It's Christmas Eve, and three cosplaying women come across the malevolent Christmas demon Krampus. The girls must team up with Santa Claus himself to battle the creature and save the world.
Hannah Minx
- Sadie
- (as Hannah Wagner)
Diane Louise Salinger
- Cherry
- (as Diane Salinger)
Stephen Ford
- Sean
- (as Stephen Lunsford)
Joel Ezra Hebner
- Krampus
- (as Joel Hebner)
- …
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Featured reviews
I suppose the main question is: why?
Usually a low budget holiday romp is fun. With over the top gore and nudity. This film seems to pretend it has that but never really delivers all that much, and it doesn't have any decent writing or acting to make up for this.
There are lots of scenes where something wacky or wild is supposed to be happening, but it's far too clear that nothing really is going on. There are lots of ways to pad out a tiny budget and this film seems to just hope that optimism and people being in on the joke will cover it, and it doesn't.
I wanted to like this, I really did!
Usually a low budget holiday romp is fun. With over the top gore and nudity. This film seems to pretend it has that but never really delivers all that much, and it doesn't have any decent writing or acting to make up for this.
There are lots of scenes where something wacky or wild is supposed to be happening, but it's far too clear that nothing really is going on. There are lots of ways to pad out a tiny budget and this film seems to just hope that optimism and people being in on the joke will cover it, and it doesn't.
I wanted to like this, I really did!
If you're looking for perfection, you're not going to find it here. But if you want a fun, better than expected, b-movie to watch around Christmas time I think this is one to check out.
I kinda expected just a super low budget sjinf flick. But I surprised to find a fairly well done movie with only a super brief nude scene. The camera work damn near made me see sick and done if the visual effects were bad, but it is fun.
We get literally one hundred new cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies each year and I think us horror fans deserve at least a couple annual cheesy Christmas horror movies at least! Sure, this movie isn't "good" but it's totally fun and good-hearted. You could do way worse when celebrating the holiday season.
I won't go through the plot here, as I'm sure you've read the synopsis . So here's what I liked .
But what did not work
Overall fans of B-Movie cinema may enjoy a festive treat , but for the more casual fan , there are better produced modern Christmas horror movies out there
- Our 3 lead female characters have good chemistry , seem like they'd really be friends and were zany and fun to watch
- The Krampus costume, looks pretty good to me. i like the way it's design resembles the classic Krampus look from the old German illustrations , and for a lower budget i thought the effects were pretty good
- I enjoyed the reveal towards the end of the movie which i won't spoil
- The Movie has it's tongue in cheek and has a good sense of fun
But what did not work
- Biggest issue by far is the truly poor cinematography , camera work , editing and the lighting wasn't great either . Often shots are poorly framed , too dark, and edited in a way that makes the Taken sequels look well edited
- Acting by additional cast seemed a very miked bag
- Unnecessary scenes and characters. So many scenes were of the police station, i actually thought they might have something to do with the plot. Nope , just a running gag about the dis organised cops. Plus what was the point of the Richard moll scenes? Just smacks of reshoots to fill out the running time
- A bit light on horror. Not as many kills or gore as i was expecting with a title like that
- The movie lags in the second act. When the girls are holed up in the house. Nothing really seems to happen for about 20-25 mins
Overall fans of B-Movie cinema may enjoy a festive treat , but for the more casual fan , there are better produced modern Christmas horror movies out there
Slay Belles: it's clever because 'Slay' sounds like 'Sleigh' and 'Belles' sounds like 'Bells'. Unfortunately, that's about as clever as this film gets. It's dumb. It's very dumb. But sadly, it's not dumb fun.
The humour is extremely forced and rarely hits the mark. The cast are enthusiastic enough, but comedy clearly isn't their forté and the script just isn't witty enough despite a potentially amusing premise.
The plot sees Alexi (Kristina Klebe) joining her big-breasted friends, urban explorers Dahlia (Susan Slaughter) and Sadie (Hannah Minx ), on a trip to abandoned theme park Santaland, where they intend to record their latest Adventure Girl web cast. What they don't realise is that they are not alone: the 'Christmas Devil' Krampus is on the prowl for naughty people, making the trespassing girls potential victims. Luckily for them, the real Santa Claus (Barry Bostwick) is also there to help them stay alive.
Director Dan Walker takes a gimmicky approach to his film-making, with novelty graphics and 'stylish' (i.e., annoying) editing, which is bad enough, but add in horrible wobbly camerawork and some really dark night-time scenes, and the result is a film that is not only nowhere near as funny as it could have been, but which is also fairly grating on the nerves. Walker should have compensated with plenty of gore, but barring the death of Sadie's boyfriend Brian (Rich Manley), there's not much splatter to speak of.
The film's pros are as follows: impressive opening credits, one reasonable monster, one gore effect, one passable performance (from Bostwick), two big pairs of boobs (one pair getting a brief airing).
The cons: bad acting, bad camerawork, bad comedy, too many dark scenes, inappropriate use of dubstep music, not enough blood and guts, and no gratuitous shower scene for Sadie.
3.5/10, rounded up to 4 for... well, it's Christmas... I'm feeling generous.
The humour is extremely forced and rarely hits the mark. The cast are enthusiastic enough, but comedy clearly isn't their forté and the script just isn't witty enough despite a potentially amusing premise.
The plot sees Alexi (Kristina Klebe) joining her big-breasted friends, urban explorers Dahlia (Susan Slaughter) and Sadie (Hannah Minx ), on a trip to abandoned theme park Santaland, where they intend to record their latest Adventure Girl web cast. What they don't realise is that they are not alone: the 'Christmas Devil' Krampus is on the prowl for naughty people, making the trespassing girls potential victims. Luckily for them, the real Santa Claus (Barry Bostwick) is also there to help them stay alive.
Director Dan Walker takes a gimmicky approach to his film-making, with novelty graphics and 'stylish' (i.e., annoying) editing, which is bad enough, but add in horrible wobbly camerawork and some really dark night-time scenes, and the result is a film that is not only nowhere near as funny as it could have been, but which is also fairly grating on the nerves. Walker should have compensated with plenty of gore, but barring the death of Sadie's boyfriend Brian (Rich Manley), there's not much splatter to speak of.
The film's pros are as follows: impressive opening credits, one reasonable monster, one gore effect, one passable performance (from Bostwick), two big pairs of boobs (one pair getting a brief airing).
The cons: bad acting, bad camerawork, bad comedy, too many dark scenes, inappropriate use of dubstep music, not enough blood and guts, and no gratuitous shower scene for Sadie.
3.5/10, rounded up to 4 for... well, it's Christmas... I'm feeling generous.
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaActress and YouTuber Hannah Minx (aka Hannah Wagner) didn't attend the movie's premiere in November 2018 because she had been missing for almost a year. Kristina Klebe said in an interview that the last time she saw Minx was New Years Eve 2017 when Minx stayed at her house.
- Crazy creditsAfter the first set of credits, there is a short clip of the Adventure Girls wishing a Merry Christmas.
- ConnectionsReferenced in Tell It Animated: The Evolution of Krampus (2022)
- SoundtracksHorror Dub
Written by Alex Napiwocki & Jerry Pierce
Performed by Alex Napiwocki & Jerry Pierce
- How long is Slay Belles?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Runtime1 hour 17 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.78 : 1
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