DVD Movie Review #196 Krampus: The Christmas Devil

Well we are well into the holiday season and here comes my next installment of my Krampus reviews. This time I am reviewing another low budget fun fest called Krampus: The Christmas Devil. This was discovered in my Krampus Search and oddly enough the movie trailer is easier to find than the one for the new movie released last year. 

So we start with a flashback to a time when a naughty little kid nearly gets killed by Krampus as is like for all naughty children. Flash forward, there are more killings going on and our former problem child is now a do gooder police officer dedicated to hunting the evil Krampus down. Unfortunately another criminal just got out of prison and he wants revenge on the Cop that put him in jail. Will Krampus complete is Christmas list? 

We have to look at this for what it is: a low Budget B-Movie that wants to be taken seriously. Now with this in mind they didn't do too bad a job. I thought that the acting was actually about medium grade level not your typical tripping over yourself acting that I am used to in these type of films (cough "Night of the Krampus" cough). The story itself has a lot of promise to it. You have two killers around but both with very different motives in mind. I would say how this movie turned out in the end is how I would expect it to be. The music is well done for the budget and I always enjoy the carol of the bells done by electric guitar this allowed me to rock out to the credits even as I write this review. 

So...where do I get started...well I did say this was a good premise and story but I would say that in execution this film...fell flat a piece. I mean one of the joys of B movies is that they are funny or on occasion they shoot high and manage to pull off a good serious thriller or drama. I feel in this case they shot for the stars and barely cleared the back yard. I mean the acting was passable but you really didn't feel what the characters were feeling. I also wasn't as impressed with the Krampus man himself the costume was interesting but he really wasn't all that scary as he was in Krampus or in A Christmas Horror Story. Oddly enough I don't consider him as scary as the one in Night of the Krampus. I also have to wonder about putting a topless woman in this. I really feel this was a way to try and grab the audience and make up for the other inequities of the film. I don't even get why this half naked woman was there. I mean is Krampus a dirty sex maniac? I really feel made me lose some respect for the film makers a bit...sigh

The Best thing I can say about this film is that it is a lot of missed potential. There was a lot there and with a bit more effort and maybe a little more money I feel that they could have taken a so-so thriller attempt and turn it into something really good. God help me but I will be watching the sequel to this in the near future. Let's just hope that we do better this time. 

Rating:  5/10

DVD Movie Review #195 A Christmas Horror Story

Hello all to the Third Installment of our Krampus run of holiday cheer. Out of the films on this list this is the one I most wanted to see as it appeared to be good and CoolDuder gave his thumbs up to it. I didn't have super high expectations but had hopes for a lovely expression of kamp that would make me laugh through the holiday season. After a well placed order I have this Krampus film in hand and am ready once again to review my heart out :p

We start out yet again before Christmas to the dulcet tones of William Shatner on the radio. We cover four interesting storylines during this holiday season. First we have our nice loving family visiting a rich relative for love during this Chistmas. Second we see two parents trying to reconnect and both noticing something strange is going on with their child. Third a group of college students is investigating a murder that had occurred one year ago that was never fully solved. Finally we are with Santa in his workshop and we find that the elves are infected with some kind of evil Zombie virus. To tie them all together we have Krampus working his Christmas magic. 

So one of the things I like about this is that it is far more than what it seemed at first. This does not try to be Kampy like my previous entry it actually works well as a horror tale much in the vein of Trick r' Treat. I love how the story intersect with one another and it builds suspense throughout the feature. For being what it is the effects are very viable and are nothing to laugh at. The acting is done fairly well, though not perfect by any measure. Of course my favorite moment is the fight between Krampus and Santa Clause which since seeing the cover I had been eager for. Plot wise the ending is also something worth writing home about. Of course the Carol of the Bells adaptation is a fun take on the musical end which like "Krampus" makes a point to punctuate the various movie scenes and scares (though not as good as "Krampus"). Finally the twist ending left me feeling good about this in the end even if it was a tad confusing. I would say this is a good movie overall. 

This movie has a few detractors for me. Though I like the scary feel there are parts of this movie that drag from time to time. It is odd that the story about the teens investigating a possibly haunted building could be a tad boring. The ending, while a good point is also a tad confusing as it does make since with the hints dropped throughout I don't feel it connects as well to the other tales. This is really the biggest shortcoming overall from this that makes Trick r' Treat a better film and that is that the stories don't connect as well. 

Lastly to close I will say that this film was a pleasant surprise in what I expected to be "Krampus Light". I hope that this Krampus viewing only continues to improve upon my expectations, though I am doubting it :) 

Rating: 7/10 

DVD Movie Review #194 Krampus

Hello again and welcome to the second of my Krampus Christmas Romp! This time I am covering the new release that started my interest in this project: KRAMPUS! I know we all want those campy B-Movie favorites like the one that kicked it all off but this one is special, in the way that My wife actually has an interest in seeing this one and not the others so….gotta get that viewing time in where I can. (I have an untouched FFXV laying around I need to get to it sometime after all).

So we start out with a lovely view of how the world really looks during the holidays which is enough to crush your spirit even if for just a little bit. Amongst the Black Friday we come upon a lovely family that becomes the star of our little Christmas pageant. Once home we get to see how loving they are as they are visited by more relatives to spend a miserable Christmas in each other’s company. Hence se visit our young hero that is destined to work on trying to change things and officially sets this series into motion as our family are shown how terrible it is to be terrible during the holiday season.

This film is an interesting mix of B-movie horror and campy comedy horror. You can tell this in the almost cartoonish way the family is portrayed and of course in some of the monsters they fight in order to stay alive. I really did like this film for a lot of these qualities. It comes across pretty well for what it is trying to do and is probably one of the top tier of this type of film. I think the creativity of the monsters here and the way things were directed even left a few moments of suspense in this holiday teaser. The special effects were definitely nothing to sneeze at. I could tell that they did work on these effects very well in the film and it can be seen throughout. The acting was…good enough for what this is. It wasn’t campy, it wasn’t spectacular but it was enough to get us through this without noticing anything being wrong. Finally let me get to where this movie shines the most, the music. They are very good at incorporating different themes into this film and the music helps them work it out with twisted versions of known carols or just the placement of old favorites. In the end this film sets the stage quite well for the coming horrors.

That being said this movie is what it is, which is a B-Movie/Scary Movie hybrid and though one of the best it still is a detractor.  I really love scary movies and I really love B-Movies, both are really good at what they do be it a B-Movie like Thankskilling which has me laughing in my seat or a Scary movie like the Last Shift which leaves you crawling under the covers to hide both genres are really good. Unfortunately many try to do a hybrid mixing campy and slightly funny moments in what they would consider a serious horror film, this is sometimes done on purpose and sometimes by accident (see this on the upcoming “A Christmas Horror Story” review). There is a problem with this attempt to bring levity in and it is that the film can become confusing or even the worst case scenario…boring. This film does an good job of this and is probably one of my favorites of this type but at the same time it suffers from this attempt as I have never seen a film of this type that I would consider…great (sorry Shaun of the Dead Fans). The next is the way they portray the family. Really they did a good job of having them develop throughout but they make them so distasteful and so hateful that it really doesn’t help by the end and though in the B-Movie type I may want to root for the protagonists to die (though lets face it in a B-Movie the real protagonist is the monster) I don’t want to feel that way for a scary film.

In summary this is overall a solid film that only suffers from its attempts at trying to skirt that line between horror and comedy. Still….I would consider this movie a good watch for the holidays and a one I will revisit again in the future.

Ragint 7/10   

DVD Movie Review #193 Night of the Krampus

      This is the time of year when we have that special feeling of economic power that doesn’t really exist and reminds us of our shortcomings once again in January. This is a time of Santa Hats, jolly laughs and other evils. I have managed to procure one of the most evil and most recently known of the Christmas lore and that is the Krampus series. This is a series of films that chronicles the adventures of your fun loving demon. Krampus is a Santa companion that goes along on Christmas Eve behind Santa punishing the bad Kids behind the rewards bestowed by the S-Man. The first film I am covering in the Series is Night of the Krampus. This is the 30 minute short film that I feel started the craze more than anything else.

This story starts out with two little children, one bad and one good. They are discussing Christmas lore when one of them gets nabbed by the Krampster. In order to investigate some odd X-Files type agency is hired to go out, find the missing kids and end the Krampus Abductions.

This is entertaining for what it is, an independent low budget horror short. I find the characters entertaining in their banter and Krampus actually appears creepy at times with his finger wagging and saying “Naughty” to his intended victim. For what it is the effects are pretty decent and they utilize the green screen well here.

In the end this is still a cheap movie. The acting is terrible and the effects are barely passable…also what is the deal with the talking skeleton thing? The story goes by waaay too fast to fit the short film minimum and it feels like they just come in solve the problem and go home.

There is not much here to comment on. In the end it is what it is. If you like B Movies then the detractors add more charm than they take away and yet there were many missed opportunities here. This could have gone full Camp and become a funny masterpiece the likes of Thankskilling but they decided to go more serious. This saddens me… In the end this is a decent start to a long running series.

Rating: 6/10

DVD Movie Review #192 X-Men Apocalypse

Greetings all we are back again with a new DVD movie review. This time we are talking about X-Men Apocalypse. I have been interested in seeing this movie a long time now, I have all the other X-Men movies and was unable to see this one in theaters. Finally on a pre-black Friday sale I was able to get the Blue Ray for $14 and it was too good to avoid. Finally I managed to get a good chance to see this with my wife and charge forwards.

               This movie takes place a while after our last movie. The School is getting much more popular now with many new mutants learning their powers. Meanwhile in Egypt Moira is out and about investigating things that had better be left alone. Unfortunately for her she manages to trigger the awakening of Apocalypse a powerful mutant bent on world destruction. He gathers his own team of mutants to and start their trashing of the world. In their way it is the X-Men and yet another fierce battle between good and evil emerges with the world as the prize.

               

     I have gotten to really enjoy this set of X-men movies starting with First class and ending with Apocalypse. I feel these have taken a little more care with the source material and feel more like comic book movies than the first and third of the original set. I enjoyed the performances of the lead actors as usual and the choice of Oscar Isaac as Apocalpyse was a good one. I also enjoyed the continued appearance of our other main actors with good performances of Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy and Nicholas Hoult. The music itself was passable but the special effects were fun to see and enjoy.

    

           This movie had a lot wrong with it. Like many movies I feel like there was too much going on here for just one movie plotline. I feel this story, much like the phoenix saga should have been spread out beyond one film. I am also mad at the repeated mistake made with the original trilogy. This time it is with Jennifer Lawrence. Much like Halle Berry Jennifer Lawrence got Oscar fame and they decided to try and cash in by giving her a bit too much screen time in a series that she obviously couldn’t care less about. I could feel that the actress wanted to be done badly and though she was written in as a main character for her Oscar fame, she really didn’t have any place other than a potential minor one here. Because of all of the crap going with 3 movies of plot being forced in one Jennifer Lawrence contaminated film this was a jumbled mess that felt overly rushed and cluttered.

               In the end this is a fun comic book film but at the same time I really don’t feel like they did this one justice. I would like to say as far as the order of how good it is I would place it second from the bottom (third of the original set).

Rating:  6/10 

Is Fan Service a Bad thing in Anime

Fan service, It is something  that seems to go hand in hand with the word anime. I was reading a few articles written by feminist gamers on the subject that came out against the practice lately. I must admit I do agree with them for the most part. The main question is then, Why write an article when there are others already in existence? The answer is quite simple in the end and that is that many of these articles are written by women and avowed feminists. Many men automatically turn this off and dismiss this as biased in the reporting angle. To Me a straight male perspective on the issue can be useful in discussing the subject and may be less likely to meet with automatic defensiveness.

 

Now before we continue I want to make things clear. This article is going to contain a lot of examples of fan service and therefore viewer discretion is advised. I am going to try and be mostly tasteful in this article but I don’t want people coming at me complaining afterwards about the fan service pictures in the article about fan service.

What's worse is this is her battle outfit for the series.

The first thing that we should discuss is what is fan service. I mean it is talked about all the time after all and seems to pretty much be in all if not most anime to one level or another. Fan service is typically what it says it is, Fan Service. As the primary anime viewing population is male you can guess what kind of service it is. Pretty much anything that might excite the young male, such as panty shots, low cut shirts, bouncy breasts. Whatever might turn a young otaku on is pretty much all fan service is about.  

Your Typical Harem Anime

I want to first get into the pros of fan service. When you get to a series that is pretty much aimed directly at the young male audience for sexual purposes such as the harem genre (GXP, Heaven’s Lost Property, DearS). This becomes a useful tool within the series to draw the viewer in. In some cases the fan service is so over the top that the series becomes known purely for it (Oni Ai). In these instances I have with age stopped finding it as amusing it has its demographic and doesn’t really go beyond it (and doesn’t care).

Why!? What purpose does this have in a Zombie Apocalypse story?!

In reality the above is the only place I see fan service being useful. I will talk about two other types of fan service that I find as offenders. The first type is the type that makes me sad and that is the one that includes it in series that don’t even appear to relate to it at all. In these series there is an intriguing storyline that pulls you in but the fan service sends the story to a screeching halt, at times not belonging at all (I mean who looks for fan service in Corpse party for goodness sake). I can also say that fan service has a way of ruining a series in full (High School of the Dead) where the series showed such potential but they decided to dedicate episodes to women feeling each other up in the bath or giving odd boob physics. This to me is meaningless and therefore pointless.

Yes, They constantly show up skirt shots of this grade schooler. No, I will not post pics of it.

 

The second type is the uncalled for type. There are some fetishes in Japan that really need to stop. The loli fetish is one. I mean do we really need up skirt shots of 7 year olds?! This just isn’t about feminism in this angle as young boys are also given a sexual context in some area (Yuta Fetish anyone?) To me this is just wrong and though in some cases I have tolerated it in the past I do not believe it should exist in the first place.

Even for series like Hellsing this stupidity is a common occurrence and further degrades this character.

So in the end does fan service demean women. In short the answer is yes it does. This to me is not much of a reach and is no different than the scantily clad women selling beer on a Sunday afternoon. At the end of the day I feel that fan service is much like boys love in the since that it exploits something in order to appeal to a particular audience. Fan service can ruin series it can lead critics to looking at anime as being worthless and smutty and they have a point. I think that once fan service goes back to its proper place the world will align and things will be happy for all.  

DVD Movie Review #191 Black Butler: Book of Circus

There are a lot of good anime series out there, and there are a lot of hit or miss anime series out there. There is no clearer case of this than the series “Black Butler” (Kuroshitsuji to those of you who only do the Japanese). This is a series that had an exquisite first season and then an un-needed and series tarnishing second season leaving it as a hit or miss for me. When I found two more series (Book of Circus and Book of Murder) were coming out I had my doubts but as an anal retentive person I took the plunge and made the purchase. So now without further regard I introduce Black Butler: Book of Circus.

 

This series is about Ciel Phantomhive, a Noble born child who had his parents slaughtered and his estate burned. In his darkest hour he managed to cry out to a demon to come to him in his time of need. Establishing a contract for service the Demon offered to stay in Ciel’s services until he has fulfilled his revenge and Ciel promised the most valuable thing he had left…his soul. This series appears to be a side story in the timeline of the first season even though reports say it is a sequel to the second season (no chance of that). This story is an arc where Ciel is ordered by the queen to investigate the disappearances of children from the streets of London. Their investigation brings them to a mysterious circus that may or may not be the at the center. This series follows the investigation from the beginning to its thrilling conclusion.

I loved the first series for many reasons and disliked the second for additional things. This series, though short is very much at home in the first half of the series. The plot is very exciting with the colorful cast of characters interacting within the intricate web that eventually leads to the revelation of what has happened. The characters are really the driving force in this series for any male viewers (Sebastian for some of the female ones). These characters are colorful and have rich well stocked back stories that make even the bad guys sympathetic. When you add to this the actual mystery story and dark undertones this makes for a great watch. One of the other aspects of the series is where you see Ciel out of his league in places and that gives his character added surprising depth. The music as always is one of the stars as well with a vibe that leaves you falling through the darkness into the depths of the London Underworld. The animation continues to be very well done and action incredibly fluid. Lastly the voice acting is on point (love the dub, thanks Funimation).

So we are also looking into the negative aspects of this series. I feel that they had to rush things over the 10 episode run making some aspects of the investigation come to a conclusion a bit…too quickly. I mean they search around and then they are done! I mean really! I think with a full season order this could have been much better done and the series could have been allowed to shine much brighter. I am also under the notion that the series tries to be too dark, I mean the violence to children may or may not have had that much justification.

In the end this is a very good series that fits very much within the folds of this series first season. I think as a stand-alone story it could have been longer but in the end this shows the series when playing to its roots can still stand on its own.

Rating:  8/10