After a savage gang of Vikings invade a Saxon Castle, murdering all in sight, one surviving man calls upon Krampus, the Yule devil to come to exact revenge for his family.
Review
From director Louisa Warren (Bride of Scarecrow) comes an interesting take on Brit history. When the Vikings siege a castle in Sussex, the King uses witches to summon a demon to take revenge. And all goes wrong.
While there are some flaws in the film, Pagan Warrior has some distinct highlights. Warren is becoming an experienced director, and is showing real strength behind the camera. It shows here, with good action beats before getting to the horror. The film has solid pacing and pretty decent screenplay, although sparse at times due to a relatively short run time.
Pagan Warrior is a low budget affair, and to be honest, sometimes lower budgeted films have ideas above their station, which often lends to terrible execution of heavily prosthetic based characters. Pagan Warrior works. Not only is the demon on show for a good amount of the run time, it is also during the day. Both of these factors can be the death knell of a poorly realized monster. Not here, though. The Krampus of the piece is an excellently created villain, one that would not look out of place next to, say, Tim Curry's own Darkness. Played by Darrell Griggs (Mandy the Doll) with aplomb, it's certainly something to behold.
The acting is broadly solid, Sarah T. Cohen (ClownDoll) shines with the little screen time she is given, Hattie Willow (Pet Graveyard) is always a win, but the delightfully bonkers performance of Carey Thring (Fox Trap) steals the show.
While the kills are effective, there isn't a huge amount of gore on show for the most part, and that works for this feature. It's action / horror throughout, and good for it. Outside of some wonky dialogue there is little to dislike.
With a beautifully realized devil on show, Pagan Warrior is a stylish horror on a budget, but done very well.
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