Christmas Blood

I hadn't even heard about the 2017 movie titled "Juleblod" (aka "Christmas Blood") prior to sitting down to watch it. And I must admit that the movie's cover/poster definitely had caught my attention, and that is why I picked it up. So writer and director Reinert Kiil had a clean slate here for impressing me.

And now having seen the movie, I must say that I wanted to like the movie. I really, really did, but writer and director Reinert Kiil just didn't manage to deliver a movie that was properly interesting or entertaining. Sure, the movie was semi-watchable, but it all drowned and was washed away by a mundane storyline and characters with the appeal of wet cardboard.

Now, the storyline in "Juleblod" definitely had potential and there were aspects to the plot and script that definitely could have worked. But the pacing of the storyline was just way too slow, and that made the movie suffer. And little did it help that the characters were as rigid as 1980's toy figures.

For a slasher movie, "Juleblod" just didn't really cut it. Writer and director Reinert Kiil apparently opted to play it safe and run everything on auto-pilot, which meant that the movie was just way too generic and mundane, especially for a seasoned horror fan such as myself.

This is hardly a noteworthy movie in the slasher genre, nor is it a movie that found its place on the watch-list for Christmas seasons. I managed to sit through it once, but I can guarantee that I will never return to watch it a second time.

My rating of "Juleblod" lands on a generous four out of ten stars.

After capturing a sadistic killer, a detective learns that he has escaped after several years in captivity and sets out to finish a deranged killing spree interrupted by his capture, putting him on the target of a group of friends partying in a remote village and forcing him to stop the killer.

This was a rather enjoyable holiday-themed slasher. One of the finer points here is the strong slasher-film setup at play here, which is the point of these types of films. The main setup, of the deranged killer exploiting a fabricated system of punishing those that might not seem to have a connection but n his warped thinking there is, his idea of hunting down those that he believes has been a sinner in their lives gives him a fine motivation to carry out his spree. This is nicely done in conjunction with the detective out to catch him once again after having caught him the first time around works as a fine secondary motive, and when carried out with the idea of the girls at the house partying that draws the killer there gives this a rather strong slasher-style setup. There's also the strong slashing scenes in the film. The opening scene, with the detectives searching the house for the killer after he had taken out the family in the darkened house, sets up the impressive scenes later on in the village. As the holiday setting is ably utilized in fine form with the festive lights, ornaments and decorations, as well as the overall snowy landscapes as the air is adorned with festive seasonal songs, there's a fine counterbalance to the scenes of the Santa-dressed killer running wild in the streets providing this with plenty of graphic kills, bloodshed and suspense as the scenes in the abandoned town give this a lot to like. These here are what makes this one work over the flaws here. The main issue at fault here is the rather sedate and bland pacing that comes into play. The fact that a deranged serial killer, given as much backstory as we have here about his feelings and history about the holiday, doesn't generate more focus and intensity from the officers in charge to stop him makes the detective investigation scenes rather bland and boring. This should generate more urgency to catch him, yet there's very little energy to these scenes as they seem happier to be meeting up again than stopping him. Likewise, the girls' trip includes the same drama about drug use, partying and cheating boyfriends that isn't new or adds anything to the film, making for a longer setup time than what's warranted to get to the slashing and causing this to stretch out far longer than it really should be. The other problem to be had with the film is the technically-challenging issue of being way too dark to make anything out at times. Since this is taking place in a small, remote village that doesn't have too many residents there to light everything up, but even at that point, the film is just too dark to really tell what's going on. As this occurs during the film's main targets in the slashing scenes in the inn where they stay during the finale as the killer begins running loose on the group, it's quite detrimental to the point of this one really not being able to tell what's happening as the shadows overwhelm this one during this time. Combined with some overly familiar setups and themes from other genre features, these here are the film's only flaws.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Extreme Graphic Language, Brief Full Nudity, a mild sex scene and drug use.

Christmas Blood (2017) is currently available for free on Tubi and is another holiday picture that came highly recommended from Edward Delgado. This Norwegian horror movie tells the tale of a small town plagued by a psychopath that escapes from prison and starts an amazing killing spree with an ax. This movie is directed by Reinert Kiil (The House) and stars Jorgen Langhelle (Arn), Sondre Krogtoft Larsen (Lyft), Haddy Jallow and Kylie Stephenson (The Cure). This is another Christmas story that is fun and starts off with a bang with a great kill scene and setting a potential pace for the movie; However, a lot of scenes are shot dark causing a feel of a lul through a big portion of the middle of the movie. Then the end picks up nicely for a solid climax. I did really like the cinematography throughout this film and the use of Santa's shadow across the snow to add intensity. Overall this is a fun addition to the genre but a step below a classic. I'd score this a 5/10.

I found "Christmas Blood" to be both entertaining and a bit frustrating. The intro into this holiday nightmare was exciting and almost set a cool tone. Kiil definitely loves the horror subgenre. There are elements of Miller's "Silent Night" and the original "Black Christmas". Unfortunately there was a choice made to layer the story with subplots that just weigh the film down.

The characters were typical horror tropes. Sometimes entertaining on screen, at other times their presence felt clumsy. With two story lines happening I didn't feel the characters, on whole, had enough time to fully develop. I did get into them enough to be excited for what their fate would be. Fleshy blood bags.

The cinematography and atmosphere was nice. "Christmas Blood" visually played out like a series of motion horror postcards and 80's fab slasher fodder. That I liked. As I said earlier there are ememnts of Steven C. Miller, and thanks to the location I got a chilly vibe akin to "30 Days Of Night". Overall this one will disappoint some horror fans. The big thrill is in the kills which are gory and great. The music score fits nicely and, despite the harsh convergence of the two plot story, Kiil stayed true to the Christmas slasher subgenre.

I really wanted to like this movie based on the director. His previous movies like "The House" were great genremovies made on low budget. Kiil has a great understanding for the classic subgenres movies and that is very appearant in this flick too. It draws clear paralells to slasherclassics as Halloween and Dark Christmas. The score is creeped up themes of christmas carols and works just perfect. The characters though gets too 2dimentional to be believable. The acting about as amateurish as expected, which adds to the good low budget feeling. The biggest problem with this movie is everything is dark. Too dark to see what is going on. The details get hidden in darkness, thus making the one really big no-no in this genre by becoming boring. Next time Kiil, use more light.