While Norway’s horror output is small when compared to that of Hollywood, the country’s frosty climate lends itself to the most bitter of terror tales set around the holidays. For an especially frostbitten experience, the “Norror” movie Christmas Blood (Juleblod) combines the temperament of Scandi noir with the trimmings of slashers. More than the cold creeps in as estranged friends reunite on Christmas Eve.
Reinert Kiil’s 2017 movie starts off in the past, as these kinds of stories often do. A nameless, Santa-suited intruder butchers a family of three on Christmas Eve in 2011, only to then be shot down by a detective named Rasch (Stig Henrik Hoff, The Thing). In the opening credits, which also serve as an exposition dump, it’s said that the assailant survived his wound, and has since been locked away at a prison in Oslo. Confusingly, the on-screen text states the killer escaped on Julaften (Christmas Eve) in 2016. Yet the detective working on the reopened case, Hansen (Sondre Krogtoft Larsen, Snarveien), first arrives at the escapee’s empty cell on December 22.
Nevertheless, that expo of information seen earlier additionally revealed Santa’s M.O.; since the late ‘90s, he’s been hunting down lawbreakers on Christmas. His list contained a staggering total of 324 names, though only 14 are still alive. More importantly, another two died of other causes while Santa was put away. This one-man mission to stamp out the malefactors of Norway leads to the movie’s main characters. Julia (Marte Sæteren, All Must Die) has invited her friends to stay at her family home for the holidays after being apart for six years.
As these women stir up drama in an almost empty town where the only readily available entertainment is Tinder dates of the “last call” variety, Detective Hansen searches for his perp. He first goes on a wild goose chase, which wastes both his and the audience’s time. It feels like forever before Hansen realizes the mistake, and by then, Santa is already on a direct path to Julia’s house. Devoting such a large portion of the movie to the police procedural element is risky enough without making it too severe for its own good.
Aside from a bloodthirsty Father Christmas heading straight their way, a black cloud hangs over Julia and her friends; her mother recently took her own life after living with cancer. And in a scene that sucks the air out of the whole room, the resident bad girl Ritika (Haddy Jallow) asks Julia pointblank why her mother killed herself. Julia woefully bares her mother’s misdeed of drunk driving and running over a kid before then clamming up. What Santa doesn’t know, though, is Julia’s mother is dead now, so he’s making the long trip for nothing. Well, not nothing because Santa ultimately finds other naughty people to punish.
The murky presentation here is intended to enhance as well as communicate the movie’s miserable mood. Heavy and sweeping colors, including a recurring yellow hue, contribute to the noir vibe of Christmas Blood. In the same breath, far too many scenes are cast in near darkness. It makes no logical sense for these characters to sit around with barely any lights on. This aesthetic choice forces the audience to step into the characters’ shoes as they run around with no sense of where they’re going, but adding a shaky camera to the mix makes action scenes borderline unwatchable. At the very least, the scenes outdoors and beyond Julia’s house are easier to bear. Low lighting and overcorrection in post does more harm than good here.
Christmas Blood also suffers from barely drawn characters, and other than a few distinguishing traits, they’re exchangeable. Detectives Hansen and Rasch play a nearly passable odd couple in spite of their shopworn cop personalities. Julia and her friends are designed to be basic fodder for Santa. Ritika stands out by being blessed with an actual personality, but the director missed an opportunity to do something different and give the mean girl more to do, other than butt heads with the ostensible survivor as well as endure the most elaborate chase. As for the movie’s villain, his utter anonymity leaves a hole in the story that his prey fail to fill.
If Christmas Blood does anything right, it’s the kills. The deaths are spaced out to the point where the movie has to resort to a flashback in order to raise the on-screen body count. Yet once Santa catches up to the women in the present, the ensuing violence becomes the pretty wrapping on a so-so gift. Santa swings and hurls his ax with embellished accuracy, he spills guts in a sea of snow, and most amusingly, he tops off a snowman with a cop’s severed head. The massacre is indeed saved for last, but after seeing it unfold with such ferocity, the wait is forgivable.
As anyone who watches enough of them knows, Christmas horror movies tend to be weird. This unique branch of the genre is driven by an urge to counter seasonal merriment with gloom and replace yuletide cheer with screams. Christmas Blood certainly comes across as peculiar, but it also takes itself much too seriously. Almost to the point of satire. When the overwhelmingly bleak movie does break character, it’s a bit easier to digest. These moments include Detective Rasch discovering the killer’s murders form a Christmas tree shape when mapped out, and a psychologist (Frank Kjosås) somehow making the line “manifestation of pure evil” sound hilarious despite his saying it with a straight face. That sort of relief, intentionally funny or otherwise, is sadly uncommon. So anyone looking for more humorous and openly weird Christmas horror should look somewhere else.
It’s easy to come down hard on Reinert Kiil’s Christmas Blood. It’s egregiously underlit, overlong, addled with clichés, and lacking in charm. A big bright side is that the movie lives up to its name and then some. This slasher is generously vicious. And depending on why someone is drawn to this type of movie to begin with, that may be more than enough to warrant a watch.
Horrors Elsewhere is a recurring column that spotlights a variety of movies from all around the globe, particularly those not from the United States. Fears may not be universal, but one thing is for sure — a scream is understood, always and everywhere.
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