Juleblod

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.

What a joke. A very disjointed movie where absolutely nothing makes sense. The writing is beyond terrible. The acting is even worse. There are no likable characters at all, so very early on I started looking forward to the obvious victims being killed. Sadly it took a long long time before that happened. And it wasn't even scary. And what is up with all the seemingly endless scenes of someone's face while they're walking through an empty building or whatever? It's not interesting, it's not suspenseful, it's just boring. Like everything in this movie. It's supposed to be a horror movie, but my only emotional response was to laugh at how horribly bad it was.

I've been into the "Christmas horror" thing a few years now and this is about as dry and dark as you can get. Some obvious parallels to Rare Exports or Sint, but there are no children (or humor/joy) to be had here, setting a much bleaker and darker tone. Not a bad thing in itself so long as you know what you're getting into. The few other reviews are pretty much spot on. Characters are largely 2-dimensional and the movie feels bloated with so much going on. It really felt every minute its length.

Suffice to say this felt a lot like Rob Zombies Halloween, only set to Christmas. Since "Silent Night, Deadly Night," many have tried cashing in on transitioning the success of Carpenters original "Halloween" to the Christmas season. Besides "Black Christmas" most devolve into various degrees of campiness. Beyond the over the top blood spurts, this plays pretty much deadpan (although I did chuckle at the creation of a human-snowman, very dark humor granted).

In sum I largely agree with the other reviews, and despite its impressive destruction of Yuletide Joy, I must give high marks for what is, in my opinion, the most successful transmorphing of "Michael Myers" to the Christmas horror genre

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.

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.