Movie Review: CHRISTMAS BLOOD (2018)

Christmas is a time of family, friends, gift giving and stress. Most of the time its mostly stress. This is why the sub-genre of Christmas horror/slasher flicks happens to be popular. People can sit for an hour or two, forget about their relatives and relish in some sweet sweet slasher goodness all while still keeping with the holiday theme.

In CHRISTMAS BLOOD, or as its known in its original language-and this is a German film subtitled in english, JULEBLOD we witness a string of brutal murders all happening on Christmas Eve. A maniacal Santa butchers people randomly it seems but leaves behind a list of names all of which are future victims. At the start of the film we see this Santa caught, and shot several times. In the opening credits however, we learn that not only did the Santa survive, he was committed to a psychiatric hospital but escaped 13 years later. We assume that some new holiday carnage is about to take place on the quiet little Norway town.

While watching the film, I noticed that the first few scenes were dark. Almost too dark to see what was happening. I later found out that this specific town in Norway experiences several days of complete darkness, similar to Alaska. That’s all well and good but not only was it super dark, but the only light in the film was either coming from Christmas lights or outside lights. Apparently the characters in the film couldn’t pause to turn on an inside light once or twice.

As the film progresses, we are introduced to a group of friends gathering over the Christmas holiday. They seem to be old friends, as it is mentioned that they haven’t hung out in over 6 years. Not quite sure why these friends have gotten together as it seems they hate each other. Like a lot. Backhanded comments fly left and right and past hook-ups come to light causing more than enough tension. I understand that these people are going to be our sacrificial lambs but I would still like to not hate them from the get go.

Once the carnage begins we definitely see why the film is titled CHRISTMAS BLOOD because there is definitely a lot of it. Throughout the film we are treated to some delightful crunching and squelching as our demented Santa axes his way from one victim to the next.

I can’t say much about the acting in the film, as all of our actors aren’t given much to work with. They party their way through most of the movie and their only purpose is to be chopped up into bits in the film’s climax.

I would like to say that I enjoyed CHRISTMAS BLOOD in all of its awfulness but the truth is I didn’t. It’s not delightfully bad like Silent Night, Deadly Night and it almost takes itself too seriously to suspend my disbelief.

Angie Coronado
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