Review: Christmas Cruelty!

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2022
Images from the Internet

Christmas Cruelty! (aka O’Hellige Jul!)
Directed by Per-Ingvar Tomren, with Magne Steinsvoll
Stonewall Productions; Unearthed Films; MVD Visual
96 minutes, 2013 / 2022
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Norway is known for the fjords, nice people, social equity (though debatable Sami/Indigenous relations), and snow. So much like Canada. Anyway, I have reviewed a few Norwegian films lately, and they were mostly stylish and arty. But there is a dark side, represented by the likes of Krampus Day (December 5), days filled with no or little sunlight, and the Vikings, who were known for their barbarism (among many other things). Note that this film is in Norwegian with English subtitles.

Right from the start, this film lives up to its name with an ultraviolent and transgressive prologue, fading into the backstory. Also, one of the first things the viewer will notice is that the film has a brownish-yellow tint to it.

Krampus masks: Magne Steinsvoll, Per-Ingvar Tomren, Eilne Aasheim

We meet three friends who are making Krampus masks, giving exposition to just who or what the Krampus is and the story behind it, as well as other Christmas fable baddies. There is Eilne (Eilne Aasheim), Magne (Magne Steinsvoll), and Per-Ingvar (director Per-Ingvar Tomren). Per-Ingvar is wheelchair bound and thanks to an accident, not of full mind, but he is kind; Magne is a toxic masculinist asshole who treats Per-Ingvar badly and has nothing positive to say about women. Eilne is the strongest of the three, and personally, I cannot see why she has not dumped Magne as a friend.

Tormond Lein (left0

In another scene, we meet our Santa serial killer (Tormod Lein), a middle-aged and balding office worker and family man. The film shows his fractured personality by very fast (and for me, nauseating) edits. The viewer is also introduced a bit to his mindset, which is full of violence and carnality. His grooming of his young daughter to carry on after him is chilling. Ironically, Lein is a devout Christian, and would not watch the film once it was released, even though he performed all the acts of wanton killing.

In a brief shot of his desk, we see a snow globe that has a frozen Jack Nicholson from The Shining (1980). There are actually a lot of references to many other films throughout, sometimes in images and others in actions, such as Jaws (1975), The Big Lebowski (1998) and Goodfellas (1990), which could be a drinking game.

After the shocking opening, the film, well, it lulls for way too long. Too much talking and lingering on scenes of dialogue that can be considered exposition, but actually do nothing to really advance the story much, and was a chore for this particular viewer. But it did not build tension and I really fought the desire to skip ahead, though since there were subtitles, I did occasionally go to double speed, especially during an extended drunken scene between the three friends. Honestly, this film could have been a good 20 minutes shorter and have been just as effective.

Tomren, Aasheim

Both our trio of – whatever they are – and the nameless killer are seen preparing for Christmas, but in wholeheartedly different ways, though all will end up at the same party, for better or mostly worse.

Once the unnamed madman starts on his rampage, though, which comes quite unexpectedly even though it is predictable that it will happen at some point, the sheer velocity of it makes the third act ramp up to 12, never mind 11. It is actually hard to look away, though perhaps for others, they might have the opposite reaction. The SFX sometimes looks cartoonish, but the actions themselves are so brutal that it actually overrides that. I would say if you watch the film, and want to view it a second time as I did, I watched the first 10 minutes and then skipped to the 1-hour mark.

Steinsvoll

Now, as for the bonus material. Unearthed Films tends to overload the Blu-rays with features, which is kinda cool in my opinion. It starts with a full-length commentary with Per-Ingvar Tomren and producer/cinematographer Raymond Volle. For some reason, the volume was quite low and even turning it way up, I had trouble hearing it; could be my age, seeing bands like the Ramones too many times, or they were just too far from the damn microphone. Again, I watched the first 10 and final 30 minutes with the commentary on, which was interesting. Next is yet another full-length commentary titled “Watch-a-long with Flesh Wound Horror,” where Tomren talks with, well, the person behind FWH. He was mic’d fine, but Tomren, again, was too far from the recorder, so I did the same 10/30 spiel.

One of the major additions is the “How Cruelty Changed Our Lives” featurette, which is broken up into three parts. Sorry, I just did not have the patience to watch all of them. Over the opening credits of the film proper, there is a scene at a bar and the band the Last Rebels are playing on stage. Here we get the music video for their song, “Endless Highway” (not a C&W song). “Interview with Morten Haagensen” (7 min), who runs the Rama Skrik film fest in Norway, follows as he discusses this film playing there in 2013, including the reaction of the audience. It makes sense what comes next is a “Press Conference” (23 min), also in 2013. It consists of most of the major cast, the directors, cinematographer, SFX, etc. Again, the sound is a bit low, but that is okay here as it is held in Norwegian with English subtitles.

“The Blooper Reel” (7 min) is amusing in parts, and then there are the Teaser Trailer and Photo Gallery. The final is a short film, “Tradisjon” (Tradition) (2013; 6 min), directed by Severin Eskeland. It is also holiday themed, and my mouth watered a bit when during the credits they show some krumkake, but I digress… I was not quite sure where this was going, and it certainly didn’t go where I thought it would, but I just loved it.

If you are a gorehound, you really do need to see Christmas Cruelty! at least once, because the violence is both gruesome and beautiful at the same time. If your idea of extreme is the Marvel Universe, however, yeah, step back and take a breather on this one.

IMDB listing HERE