O'Hellige Jul!

Every time I think I've seen the worst movie ever made, something else comes along to make me realise no...THIS is the worst movie ever made.

Christmas Cruelty lives up to its name in its opening few minutes while some fat guy rapes a woman in front of her family and then murders the infant with a chainsaw. Then we get an hour of nothingness. They could have chopped about 20 minutes off the runtime if they didn't have montage scenes to the full length of soft rock songs. Nobody needs 3-4 minutes of watching three people get drunk, or some guy at his desk. If you can't give your film a decent plot line or write enough dialogue for a full length film, then make a short. Or maybe that's what the Christmas Cruelty is, that we sat through this waiting for something to happen? Eventually the ending happens and once the depravity is over the credits roll.

This movie was offensive. One character is just non-stop with the misogynistic/ableist dialogue and you can forgive yourself for laughing at it the first time out of shock but it gets old really fast. It also has some of the worst film editing of all time.

If you don't mind a film with no plot and is straight up torture porn and gore, knock yourself out you'll love it!

To the best of my recollection, "O'Heilige Jul" ("Christmas Cruelty!") came out in 2013, i.e., before "Red Christmas" and is thus officially Norway's first Christmas horror movie. That said, the Norwegians have made some bloody decent slasher movies and are well known for having an "anything goes" attitude to making extreme horror (e.g., "Fritt Vilt" and "Dead Snow") "O'Heilige Jul!", though picked up by Unearthed was made on a US$ 220k budget and most of the key film crew, including the two directors (Magne Steinsvoll and Per-Ingvar Tomren) also had principal roles in the film. It thus sits firmly in underground filmmaking, and I tend to be more lenient on films made purely for the love of it and the burning need to "make a movie". Small budget films often must deal with constraints like shooting on inferior equipment, zero special effect houses being contracted and key personnel (e.g. Cinematographers and editors) not being industry professionals. It's clear that "O'Heilige Jul!", suffered amongst other things this exact list of constraints and the directors had to be ingenious in how they approached them. For instance, the anamorphic quality of the film (I assume VHS) was embraced to give the film a dirty, gritty (kinda like Schramm) and home-movie type (e.g. The first couple or minutes of Das Velangen Der Maria D.) atmosphere. Similarly, the obvious difficulties in the cutting room were embraced by exacerbating harsh cutting and cleverly adding some industry editing tropes. The film starts our serial killer Santa terrorising the captive member of a household and though it is brutal and fast paced, it is the foresight to cut away from some scenes which creates an additional layer of horror. The second act very successfully moved into character development placing the oddball dark comedy character development of the main supporting cast in juxtaposition to the calculated and sick character of the psychopathic killer. As an aside, the obsession and interaction with his daughter was written superbly. That said, the pace of the second act is way too slow create a cohesive whole and did not work in the greater movie. The third act is classic, though more extreme, final act psychopath slasher film, but with some well-scripted and -directed dark comedy sprinkled in and a great in-house soundtrack. The gore special effects needed a lot more work but did not destroy the film and at times worked pretty well (esp the knife work). Acting was much better than expected. All and all a very decent no-budget psycho slasher. 7/10.

Some serial killer is torturing some people in an apartment for some reason. Christmas Cruelty is earth's core level hot garbage. It starts off promising but then for the next 50 or so minutes it tries in such embarrassingly manner to be hip, clever and stylish like a Tarantino movie but it is nothing more than a montage with non stop lousy music and forgettable crappy characters. It does get better, afterwards, with all the mayhem and crap but after trying in desperation to retain my attention span toward this film, it had little impact. Plus, not having much of a story doesn't help either. It boring enough to sedate a heard of rampaging fat women.

Right, well I stumbled upon the 2013 Norwegian horror movie "O'Hellige Jul" (aka "Christmas Cruelty") here in 2022. And seeing the movie's cover, I immediately picked it up and decided to give it a view. And it being a Norwegian horror movie just made it all the more interesting.

Writers Eline Aasheim, Janne Iren Holseter, Anita Nyhagen, Magne Steinsvoll and Per-Ingvar Tomren put together a very unique and entertaining script and storyline here. The movie starts out rather violently, but then takes a turn for a more strange and somewhat weird storyline. And that had me wondering why this was actually a horror movie. But then directors Per-Ingvar Tomren and Magne Steinsvoll brings the violence back threefold, so stick with the movie, even while the narrative is a bit strange.

It is hard to describe a movie such as "O'Hellige Jul", because it has to be seen and experienced to fully understand. And believe you me, this is definitely a movie that I will warmly recommend for all you gorehounds out there. I've never seen a Norwegian movie this bloody before.

The acting performances in the movie were quite good, despite the fact that the majority of the performers were also either directors and/or writers. Usually that is something I frown upon, but they pulled it off quite nicely here actually.

There is an abundance of violence in "O'Hellige Jul", and it is quite visual and visceral, so the movie may not find an appeal with everyone in the audience, especially not those of delicate demeanor.

My rating of "O'Hellige Jul" lands on a well-deserved six out of ten stars.