O’Hellige Jul! or Christmas Cruelty! is brainspawn by Magne Steinsvoll and Per-Ingvar Tomren who co-directed and also starred in this movie, which is in fact a product of couple of friends who decided to make the movie and present it as Norwegian horror movie in a country whose horror scene is not so big, rather small but they provided couple of really exceptional horror movies like Skjult, Rovdyr or legendary Lake of the dead. This is trash gore fantasy in its totality and almost childish made. It is about serial killer called Serial Santa (played by Tormod Lien), who rapes a mother and kills a baby with a saw in the beginning of the movie, later on he goes on rampage on couple of unsuspecting hard rockers, friends who celebrate and are getting drunk. Now, this movie is totally trashy magnificent little jewel only for die hard horror fans, made by horror fans. Killer has no particular reason for killing except flashbacks of his sexual and murder fantasies. Gore and murder scenes are tongue in cheek but enough gory to make your inner bloodhound howl with delight. This movie has neither head nor tails so do not suspect any coherency or something sensible or smart, this is pure trash inspired by christmas spirit hehe. Killer looks good in his mask, I must admit that, but if you are into christmas slashers, rather go watch Black Christmas, or Silent Night, Deadly Night. This one could easily play at Varaždin Trash film festival and be well received there.
As promised, here is the review for Adam Nevill‘s book which completes all his books that I have read until now. This is one of his latest works and this is a folk horror mastery like we are used to from this author. Married couple Tom and Fiona, along with their daughter Gracey and their spaniel dog move into decrepit country house where previous owner killed himself six months ago. At first, they love it there. Tom does all the work in repairing the house to make it home, while Fiona works at the bank and Gracey is happy. But, then they meet their neighbors Magi and Medea who are not what they seem to be. Gracey starts having voices calling her from the near woods and strange things and curses begin to happen and Tom starts to suspect neighbors have something to do with it. This is another intense and masterful tale of horror master Nevill, happening to ordinary folk who could be me or you, that is what makes it even more scary. There are enough grisly gore parts of the story to satisfy gore hellhounds among you, but also to me best part of Nevill’s storytelling is folk horror part, the fear of ancient and unknown rituals, ancient mages and druids, people who should not be messed up with. In all, each and every one of us had at one time neighbor from hell, isn’t it true? So, all of us should have at one time deal with the problem. Or did we?
Čuo sam samo riječi pohvale za ovaj novi film Alexa Garlanda (scenarist i redatelj filmova kao što su 28 Days Later, Annihilation, Ex Machina, Dredd…). I bili su u pravu. Ovo je pravo čudo od filma kako se dobrom idejom može napraviti odličan horror triler. Dakle, priča filma se vrti oko Harper(odlična Jessie Buckley), koja nakon nedavnog samoubojstva nasilnog supruga Jamesa(Paapu Essiedu) odlazi i iznajmljuje ogromnu ladanjsku kuću kako bi sredila misli i smogla snage za dalje. Jedino društvo njoj su telefonski video pozivi s frendicom Riley(Gayle Rankin) i pomalo neobičan i spooky stanodavac Geoffrey(odličan Rory Kinnear), koji se pojavljuje tu i tamo. Harper odlazi na šetnju šumom i počinje je progoniti nepoznati goli muškarac koji njoj hoda oko kuće. Odlazi župniku, no i tamo doživljava neugodnosti. Odlazi u seoski pub, razgovara s policajcem, no i tamo njoj se dogode neugodnosti. Počinje shvaćati da se nešto čudno dešava i da stvari nisu kakve se čine. Ne smijem otkriti glavnu foru filma zbog koje me jeza podilazila često za vrijeme gledanja, morati ćete pogledati sami, jer bi to spoilalo cijelu ideju filma sada kada ovo pišem, pa pogledajte sami. No, ovaj film je odlična mješavina mindfuck psihološkog horror trilera i nekog folk horrora s odličnim soundtrackom, atmosferom koja graniči s ludilom, te poetikom na koju smo navikli kod Garlanda u zadnje vrijeme i neke scene kojih se ne be postidio ni legendarni David Cronenberg u svojim body horrorima. Upravo to ostavlja na kraju gledatelju da si sam protumači što je gledao, ali ovo je za mene prikriveni način da se objasni kako se nositi s krivnjom i katarzom i kako živjeti dalje nakon gubitka drage osobe, ma koliko bilo mučno. Odličan.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 