Blood Glacier (a.k.a. Blutgletscher) (2013) 1h 37m

I think that, in some form, everything we do has our influences laced inside of it.  Imitation is yadda yadda yadda.  There is the issue of when we let too much of our influences bleed through and they're so easily recognized that it becomes a comparison.  I had that issue this week with The Lazarus Effect and, to a lesser degree, with today's film.

Think of Blood Glacier as The Thing and Jurassic Park getting ripped out of their minds and after a night of drunken passion this film shows up a few months later.  We have a team of scientists studying the repercussions of climate change on some melting Austrian mountain tops.  Two of the scientists notice a section of ice that looks like it is covered in blood, take samples, and are attacked by a strange creature which bites their dog.  The "blood" ends up being a single cell organism that has been preserved by the ice, but this organism mixes the DNA it comes in contact with it and brings forth new and horrible creatures.

Most of us are suckers for a cheesy monster film, and I'm no different.  While the bulk of Blood Glacier felt a bit too familiar, the monsters were all man-made and shot in hopes of you not noticing the low-grade.  One with a decent eye though can see through the quick pull away and shaky cam to see them as what they really are... masterpieces.  They may not be Del Toro film quality, but I loved each one in all of it's goofy splendor.  A bird with a wasp stinger, a pill bug with face melting abilities, an ibex and something else that I have no fucking clue what it was... all great.  The movie... meh.

I give Blood Glacier 2 Mr. DNAs out of 5 but only because of the creature creations:

13 Days of Christmas Day 7: Krampus (2015) 1h 38m

I almost impulse bought the DVD of Krampus this year.  I hadn't seen it previously but I remember a decent buzz existing around this film.  I couldn't rectify the $10 price tag I saw on it at the time though.  I like Adam Scott, but not $10 like Adam Scott.  Maybe more like $5.  $4.99 + tax like him.  Let's go with that.

Krampus takes it weird and makes it weird.  An awkward holiday get together becomes an even bigger tragedy after Max's letter to Santa is read aloud and calls out his family on most of their unspoken shit.  In a fit of anger and embarrassment Max "loses faith," tears up the letter, and scatters it to the wind.  This apparently summons Krampus, his minions, and freak snow storm that would make the North East blush.

I was disappointed with this film.  Despite an excellent cast (Adam Scott, Toni Collette, David Koechner) Krampus didn't know if it wanted to be a dark or light horror film.  It's loosely based on the lore of Krampus (like Krampus Unleashed was) and the only tie-in to its roots was that the grandmother of the family had summoned the entity when she was a child in her Germanic village.  The pacing was also a bit off but I think that this may have been more of an editing issue with how the scenes and passages of time flowed together.  Finally, the Shrek-esq gingerbread men can suck a fat fuck.

Conversely, Krampus did have some really great creature designs.  There's some sort of owl creature with a doll face that I want as a pet.  Krampus himself looked amazing and when we get our first look at him he's running from rooftop to rooftop in the most menacing manner.  He also had his own version of Christmas elves that were all wearing uniquely carved masks and need their own horror film.  Additionally there was a visual element that never gets any verbal confirmation, but each person that Krampus takes has a snowman made in their image on the family's front lawn.  I was hoping that this became a bigger part in the film (such as the snowmen would break into the house) but it never came to pass.

I think that the hype around Krampus hurt it here.  Once again, the U.S. got a giant collective boner over learning about this anti-Santa but putting a budget and some well known actors behind this really didn't pull it together for me.  At the same time I feel like my gushing for Santa's Slay earlier in these 13 Days of Christmas colors what I want in a film.  If Adam Scott was replaced with Kenny Omega or Krampus replaced with Bray Wyatt then I'd be more into this.

I give Krampus 2 ripped Santas out of 5: