Change Your Image
Martinlindved
Reviews
Sorgenfri (2015)
What a shame.
I had hoped for a good Danish horror film, but this did not deliver. It started promising with a great cold opening only to immediately ruin this by having its title screen actually be a try-hard, epilepsy-inducing jump scare. The juxtaposition between these two clips left me confused as to what tone the film was trying to establish. It did not improve when it became apparent that the main character of the film was not the one featured in this opening but was instead going to be a poorly written and poorly acted teenage boy, who (of course?) needs to have his own romance with the neighbor's teenage daughter so that we can have sex scenes with her and show her off as much as possible without leaving PG-territory. One may wonder why they bothered to have a poorly executed teenage romance in a zombie flick, but I guess they had it because they barely got any zombies. The zombies doesn't show up until the last 10 minutes of this 1 hour and 17 minutes-long film, actually. I assume they tried to build tension, but that doesn't work because we already know how zombies generally look like. I actually think it's more likely that they just didn't have a big enough budget for makeup to have zombies throughout. Also, I have a problem with them waiting so long to reveal zombies as I believe you can go about presenting your zombie story in one of two ways: either you start the story already being post the zombie apocalypse or you show the turn in full during the first 5-20 minutes or first act. This film is a miracle: it spends the entirety of it's runtime making its transition opposed to get it out of the way because it needs time for the teenage romance. The reason to why you get the transition to zombie apocalypse done relatively quickly is to show it as a natural disaster that cannot be stopped, as if it's interrupting the plot of the film itself. It may slowly build in the background until it infests the film completely. A film turning into a zombie film is meant to simulate the turn that happens to people becoming zombies. If you go slowly about this as they decided to do you fail at providing immediacy. This is the first problem while the second is that building up to showing zombies throughout the film puts too much emphasis on their presence. In a zombie film, zombies are not supposed to be the main focus of horror: while zombies are predictable and run on instincts, humans in critical situations are completely unpredictable. We know what happens if a zombie gets close to our main characters, but not what will happen if other humans gets close - will they be friendly or hostile? You focus on this relationship to ask how humans would react in stressed conditions. The zombies should function as a spectacle and constant reminder of danger to our characters, but we should be invested in the well-being of our main characters first in order for us to care. Done correctly, you can have your audience hooked whether type of media your zombie story appears as. I would even go as far to say you don't need zombies as movies like It Comes at Night proved to me. However, given the stale acting, the misguided understanding of our care in whether or not the unlikable teenager gets rewarded for his perverted interested in the teenage girl and the ridiculous cliches throughout (just because you are the first Danish zombie film it doesn't give you carte blanche at the buffet), this film failed at engaging me. You are not supposed to root for the death of your characters, as this film had me do.
The Japanese proved that it's possible to make a fantastic zombie flick with a low budget with One Cut of the Dead, so it should be possible for Danes as well in time. This film provides nothing new to the table and fails at entertaining as intended.
Kimi no na wa. (2016)
Touching breasts
I chose this title because that is as close of a relationship the two characters have. Even in after a dramatic reveal the film refuses to let go of this gag.
The pacing is off: at first, it spends a lot of time showing the two main characters and seemingly allows the viewer to understand what's happening, bit then the film slaps the point in your face, grabs your arm and pulls you through 2 minutes of thick exposition that could've explored their unique relationship. It then reaches a reveal and a realization it undercuts with awkward humor and continues to focus on the teenage romance while keeping an inevitable and horrible natural disaster as a sub-plot as if two teenagers who never meet until the very end and doesn't know each other is more important for the targeted audience - the juxtaposition is comedic!
While the animation is beautiful as seen in for examples with apparent usage of rotoscope and the twilight-meeting, the awkward pacing and opening of the film makes me feel as if I'm watching a short-series cut into being a film. The forced music doesn't help as it gives me the impression this was cynically included for commercial success without making it contextualized and it even makes segments feel like music videos or AMVs.
Overall: good idea I wish had a clearer and more "streamlined" execution.
Grotesk (2015)
Passion
Terrible effects, no understanding for camera work nor soundwork, and there isn't even a coherent story. Furthermore, there isn't even a market for splatter films in Denmark - barely one for horror films. It's a movie made by people with no talent, no experience and it is in a sense made for no one and will be watched by no one.
But they still made it and somehow got it distributed to the DVD market. I don't know how many copies they got out there, but at least the copy I bought. If nothing else, this movie shows how far pure passion can get you.
Under the Shadow (2016)
How is this getting good reviews?
So, movie, you're telling me that the main characters have to deal with bombs dropped on their head on a daily basis, but somehow ghosts are a bigger issue? And they can't leave the apartment like EVERYONE ELSE because the girl's doll is missing? They have a perfectly good reason to leave and not get blown into smithereens by something VERY REAL, but the girl needs to find her doll? How can you claim fantasy creatures are a bigger issue than missilies, even missiles going through the roof without detonating? It's ridiculous.
On the plus side - certain shots were cool and the design of the ghosts were at times creative. The direction was good as well, but it's difficult to take it serious when it's priorities are way off. Had it been depression or divorce instead of BOMBS BLOWING UP THE CITY, then it would have been more fitting with the theme of the djinns attracted to misery and not as distracting.