A horror in Iceland distributed by A24 can only mean one thing, pure strangeness.
We certainly got so strange that we could lose a lot of people. But we also got a solid take on the themes of parenthood mixed in with folklore that would fit in well with a Grimm fairytale.
Early on, there were hints that had me fearing we could go completely bonkers with this story and not everyone is going to be on board with this. I was proud that I managed to work it out, which is something that I don't often be successful in.
The mood of the screening certainly changed and I was intrigued to see if they'll commit to this throughout. I feel they did in the end.
The small cast did a solid job of making this work. Noomi Rapace had great natural motherly qualities to make it a convincing performance.
The star of the show was probably the Icelandic landscape. The haunting and mysterious backdrop really gave us a new character added to the mysteriousness of this story.
Despite the shock factor this has, I feel they could have been a bit more frenetic in its execution of certain scenes, especially in the second half.
It does slow down at times and I would have liked them to explore more of the fantasy side of the story and not linger too much on the human side.
But after getting past the initial reaction of the big reveal, I thought it was pretty solid. On paper, many people including myself will think this sounds so stupid.
But the style chosen helped us show the commitment to the story and make it feel like a horror rather than an unintentional comedy that some may consider it to be.
It wouldn't surprise me if director Valdimar Johannsson was actually Ari Aster or Robert Eggers in disguise.
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