The Damned
When Deadliest Catch takes on a whole new meaning.
Cast of Characters:
Eva – Odessa Young
Daniel – Joe Cole
Helga – Siobhan Finneran
Ragnar – Rory McCann
Hakon – Turlough Convery
Jonas – Lewis Gribben
Skuli – Francis Magee
Aron – Micheal Og Lane
Director – Thordur Palsson
Writer – Jamie Hannigan
Producer – Emilie Jouffroy, Kamilla Kristiane Hodol, John Keville, Conor Barry, Tim Headington, Theresa Steele Page & Nate Kamiya
Distributor – Vertical
Running Time – 89 minutes
Rated R for bloody violent content, suicide and some language.
Eva (Odessa Young) is a 19th century, Icelandic widow left to lead her late husband’s fishing crew – Daniel (Joe Cole), Helga (Siobhan Finneran), Ragnar (Rory McCann), Hakon (Turlough Convery), Jonas (Lewis Gribben), Skuli (Francis Magee) and Aron (Micheal Og Lane). Food has been hard to come by for the crew, with the brutal winter making fishing difficult. That all changes, however, the day they witness a shipwreck off in the distance, forcing the crew to face the unenviable decision to either search for any survivors or plunder their surplus of food. Ultimately, they choose the latter so as to ease their dire circumstances, but bizarre occurrences start to happen following their supply hunt. Could it be the survivors, or perhaps something far more sinister?
Typically, the beginning of January is reserved for generic genre fare that studios have no faith in and are eager to dump out of their hands as fast as they can. Pleasant surprises like Paddington or M3gan do pop up occasionally, but for the most part, the month is held captive by dreck like Texas Chainsaw 3D; The Legend of Hercules; I, Frankenstein; Ride Along or Underworld: Blood Wars. So with that said, it is a bit of a surprise to open up year 2025 with the indie horror The Damned, a slow-burn supernatural/psychological horror offering that provides a nice change of pace from the norm.
The hardest part in crafting an effective slow-burn horror flick is holding the audiences attention for the first quarter to half of the movie where “nothing happens”. This is usually reserved for establishing characters and their settings, while slowly building up the conflict until the breaking point when you finally deliver the goods. A masterful example of this would be John Carpenter’s The Thing, which takes its time establishing its motley crew of diverse characters and bleak Antarctic setting, while slowly ratcheting up the suspense and unsettling atmosphere before Carpenter finally lets all hell break loose.
And when it does break loose, buckle up, viewers.
However, it doesn’t matter how the good the goods your delivering in the last half are, if you lose the audience in the first half with dull characters and tedious storytelling, your efforts are delivered in vain.
Thankfully, Icelandic director Thordur Palsson avoids such a pratfall. Of course, he’s not going “up to eleven” like Carpenter, but he does succeed in creating tension through mood and atmosphere. Much like Kristoffer Nyholm’s The Vanishing and Robert Eggers’s The Lighthouse, The Damned thrives on isolation as its horror. We feel not only the harshness of the landscape’s wintry hell (captured exquisitely by cinematographer Eli Arenson), but also the overwhelming sense of dread and despair that weighs on the characters, keeping us every bit as unnerved as they are.
In another wise move, Palsson avoids showing us the ghost or monster outright and, up until a certain point, opts for ambiguity instead. Aided by dimly lit settings that take full advantage of the shadows in the dark technique, The Damned keeps us guessing as to whether Eva and her crew are truly being haunted or if it’s the stark reality of their situation finally getting the best of them. Sound also plays a crucial part in developing the film’s suspense. In addition to Stephen McKeon’s suitably somber score, Palsson employs some first-rate sound design. For sure, it indulges in the occasional jump scare, but mostly sticks to prolonged, nerve-racking sequences that serve to further heighten our tormented characters’ descent into madness, be it creaking footsteps upstairs, disembodied breathing or the slow drip-drip of seawater creeping its way over to them.
While screenwriter Jamie Hannigan’s script could’ve provided a little more fleshing out to the supporting characters, the cast all perform admirably nonetheless. It’s Odessa Young, however, who is clearly the standout here. Much like her widowed character being tasked with shouldering the responsibility of her crew, Young is tasked with carrying a film that requires a gauntlet of emotions from her. Unlike her character, though, who’s very much in over her head, she rises to the challenge, giving a strong, expressive performance that effortlessly conveys the fear and unraveling madness of her protagonist.
Toward the end, Palsson and Hannigan take a misstep with a third-act twist that seems to undermine the ambiguous nature they were going for through most of the film. Ending with a definitive explanation of what was actually happening kinda slows down the devastating punch it could’ve landed had it kept things shrouded in a bit of mystery. Still, this is merely a minor stumble and hardly a deal breaker.
I mean, even a fantastic movie like The Sixth Sense closes with a step-by-step explanation of what we easily could’ve pieced together without it.
Consensus: While its slow-burn pace might turn off conventional horror fans, The Damned serves up an effectively tense and haunting slice of Icelandic folklore thanks to Thordur Palsson’s chillingly atmospheric direction and a great central performance by Odessa Young.
Silver Screen Fanatic’s Verdict: I give The Damned a B+ (★★★).
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