There’s always more folklore to discover. Everytime we run out of a country’s supernatural fables (US, Italy, Japan had their phases) we simply move onto the next one. We’re in the heights of Scandinavian mythology for the past decade, going as big as Troll, as weird as Border/Lamb, and as bright as Midsommar. Only a matter of time before we went dark, and uncovered The Damned, the requisite early January horror release. However, unlike most either garbage or dumb fun releases, The Damned insists and earns a better reputation…though we do have to go through frozen hell to get there.
That hell is winter time on an Arctic Bay fishing village in the 1800s. Awash in eternal darkness Eva (Odessa Young) runs the village with helper Helga (Siobhan Finneran) while her burly male compatriots including ship captain Rangar (Rory McCann) and stoic first mate Daniel (Joe Cole) go out and fish what they can with the limited sunlight they have. One bright morning before the men go to fish, they spot a sinking ship on the Teeth, a dangerous, jagged rock formation. While debating going to save them, the ship submerges, potentially promising left behind food for the starving seamen…but that food might come with some consequences.
The Damned teases people with jump scares and supernatural killing, but it plants its Icelandic flag on atmosphere. The location used here sets the stage instantly: this is a desolate, cold place, surrounded by the most beautiful, but imposing, mountains you’ve seen, or undrinkable salt water oceans leading to jagged mountain islands. Methinks Eva and her men are not super welcome here by Mother Nature? In conditions like those, warm routines keep everyone’s sanity, and faith in God/each other to protect each other. However, dissension over doing selfless acts like saving the sinking boat causes slight fissures amongst the men, and alarming crises of faith for people like the superstitious Helga. Routine now broken, that endless night and imposing ominous mountains fractures the mind, and the soul, creating a cyclone of despair that manifests in the form of seafaring superstitions about spirits coming to life. With each new night approaching, you feel the dread and desolation wash over the village, with even the strongest of spirits slowly breaking, little by little. Those warm little huts now claustrophobic prisons, a never ending bedtime concoction that leads to the fates turning our fishermen into the fated title of the film.
If you’re like me, wondering why 2-5 new friends go to Iceland every year, maybe consider showing them The Damned. All those “I want to see the Aurora Borealis!” quotes might send a shiver up their spine with this one. Stick to the summer months y’all, when you can get in and out more flexibly and not be tied to a place destined for multiple bad omens in the winter, as you try to navigate The Teeth.