[Rating: Solid Rock Fist Up]
In Theaters Friday, January 3
The Oscar season’s deadline just passed, so to hell with all the stories about the power of community and resiliency and enduring love: it’s 2025 and evil is “in.” A reverse Lord of the Flies with The VVitch vibes, The Damned explores the moral cancers that humanity lets fester and blossom in both life and death. A folk horror chamber piece that supposes community can just as easily be the enemy of compassion rather than its inspiration, the film is as prescient as it is terrifying.
Though not named or placed, the “fishing station” where the audience meets widow Eva (Odessa Young) is in a wintry region cut off from civilization by land until the Spring thaw. Eva’s husband passed not long ago (his headstone reads 1870 as the year of death), and since he owned the boat, any decisions about seafaring operations run through her. This burden becomes a terrible one when the station’s small group of about 8 sees a foreign ship foundering just offshore, and an argument breaks out about whether to conduct a rescue of the survivors.
With food limited and concern already set in about rations for their own winter survival, Eva sides with those arguing against offering any help, remarking with pained disconsolation, “Helping those men will put all of your lives at risk, and I cannot do that.” Fishermen turning their backs on fellow sailors is righteous bad karma, though, and once the bloated corpses begin to wash up (along with barrels of food that might have kept them all alive), talk of retribution from beyond the grave starts to circulate. When members of the fishing station begin to disappear this talk intensifies, and so too does the general tone and tenor of The Damned, which cranks out a healthy amount of suspense in 89 brisk minutes.
The set-up is straightforward, yet it shouldn’t belie the timely and altogether relevant social themes running through the heart of the movie. Although it is made more direct and literal in The Damned, this discussion of the encroaching “Other” and the ways communities respond with fear instead of grace transcends any jump scares or spooky reveals, here. Director Thordur Palsson (who also co-wrote the script) doesn’t overplay his hand much with all of this, but he supposes that Eva and the group’s decision is one many modern communities make (perhaps passively or through the ballot box) every day.
It’s ugly and cruel and every bit who we are as a species in most cases, and The Damned never flinches when asking questions about the ways this trait simmers in the hearts of the perpetrators as well as the victims. With Eva as the focal point of the story throughout all phases, Young takes turns ably conveying varying levels of confidence, uncertainty, fear, and resolve as she works through the ever-evolving drama of the story. She carries the emotional weight of each act with a growing, brittle mania that would have been easy to lean too heavily upon, yet the actress modulates her performance with thoughtful precision.
That said, the script doesn’t branch out all that much to color in the other characters, except for fisherman and dead husband friend, Daniel (Joe Cole). While Eva’s relationship with the other men comes off as clinical and curt, her interactions with Daniel display a warmth and compassion that hints at a deeper affection from both sides. This creates stakes for someone other than Eva, which helps when things start popping off and the audience is groping around for a reason to care who it’s happening to.
It’s a minor gripe, though, because Palsson and the script understand that this story works best when it is moving with the speed and efficiency required of the simple conceit. The fact that it all looks bafflingly gorgeous between the stark Icelandic exteriors and mock-candle lighting interiors doesn’t hurt, either. The quiet, solemn beauty of the snow-stained mountain faces and rock-strewn inlets put the audience in the proper mental state to appreciate the awesome beauty and savagery that exists in this kind of setting. Likewise, the deep shadows of the lighting design seem period appropriate as it relates to the candles, and offer the ghosts/“Draugur” plenty of space to hide.
The score, featuring deep, ominous cello strikes and timpani rolls round out the brilliant technical aspects of an altogether tight suspense horror picture that is head and shoulders above Hollywood’s normal January dreck. A scary movie with a topical thematic spine that buoys an already capable technical effort, The Damned terrifies and enlightens in equal measure. A story about the ways the universe punishes those who turn their backs on community, on those most vulnerable, this movie asks questions that seem likely to keep washing ashore of the collective consciousness, like so many bloated, abandoned bodies from the surf.
“Obvious Child” is the debut novel of Warren Cantrell, a film and music critic based out of Seattle, Washington. Mr. Cantrell has covered the Sundance and Seattle International Film Festivals, and provides regular dispatches for Scene-Stealers and The Playlist. Warren holds a B.A. and M.A. in History, and his hobbies include bourbon drinking, novel writing, and full-contact kickboxing.
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