Heck yes again, 'most perfect slasher film ever made'? We shall seee.
****
<U>The Spiel</u>:
Okay, to be honest I've been searching for this flick for a while now and all I've found is the original - language barrier, oh noes! Or, the original with… More
Heck yes again, 'most perfect slasher film ever made'? We shall seee.
****
<U>The Spiel</u>:
Okay, to be honest I've been searching for this flick for a while now and all I've found is the original - language barrier, oh noes! Or, the original with subtitles...that just happen to be english. So, in my fruitless search I finally find a copy that I just may understand...dubbed - qu'elle horreur! Regardless, seeing as this was my first look of the film...the story itself was enough to keep me enticed and forget about the terrible voice overs. I will definitely have to watch this again with subs, it would probably make it better perhaps?
<U>The Who/What/When/et al</u>:
Funny that flix just doesn't seem to have a synopsis for this flick, let's fix this shall we? So, the story starts off how you would expect a normal Norwegian horror flick to begin. We learn of waaay back in the day, a family who owned a hotel in the mountains lost their child and no one knows what's happened to him. There are various segments of news being reported of people going missing in the mountains, and statistics on how many Norwegians tend to vaca it up skiing/snowboarding for the Easter weekend. Then we meet a troup of young people respectively named; Ingunn, Mikal, Eirik, Jannicke and Marten Tobias. They're not heading for where everyone else is because Eirik has this HUGE mountain they just HAVE to see. So, once they reach this place they use their snowshoes and have a great time riding the slope -which is pretty gargantuan and which reveals a gorgeous view. All of a sudden, Marten does something and lands on his face. The group, fairly concerned go to see why he's screaming. Jannicke lifts his snowpants and we see a pretty bad break. Damn! What will our poor characters do now? They debate on going back to the car or skiing to the village nearby but realize that this will not get them back in time for nightfall...they're at a loss until Jannicke notices some buildings not too far down the mountain.
The trek down the slop and find themselves facing a pretty intimidating and creepy old hotel that seems to be abandoned. The lock is stuck, so Eirik reaches the upper floor and breaks a window. They all pile inside, and it looks like no one has touched the place in ages. After they all settle down, and Marten is resting comfortably with some painkillers and alcohol Jannicke tries to put the break into place and they splint him up. She stays with him, while the other three go to explore the rest of the spooky old hotel. After finding the generator and kicking it into gear, Eirik restores power to the place and they hear this cheesy - but kinda likeable 70s norweigan music blasting through the speakers. After some exploring, Jannicke finds a guest registry dating back from the seventies and learn of the couple who owned the hotel had lost their son and no entries have been made since.
They all begin to settle down for the night, and Mikal and Ingunn who are 'really into each other' go to find a room. Something happens between them, Ingunn doesn't want to go through with it so Mikal storms off leaving Ingunn by herself in the room. Nobody seems to notice anything, although poor Ingunn meets a very interesting individual who determines her fate. The next morning, they decide Eirik will go to the village and flag down a taxi while meanwhile the gang worries about Ingunn and then some grisly discoveries are made...when they realize that they're not the only ones who happen to inhabiting the old hotel.
<U>Ending Thoughts & Junk</u>:
I found this to be your run-of-the-mill slasher flick, though it didn't really seem to be one at first..the suspense was built up quite nicely as all the terrible things were befalling the friends in secret...until they found out what was really going on. Sure, it boasts the clichee 'dead teenager scenario' except I found that the characters in her were actually -quite- likeable and you could see how hard they were trying to survive in such severe conditions. They also didn't take the normal precautions that characters would in such scenarios and seemed to be quite level-headed and intelligent about the reality of the situation in what they were in.
It wasn't really about the killer in here, it seemed to be about the victims and how they would use whatever meagre sources they could in order to best themselves against well - this faceless, masked killer who seemed to operate more like a robot than anything else. There were some pretty great 'fake outs' in here, I actually found myself jumping at how idiotic it was. They were definitely making fun of their surroundings in a pretty comedic manner.
The atmosphere of the whole time they were in the spooky hotel was just so creepy, it was dark and really gritty at times that made it so much more enjoyable. So, it may not be a 'perfect slasher film' but it's a definitely brilliant attempt from the Norsk.
I'd recommend it to any horror buff that likes those chilling flicks that get under your skin...but then disperse after a while. There isn't too much gore, which is strange that the killer happens to yield a pick-axe but you forget that as you see these five running through uncomfortably narrow corridors and all the other lovely scenery to keep you enticed. You definitely should be totally open-minded and understand exactly what they were trying to do here to watch this movie.
<img src='http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/images/coldprey3.jpg'>
One the films most genuine and intriguing heroine that you'll definitely want to root for.