Bag det stille ydre

Let me put it in few words so I don't waste your time: This movie is awful, awkward and terrible. People who has good things to say about it must be related to cast or crew. Don't watch it. Don't waste your time. Just don't.

Normally I don't feel the urge to comment on a film. But this one is surely one very bad apple among other splendid danish movies. The acting was awkward and the "spookyness" just for laughs. It is embarrassing. Only my ability to write in English keeps me from going into details.

I like the genre but leave it to Hollywood. Please.

When Signe (Anne Birgitte Lind) and her workaholic husband Tommy (Jakob Cedergren) visit a house for sale in Glamstrup, they immediately like it and a couple of days later they buy it. They move with their daughter Bianca (Rebecca Løgstrup) and befriend their neighbors Marianne (Andrea Vagn Jensen) and her husband David (Dejan Cukic) that live on the other side of the street. While Tommy is working, Signe notes that weird things happen in the living room, with a black cat appearing, the fireplace firing alone and fruits getting rotten while Bianca plays and talks to her imaginary friend Oliver. Further, she discovers that the siblings Jane and Oliver died three years ago in a fire in another neighborhood in Glamstrup. She decides to call the medium Anders Svendsen (Morten Suurballe) to solve the mystery and he communicates with the spirits of the dead that are trapped in the spot and he tries to guide them to another world. When Marianne offers a job to Signe, she hires the teenager nanny Sarah (Lykke Sand Michelsen) that flirts with David. Meanwhile Tommy travels to Aalborg and meets the structural engineer that built the living room using material recovered from the fire where the siblings died. Further, he finds that on the next day is the three year anniversary of the tragedy. He decides to return to Glamstrup, but his car has a mechanical problem and she is stranded in Aalborg. Meanwhile Signe unravels a dark secret about the death of Jane and Oliver.

"Bag Det Stille Ydre" is a reasonable ghost story, with a promising beginning but a disappointing conclusion. Danish cinema has no tradition in horror movies, but the director Martin Schmidt succeeds with this very low-budget and low-paced movie, blending the genre with drama and thriller and keeping the unsolved mystery to the very end. Unfortunately the conclusion is weak, and I was disappointed since I expected a better resolution of the plot. The unknown cast has good performances, highlighting Anne Birgitte Lind and Andrea Vagn Jensen, and the sexy Lykke Sand Michelsen is a very gorgeous young woman. I have no connections with the director or cast, but I believe that fans of movies like "Haunted" (1995), "The Sixth Sense" (1999), "El Espinazo del Diablo" (2001) and "The Others" (2001) may give a chance to "Bag Det Stille Ydre" and they may have a pleasant surprise. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Almas Penadas" ("Restless Souls")

Again Jurgensen shows his genius. The critics will probably not like this movie but it is because they have no sense of humour and don't understand the horror genre. In fact, this is a brilliant horror movie far, far better than recent Hollywood "horror" and on the level of recent Japanese and South-East Asian horror (such as The Eye, The Ring, Dark Water, etc.) Jurgensen is a genius and in this movie he is at the height of his powers. Him and Martin Schmidt clearly knows their stuff. They know the genre in and out and demonstrate how to make a horror movie with integrity and excitement. The dialogue is amazing, for example the one between David and Sarah: "Hvad laver du i din fritid?" "Jeg rider", etc. This is just so funny and brilliant. I don't know what people's problem is when the rate movies like this so low. It must simply be ignorance towards the fundamentals of the horror genre. Let me tell you folks: Horror does not get any better than this! Take it or leave it!

At last a movie of this genre that actually made me shiver. I haven't experienced that since the first time i watched Stephen King's IT.

Besides being a thriller movie it has a lot of drama and some funny comic moments that all in all makes it very entertaining to watch.

All the actors did a really nice job - especially Dejan Cukic who made people in the cinema laugh with his awkwardness :) Also I have to add that the beautiful Lykke Sand Nielsen made an enchanting and very believable performance.

I can definitely recommend that you go and see this movie.

I give it 8 out of 10.

Knowing very little about this title, I decided to rent it with my wife. Danish horror movies do not come along too often, and the last one we saw, Midsommer, was a pleasant surprise. I had expected the same creepy feeling in this movie - and especially as the main characters in this one are more mature. Unfortunately the script is not as strong in this movie. The actors are struggling with sentences that would never be said in real life, which is a shame. Dejan Cukic has done much better before, he has proved that with the right script and instruction, he can actually act. This movie is an embarrassment to his skills. The same thin cannot be said about Anne Birgitte Lind, who basically stinks in everything she has been in - including this movie! When does she realize that acting is more than reading lines from the script? The story makes no sense, and the characters actions are downright ridiculous. The movie fails on all accounts in my book! By the way, Zlatko Buric is a walking joke. He should have stopped his career after the first Pusher-film!