The Damned

This is genuinely a film I can recommend to any die hard horror fans, or anyone interested in a genuinely facinating horror plot - The Damned is a unique start to the 2025 theatrical roster for sure. Fantastic acting, engaging story and an overall extremely beautiful piece of cinematic eye candy, some genuinely skin crawling shots and creepy story development, accompanied with a fantastic score and continual mystery, even to the final act. The film starts at a steady incline, filling us in slowly but surely, then dips into a horrifying second to mid-act, however when the ending and climax finally arrives, I personally felt it felt extremely rushed, alongside the ending. The finale and conclusion acts, although piecing together, falls apart so heavily to where it takes you entirely out of the mood by the time credits roll. This was an extremely worthy and interesting theatrical debut, but I feel audiences will not sync with the rushed-feeling ending, which is a shame, because this film from beginning before end was tense, gripping and genuinely unique. Still worth a watch.

The film is very atmospheric, filled with dread, frigidness, and quite unsettling. It follows a crew on a coastal Icelandic fishing outpost that comes across another shipwrecked crew. They face a damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don't scenario (no pun intended); saving this crew would mean jeopardizing their own safety, but not saving the other crew would be morally wrong. The decision they make haunts them.

The cinematography is very nice, highlighting the Icelandic wintry landscapes, and the sound design is effective. While watching, it feels like you're actually there at the outpost with the characters in the dead of winter.

Odessa Young is great as the lead not only of the film itself, but also of the crew within the film. She's quietly and subtly bold as a widow coming to grips with leading an all-male crew of the coastal fishing outpost inherited from her late husband. Young has good presence here as we follow her going through something sinister that she's in over her head to understand, balancing the terror she's experiencing while also trying to remain a competent leader for her crew. The rest of the ensemble is good too, particularly Cole and Finneran. You really feel the group's esprit de corps and camaderie, which really adds to the film as we see a sinister presence proceed to wreak havoc.

While the story itself is compelling, the film has one issue, and it's a big one: the pacing; which is odd to say since the film is actually not very long, at just 1 hr 29 mins. In large part this is because the film takes place entirely in one small location and it follows the lead primarily, while the other characters are on the sidelines. At the same time, this seclusion adds greatly to the film's atmosphere. So perhaps while many may find this film to be glacial in its pace at times, others very well may appreciate it and take the film to be a slow burn, or a slow thaw, no pun intended.

But however you take this film, it is certainly worth checking out, if only for the great acting and isolating, cold atmosphere.

The good reviews have me a bit confused to be honest. Overall this film was boring. Slow burn can be really good and intense but I just think this was too boring, it never felt like it really got going. I will say that the performances are all very good (for a script that is not) and I noticed almost immediately that the score is good. Visually it was somewhat enjoyable but a little bit same same and like I say there just wasn't a lot happening. People dislike the ending but I honestly felt like that could've been the best bit if there was just more plot armour leading to it. The film needed a twist to make it interesting but a rushed twist just annoys everyone and makes the whole thing very mediocre.

GenX reporting-in from the first screening at our AMC. I see almost every horror film. This is the first of 2025, an Icelandic horror about malnurishment, regrets, ghost stories, alcoholism, and fisherman. The cinematography, scenery, costumes and acting are all Very well done, A++. Decent gore. I could understand most of the dialogue, but I wish my theatre would offer open captions for films like this. If I was at home I would pause and rewind parts. It's very good, but not good enough to view it again. In the end it falls short in its climax. Some of the horror is sliced-in or not on screen for long, cut short. But honestly we would be complaining if this film was longer, as its the perfect run time for a slow burner like this; Less boring that way. The landscape and vibe is haunting. Do you have to see this film in the theatre? A: No. If you have A-List or Movie Pass and extra time definitely check it out. It's almost great 6/10 for costumes, scenery and acting.

I was excited to see this film because I am a horror and Rory McCann fan.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie for what it was. I have a particular preference towards supernatural horror, so if you do too, you may like this as well. It is also a psychological horror. If you read the other reviews, they mentioned that it was pretty good up until the end and that it was too slow of a burn.

I disagree that it was too slow. The pacing was on par, in my opinion, for it being just an hour and a half length movie. What I do agree with is that the ending stopped this from being great.

When I read others' reviews, they were vague on what made the ending so bad, so I was curious about it before I watched. Without spoiling it, I believe the direction that the plot went was a cop-out or a rushed way to wrap up the the story. I left the movies trying to justify the ending in a way where it could have made sense because I really enjoyed the rest of the film. Again, trying not to spoil it, the ending seemed a bit illogical (despite it being supernatural and psychological) and gives partial clarification to the plot points. Especially for those who found this to be slow, it does not give a good pay off for watching.

I still don't feel like it was a waste of time, however. I rated it a bit higher and still think its worth a watch because that particular ending happened within about the last 3 minutes of the movie, so essentially, an hour and 26 min was still good and therefore not a waste.

I also rated it a bit higher because the other parts of the film: the cinematography, costume design and sound design were really great. Especially for a horror film, the things you don't initially think about, like eerie sounds, can make or break the atmosphere and this movie did it right in setting the atmosphere during the entire run time.