La conferencia

You're probably going to see 'The Conference' described as a comedy/horror. I'm not sure I would describe it that way. There are a lot of quirky characters doing some odd things but it never really felt like a film that was trying to make me laugh. The tone was pretty serious for the most part.

I'm a sucker for a masked killer. The mask here was good, although perhaps a little similar to the one in 'Happy Death Day'. The killer proves himself early on to not be playing around. He is out for blood and he will get it in some pretty violent and often creative fashion.

I think this is a film where the lower your expectations are, the better time you are going to have. Is it a horror masterpiece? No. Is it a reasonably fun time and a good film to watch on Friday the 13th (its release date)? Sure. There are some fun kills and some decent moments of tension here and there. 5.5/10.

First the story line, A team of municipal employees go for a team outing in the name of competency building exercise, which ironically becomes one when a killer starts killing the team and the crew!

Not a comedy-horror :- I wasn't expecting too much horror as this movie was mentioned as a satirical-horror or a horror-comedy.

Pros & Cons :- + The movie takes a pretty intense horror tone without wasting much time, even as soon as the crew settles in.

+ There maybe some comedy elements, but this was a gripping, intense and a full length horror movie for me!

+ I also liked how certain characters with negative intention suffered gruesome deaths.

• I felt the killer got lucky to find most of his victims alone and vulnerable.

Overall, you would still enjoy this movie despite its minor flaws!

Swedish take on the horror genre. Amusing, Charming. Nerdy. But with some excellent slasher scenes.

The bad; this movie takes some time to get going, the first 45 minutes it is just nothing else but an slightly amusing portrait of a group of municipal workers on a training session.

The good: the killing starts at about 45 minutes and from then on it is basically a full blown slasher movie, the Swedish way, with lots of aburd, dry humor the Swedish are good at.

All in all a reasonably nice slasher movie, for those who love this kind of Swedish dry, dark humor. Not recommended, but definitely still a fun watch.

Yet another masked killer horror. What with the recent ok-ish Totally Killer, and the upcoming Eli Roth directed Thanksgiving, they seem to be all the rage . . . . again! The Conference takes the Totally Killer route with it being a comedy too, however the tone switch between comedy and horror is handled better here, and isn't as jarring. This is chock full of the usual horror tropes, with a group of people, some you hope survive, some you hope meet a grizzly end and of course when the killer strikes, the deaths are wonderfully gruesome. This is a fun Swedish horror that should rocket to the top of the Netflix Top 10 list.

The title refers to my home country across the bay. In Finland, the quality of films and series still varies to an unfortunate extent, and in many areas we seem to have difficulty in exploiting our own strengths. The Swedes, on the other hand, know how to make films of guaranteed quality in every genre.

I'm not a fan of this genre myself, but this film was quite entertaining. Great actors and the ability to laugh at the silly aspects of Swedishness as seen from Finland - of course, it seemed that the filmmakers also understood the silly aspects of Swedishness.

From a Finnish perspective, the characters were quite relatable and also the municipal politics. The film also touched on the pain points of Swedish society, but only very briefly. There was no real message, and I don't think anyone expects that from a film of this genre.

In the spirit of neighbourly love, it was implied that one of the main characters (Ingela) was of Finnish background. Ingela was, of course, a rather unpleasant person. En finne igen! Thanks for this, Sweden ;)

All in all, however, the film was a very traditional slasher film. I don't like this kind of movies. However, this was more entertaining than average in this genre.