Cora

As I stumbled upon the 2024 movie "Cora" here in 2025 by random chance, and given my love of all things horror, of course I opted to check it out. I virtually didn't know what I was in for here, as I sat down to watch the movie from directors Sonny Laguna and Tommy Wiklund, so I suppose the directors had every possibility of entertaining me with their movie.

The storyline definitely had potential, but writers Sonny Laguna, David Liljeblad and Tommy Wiklund seemed to not know in what direction to take the narrative. And the end result was a script that proved boring and uneventful. Running at 104 minutes, it is primarily the last half an hour or so that proved to be carrying the movie, but by then it was too little, too late. The rest before that was just boring filler where leading actress Felicia Rylander did nothing but sit around or wander a wasteland shrouded in fog, making it nearly impossible for the viewers to see what was going on.

Of the entire cast ensemble, I was only familiar with Michael Paré and Thomas Lennon. I will say that the acting performances in the movie were actually fair enough, taking into consideration the limitations imposed on the actors and actresses from a subpar script.

I have to say that ultimately then "Cora" was a disappointing and boring movie, and not really one that I would recommend you to waste 104 minutes on watching.

My rating of directors Sonny Laguna and Tommy Wiklund's 2024 movie "Cora" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

If you enjoy the mood and feel of the Stalker games, this is the movie for you.

I have no idea how they spent that much to make a movie that takes place in the woods.

From a science fiction point, it actually have a really good story in the end, but take way to much time just to get to it.

Perhaps, it would be better as a short film ?

You would find better dialogue and acting from any AA computer game, and there is probably big chunks of the story cut out for time, as theer are many story threads, never resolved.

This is what happens when you try to do some world building, without a storyboard or general idea on what message you want the movie to give the audience.

I am all for a movie that we get snippets of information about what really is going on, or with an open ended finish, where you can speculate on what is really going on - but a 500 piece puzzle, and you only get ten middle pieces just builds frustration.

The final twist however, i really liked.

( despite being used so many times it almost is a trope by now. )

The film has some convincing special effects, especially the toxic mist, but any notion that it symbolizes "late-stage capitalism" is purely ludicrous. The film's story arc is one of survival in a post-apocalypse setting that pits selfishness against altruism. Other than its sluggish pacing, Cora suffers from an incomplete script that introduces a MacGuffin (the scientists) but delivers no resolution (what happened to the scientists). Note that "deleted scenes" are displayed during the end credits, which reveal a longer film was shot but a shorter film was released. It feels like a TV series pilot that was abandoned but sold to theaters to recoup expenses. Actress Sanne Brostöm (Cora) bears a resemblance to Mona Lisa but I doubt it was anything more than coincidence.

A committed and idealist brave young woman working hard alone, kinda like Ripley in alien, gets abandoned by her employers, screwed over. She must strike out on her own to look for answers. Some of the best low budget shoot outs Ever. Doesn't give you all the answers and keeps in guessing. I think it has a metaphors about the human condition, involving Hope, idealism, and survival of the fittest thinking, handled better than Most apocalyptic thrillers. I think the mist might be late stage capitalism for instance. The sci fi touches are worthy of aldous huxley nearly. Also reminded me of the DOmestics 2018 in a good way. Classy way to do this type of thing.

Overall, a pretty interesting concept and twist. All of the effects that aren't just plugins (the mist, the bullet impacts) were good. The blood was very well done, except for when it looks like an old pasta sauce stain 10 seconds after spraying out of a gunshot wound. Fantastic blood spray for a modern movie, I just wish the muzzle flashes and impacts weren't simple After Effects plugins.

The mist is not a well done effect, it just looks like the saturation was knocked down in post and makes the movie hard to see. They really should have spent the money on some fog machines because it is so obvious the fog is an overlay.

The story was interesting enough. Gasmasks and AKs, so it had a nice Stalker vibe overall. Weird that the main actress doesn't show up on the IMDB page though.