Saw this back at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival
Finland cinema isn't common for me to see as there isn't many Finland movies that are really widely known in the United States. Having only seen a few films from director Aki Kaurismäki which I really like, I was looking forward to seeing another film from Finland. Especially a horror movie from Finland. After viewing the movie, it was a solid horror movie.
Director Hanna Bergholm understands how to make the movie engaging with some interesting writing aspects of the movie and including some really amazing disturbing make up for the costumes. The set production is really colorful and bright. Making the feeling of the world is like some kind of fantasy. The musical background fits the tone pretty well and the performances from the cast is pretty good. Even the child actors did a pretty good job. Usually I am picky on child actors but here they did a pretty good job. There's a good level of decent gore and tense presented in this movie which helps add the movies tone and thrills. While being said, there's still potential that was missed and wasted.
The characters unfortunately were really uninteresting. Characters are important in order to keep the movie flowing. But here the characters felt really basic and just boring to witness. The main character is pretty bland with basic purpose and the main characters mother is highly unlikeable and annoying throughout the movie. Some of the dialogue really felt fake as if an adult had written lines for a kid that no kid would even sound like. The writing itself was already interesting but it never really took advantage of what it wants to be. Instead it decided to go through the basic way to present the story, just like "Jojo Rabbit" where it takes a very interesting subject but instead becomes basic because the filmmaker was trying to be safe.
There are some decent symbolic moments and weird tones provided throughout this movie but it wasn't too strong to carry. Nevertheless, it was still a solid horror movie.
Rating: B-
