The Damned
Directed by Thordur Palsson
Written by Jamie Hannigan and Thordur Palsson
Starring Odessa Young, Joe Cole, Siobhan Finneran
Rated R
Runtime: 1 hour, 29 minutes
In Theaters January 3

by Avery Coffey, Staff Writer

Horror set in the winter always has such a strong foundation when it’s set against a snowy backdrop. The season is symbolic for many things across different cultures: death being one of the most common. The slow, creeping chill of Thordur Palsson’s The Damned attests that winter has always been the darkest and coldest time of year.

Starring Odessa Young, Joe Cole, and Siobhan Finneran, The Damned tells the story of Eva (Young), a widow of a fishing boat captain, who takes over his responsibility of overseeing an unruly crew. Because of their resource shortage in the local village, they turn their backs on a sinking ship of dying men. Eventually, Eva’s crew begins to die off while experiencing strange occurrences. Its 19th-century setting presents the anxious reality of not having modern conveniences while offering the moral question: do we put ourselves at risk to save the lives of strangers?

With wide frames and low saturation, the white of the snow and glaciers essentially blind the viewer with desolation. The emptiness serves as a forewarning of the story’s tragic melancholy. With wintertime horror, there almost always is a juxtaposition between the purity of the snow and the blood that soon taints it. Any blood that spills is for the sake of the genre. The Damned is not a movie that exploits its body count. Instead, the true horror lurks in the darkness and slowly eats away at the fishing post. The crew’s sanity is taunted and tested by a Nordic undead creature called the draugr. They only have one weapon that would truly destroy it: resilience. And yet, that doesn’t prosper.

There is a quiet conversation online that begs for original horror narratives using unique folktales. The historical archive of cautionary fables is too rich to ignore. Though not all folklore comes with a tragic lesson to be learned, the ones that do often involve fictional monstrosities and entities waiting for their curtain cue. A recent example of this would be Antlers, the 2021 horror sci-fi movie featuring the Algonquin mythological wendigo. A large majority of user reviews on IMDB share a similar appreciation for the concept despite its disappointing execution.

When the plot introduced the draugr, I was glad this wasn’t going to be another single-layer paranormal watch. The crew is already vulnerable because of their limited resources. They carry the guilt of the shipwreck back with them and it leaves everyone a bit on edge. That remorse propels some of the fishermen to perform a death ritual to ensures the dead stays dead. Despite others showing skepticism, the rest of the crew soon follows suit when they’re faced with the inexplicable circumstances of missing corpses. As Helga (played by Siobhan Finneran) puts it, the demon’s main goal is to turn everyone against each other. When the fresh fish goes missing, there’s no more time to prevent the spiral. The crew’s temper is shorter and the tensions are tall.

Palsson had a beautiful vision for this film. It takes an empathetic approach to grief and guilt that Odessa Young’s performance amplifies in her authentic portrayal. I think it’s a great testament to the art of a solid slow burn. Without reaching beyond its necessary run-time, the story leaves the viewer satisfied, yet haunted. The audio production is tonally orchestrated for heart-stopping crescendos that sometimes left my jaw slack.

Visually, The Damned was executed flawlessly. Narratively, though, there were a few hiccups and the ending was lost on me. The beginning sets Eva up to step into a traditionally male role which makes her superior to other men. I wanted this to play a bigger role in her character development or in the conflict of the story. As it fleshed out further, the convenient romance between her and Daniel (played by Joe Cole) extinguished this flame that had the potential to burn bright. Romance subplots have a way of weaseling their way into horror. It isn’t as much of a nuisance if it doesn’t take away from the female lead. But alas… maybe The Damned is another addition to whatever list Antlers is on.

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