Mysterious deaths befall members of an isolated 19th-century fishing community after they choose not to aid the survivors of a shipwreck
Every film ought to have a signature image, and slow-burn supernatural chiller The Damned has a doozy: a body washed ashore shows unexpected signs of life, a stirring in the midsection … but surprise, slash the bloated stomach open and there’s an eel in there, wriggling about and presumably feasting on guts. Unfortunately nothing else provides quite so fulsomely gothic a moment, which is a shame, because it’s an arresting flourish.
Set in Iceland during the 19th century, The Damned is more about atmosphere and buildup than set pieces or delivery. The plot is light-touch. There’s a shipwreck off the coast where a tiny fishing community are barely scraping by. The community have a choice: try to help the shipwrecked people or let them perish. The more humane characters want to help while the more pragmatic ones point out that they barely have enough food to sustain themselves, and that adding 20 newbies to the mix would risk starvation. The pragmatists win the day but, after they turn their backs on their fellow humans, a series of eerie visions and mysterious deaths unfolds. Is an Icelandic folkloric spook out to get them, or is the source of their troubles more prosaic?
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Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jan/07/the-damned-review-atmospheric-chiller-thordur-palsson
Author : Catherine Bray
Publish date : 2025-01-07 11:00:55
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