Director: Kjersti Helen Rasmussen
Year: 2023
Country: Norway
Alternate Titles: Marerittet
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Moving into a new flat together, a couple looking to start their lives together become troubled by her constant nightmares and sleepwalking issues which soon leads to the potential discovery of a deadly folklore being at the center of it all and tries to find a way to stop it from affecting her.
Review:
This was a generally dreadful and not all that worthwhile of a feature. Among the few likable factors for this one is the atmosphere of the first half featuring the couple moving into the new apartment which leads to the burgeoning appearance of the supernatural entity. Nicely exploring the concept of her being targeted by the being with the loneliness, the argumentative neighbors, and the constant crying noises she hears that soon develop into the sleep paralysis problems she suffers from, the way this comes together into a landing spot for the introduction of the spirit tormenting her. That leads into the second half where the dream revelations of her troubled state are a fun series of sexually-charged dreams centered on the demon manipulating everything, but that’s all that works here.
There are some really big issues here that hold this one back and make it as bad as it is. One of the biggest detriments to this one is an utterly unappealing pace that just drains any potential fun out of this from the very start. Conversations range from nothing particularly interesting about either member detailing his work career or her trying to clean up the apartment at a lethargic flow with no energy or enthusiasm. It makes what happens here have no impact or importance due to the lifeless atmosphere on display which causes the dull and flat appearance throughout the first half as the uninteresting material in its own right has no chance of being engaging due to the problematic presentation so there’s no chance of anything starting off well.
On top of this problematic factor, the film doesn’t do itself any favors by keeping the creature off-screen for just about the entire running time. While it gets brought up as a potential cause early on, the immediate aftermath is to ignore everything about it in favor of asinine abortion regulations and an insomnia study that is completely uninteresting. None of these subplots are that enjoyable as it leads to nothing that impressive as we get either lifeless relationship troubles or dull experimentation scenes in the doctor’s care trying to put his science to the test so the film comes off quite dull as there’s nothing interesting happening at a pace that drains the life out of the film without a villain on-screen for much of it. These lower the film significantly to the point of being unwatchable.
Overview: 0.5/5
Barely worthwhile at its best and outright boring when it tries to do something, this has so few redeeming qualities it’s best to be ignored. There’s little need to check this out unless you’re a Scandinavian genre completist as everyone else here should just outright move past it.
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