Dark Souls (Morke Sjeler) is a Norwegian horror film which starts off great but doesn’t quite follow through. The best way to go into this film is completely blank so you have no idea what’s going to happen. That way, you can let the film take you through a ride. I say this because the film transitions through a couple different type of movies until it settles (or gives up) and finishes as a totally different film. Let me explain. We begin with a beautiful girl named Johanna running through the city and then a deserted forest (bad idea right?). Soon enough, she’s chased by an insane man in an orange jumpsuit and is murdered with a drill to the head. Enter Detective Richard Askestad where the film becomes a criminal investigation film. The detective is also our source of comedy throughout the film where he mixes comedic anecdotes with vital facts.
The movie quickly turns to suspense as the father of the murdered runner doesn’t quite realize his daughter is dead. This is where things start to get interesting and I won’t spoil some of the surprises for you. However, I will have to give away one big thing which doesn’t really spoil the movie if you’ve seen the trailer, but if you’re going in completely blank, you’ll want to stop reading soon. The orange jumpsuit man doesn’t stop with one victim, he continues to torment everyone until Norway finds itself with an epidemic they can’t seem to handle. At this point, we’re still in a suspenseful criminal investigation type of movie but now we’re mixed with some medical science mumbo jumbo as the victims start to get autopsied by Dr. Hansen and then…return from the dead!? After being attacked by this serial killer, or not so killer, the victims turn into moaning vegetables.
Johanna, did you fall in the mud or something?
Again, the movie switches identity and turns into a family drama. We follow the father of patient zero and his daughter as they try to manage the life of a vegetable in a regular life ala Shawn of the Dead style. He feeds his daughter, takes her for walks in the park, and watches home videos with her trying to recuperate her. As the victim count keeps rising and the police have no leads, the father, Morten Ravn, takes it upon himself to get revenge on his daughter’s attacker. Now we begin the revenge film. If you’ve been keeping track, we’ve gone through a horror film (chase in the woods), detective film (criminal investigation), suspense thriller (dead girl in house with father), medical movie (doctors trying to solve the problem with science), and family drama (dad taking care of his vegetable daughter). Each of these could be a different TV show. Now we’re on to a vigilante revenge story.
I liked the villain in this one...very simple: Dude in an orange jumpsuit with a big drill.
At some point the film gives up and it turns into a typical zombie flick. The vegetables start attacking and we’re given a curious deep sea tale which accounts all the problems with an oil which isn’t quite oil…just darkness from the abyss. It doesn’t quite make much sense with why anything is happening but it’s happening and by the time the movie ends, it’s too late to turn back. I enjoyed how the movie began twisting and turning to different types of storytelling. You couldn’t quite put a finger on what type of film this was going to be until it exposed itself as just another zombie movie which really disappointed me because I did see some potential in it. I don’t know what happened, but something went wrong…which is pretty much the explanation the film gave on the zombies.
Not sure if they wanted your brains...but they were definitely zombies.
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This is probably the most controversial film making its way around festival circuits. Banned in many countries and having trouble finding distribution in many others, A Serbian Film is a movie that pushes everyone to the limit and tests people to see what they can handle. I don’t think anyone knows what the fate of this film will be but within the next few months we’ll know if this one is allowed to make waves or fall back into the deep vaults of Serbia where no one will ever find it again. Basically, I don’t believe the film will be shown in any public American theater the way it is cut right now and editing will step on the filmmaker’s freedoms which is the big debate (or debacle) with this film.
