El hijo maldito

We got wave of Norway horror films coming lately to us and most of them are pretty interesting. The same case is with this one which is a decent combination of psychological horror mixed with serial killer thriller and mystery. Good combination which keeps you without the answer until the end, but maybe even after that, depending on how you comprehended the whole idea. But it certainly keeps you entertained most of the time with tense scenes, good acting and some beautiful camera shots of the night. If you ask me, this movie needs more thorough work on the plot axis and kind of balance between questions and answers in the film where questions prevail in much greater number than answers until the end. All in all, interesting chiller for your favorite horror hours.

Pal Oie's second long-feature film is largely reminiscent to his 2003 effort "Dark Woods"; which regrettably also means that he makes the same mistakes and trips over the exact same obstacles. The filming locations and scenery are truly breathtaking and the thematic influences of ancient Norwegian folklore tales are very intriguing, but the story never really appears to develop itself and eventually drowns in its own atmosphere of mystery and complexity. Oie serves an attractive potpourri wholesome of dark family secrets, alleged schizophrenia and spiritual connection with nature, but everything remains rather vague and incoherent. The somewhat unworldly and introvert Kai Koss returns to his remote backwoods hometown because his old mother passed away and he's the sole heir to inherit the ramshackle parental mansion. Kai Koss isn't too keen to return because his mother abused him and regularly locked up him up in the basement, and the people he grew up with always considered him to be a social outcast. His homecoming coincides with the disappearance of a two young campers that were last seen in the woods surrounding Kai's house. The local vigilante squad naturally suspects him, but he himself is convinced that Peter is behind the strange occurrences. Peter was a young boy who witnessed his parents dying in a car crash and then fled into the woods. Kai senses that Peter still prowls around the area even though the police holds strong evidence that he fell into the waterfall and died. "Hidden" is the type of film that keeps you staring at the screen with interest simply because it's beautifully shot and masterfully stylish. So beautiful and so stylish, even, that you don't immediately notice the lack of development. Kristoffer Joner – also the lead in the aforementioned "Dark Woods" – is a terrific actor and Hordaland is most definitely a county in Norway that I will visit sooner or later, but "Hidden" is sadly little more than just another pseudo psychological horror portrait

Skjult is an above average horror movie. The cinematography is just excellent especially for a horror movie. There are enough scares throughout to keep you firmly in your seat.

But is does follow the standard plot of a horror movie. A mystery, a lot of scares and then a big reveal in the end. But the pacing is quite good throughout. And the big reveal doesn't feels anticlimactic like it does in so many horror movies.

Technically the movie is very slick. Everybody has done a good job in acting but nothing really special. Overall a very satisfying horror movie.

Guess that in the end this movie is an OK watch but it's also one that had some far more potential, if it had only tried to tell a better story with its movie.

I just don't like a mystery-thriller, in which we as the viewers know even less about the mystery of the whole story than the main character. It really should be a movie rule that the viewers always must know just as much about what is going on, as the main character. It makes things a whole lot more involving as well to watch and follow.

This movie just loves to mess with your mind. It's one of those movies in which you are never sure what is real and what is going on in the main characters mind. And the movie just never seems to get enough of this. It doesn't just make the movie complicated but it also makes it a bit of a mess. I honestly started loosing interest in this movie real fast. I just couldn't care anymore about the story or its characters, or were it was all heading toward. It's because you never really know whats real or not and what is the 'secret' the main character is carrying around with him. You could say that it's a movie that tries too hard to be clever and over-complicated with its story, while in fact the story just isn't powerful enough to fully achieve any of this. It also means that the movie trows in just too much stuff, which makes it all a bit of a mess in the long run. Was most of the stuff and mystery really necessary for the movie its plot? No, as it turns out in the end.

But it nevertheless remains still a well made and great looking Norwegian movie. There is basically just very little wrong with any of its acting, cinematography or visual directing. Its look is the foremost reason why the movie still somewhat works out because it manages to create a great, moody, almost horror-like atmosphere. The movie is also being listed as an horror, though honesty I would still call it more of a thriller than anything else really. There are scare moments in it and all and the atmosphere is kind of creepy but its story is just purely being a typical mystery-thriller one.

So despite all of the negativity and complaints I have toward this movie, I still consider it as a watchable enough one.

6/10

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Is anyone else confused?

Let's start with how well this film has been shot. The locations chosen as the backdrop for this story were awesome. The beautiful waterfall, surrounded by a grim forest and a dilapidated house are visually perfect for a horror film. This setting is probably what I liked most about it. It had a fair amount of suspense and a small amount of blood but I really can't agree that this falls into the horror genre.

I watched this because I found it on a list of the best foreign horror films so my expectations may have been set a bit high but I was disappointed. Without writing a bunch of my thoughts, I'll just say that in my opinion, this movie was all over the place and left too many unanswered questions for me to consider it a top notch flick. It just failed to deliver.