El hijo maldito

Another horror/suspense Norwegian movie. Pretty much the opening sequence shows you events that make you think you have this movie all figured out, and believe me, you will be wrong. Skjult starts slowly and patiently evolving onto a dark, minimalist, very climatic film, which takes you in a descending ride to the characters' pasts and nightmares. And it all gets darker and wronger with every minute, and it's all bad, the story, the main character, his mother, his past and his present. Thumbs up to a very nice entertaining surprise. Finally when it has to resolve, (where many horror movies tend to slip), it resolves being consequent and sustaining the same atmosphere that has been developed throughout the entire film to wrap up a strong offer from northern Europe.

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.

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.

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.