Sorgenfri

See, now this is a movie that makes me proud of being a Dane! This is the third zombie movie that I have seen, but the previous two were low budget movies made by amateurs, whereas "Sorgenfri" (aka "What We Become") is a movie of proper budget and with proper acting talents.

I am glad that Denmark finally made it to the zombie world map with a movie that actually is worthwhile being remembered for. And director Bo Mikkelsen really managed to secure a good position on the map with his handling of "Sorgenfri".

What starts out as a fairly slow-paced movie, actually turned out to be rather interesting and thrilling. So stick with it, even through the slow and semi-dull first third of the movie or so. It is all part of the director's plan to build up the movie. Personally I think it took the movie a bit too long to get up in gear. But once it did, it was worth the wait.

A small rural community becomes plagued by a mysterious disease, which seems to spread like a wildfire. With the military moving in and placing the town under heavy quarantine, the citizens become prisoners in their own homes. And during confinement they can only listen to the newsfeeds to get information about the disease that is ravaging their town. However, things are being kept in the dark, but things can't stay buried forever...

The story in "Sorgenfri" was a good one, once the movie picked up in pace. And it is a story-driven and character-driven movie, although spiced up with occasional action. There isn't really much gore and zombie effects, come to think of it. But director Bo Mikkelsen managed to more than make up for that with clever storytelling and presentation of the story visually.

They had some good actors on the cast list, and I must admit that I was more than surprised to see Troels Lyby in a movie such as this. But he really stepped up and surprised me with his delivery of performance in a zombie movie.

"Sorgenfri" is a movie well-worth watching if you enjoy zombie movies, and don't mind it not being a movie with a standard English audio. "Sorgenfri" was a surprise to me, and I am glad that I happened to find it and got a chance to watch it.

Hopefully there will be a sequel to it, because it does leave the audience with a sense of something more is to come.

What is wrong in 90% of zombie movies, what makes them SO bad usually? Running zombies, faster-than-eye-super-beast zombies, bad make up day zombies, CGI zombies. Here the crappy zombies simply are not the problem, though it has to be said, they're not that interesting either.

Sure, this one's got really nothing much to add to the sub-genre of zombie movies. But it manages to focus for a good deal on the characters and flesh them out discreetly far better than many other horror movies do. Enough to make them feel familiar, like people we all know.

Trying not to watch this as a zombie movie might actually help the movie. It focuses in the first half on the tension between the state and the small societies, families, and relationships. One could claim the focus is like from the opening of the Dawn of the Dead but with reversed roles - the main characters are not armed military here, they're unarmed naive civilians, and the military isn't any more sympathetic to them as it is towards the unknown viral threat. Also, like in the Dawn (...) the story line setting changes drastically after the first act, but... what could have been a commentary on how dangerous a thing a sudden power vacuum can be, the direction seem to stubbornly now... run towards the typical run of the mill modern zombie movie to please or embarrass the wide zombie sub-genre audiences. Depends completely on how you like your horror and how you watch movies. The latter half even comes with jump scares to add to the predictable remains of the plot. Which is a shame. There's also an afterwards added possibly optimistic ending that clearly contradicts an earlier scene and doesn't play well to the atmosphere.

The sound design is about as good as you can get, though there's no memorable OST. A zombie movie simply should not be released without a memorable OST, we owe that to Fabio Frizzi and Claudio SImonetti & Goblin.

Wasn't terrible, but did fail to have any sort of kick to it.

I a massive fan of the Z genre, this at best mediocre. But be honest nothing new to the genre. The story( was there even a story )? lacks build up. Some decisions that just werent logical. However it wasnt crazy bad. I reccomend watching, just dont expect a revelotionary zombie movie.

For some this might have been a bit over-hyped. And I get that with great expectations, comes great disappointment. But if you try to keep in mind, that this is a low budget production and that it doesn't re-invent the wheel, than you may be able to have a really good time watching this. Because there is tension, there is drama, there is horror, but there is also comedy to be found here.

The characters are very nicely drawn and portrayed by the actors. You still get clichés and you will see things coming. So while this far away from perfect, it can be a nice/decent night in movie to watch. Expect nothing more and you'll be entertained as well