Skjult

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.

Those looking for a typical slasher film need look elsewhere. This is a horror/thriller that takes it time to catch you off guard.

Kai (Kristoffer Joner) inherits a house after his mother's death. It is pretty decrepit. Perfect for a horror film. In it he finds a lot more than he bargained for. Me? I would have been outta there in 5 minutes! KK (Joner) is dealing with memories and replays from a past that holds secrets. Secrets about the abuse he suffered as a child, and secrets about things he did.

It takes place not only in the house, but also in the woods, which really adds atmosphere.

It is nice to see horror films that pace themselves and use startling effects and heavy atmosphere to thrill you instead of over-the-top Hollywood effects. Horror is becoming the domain of the Europeans, while Hollywood engages in torture porn.

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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I expected to like this movie since I liked the movie "Villmark" by the same director, but sadly no. The main actor, the filming, the music and sound was good, but: The script was a mess, with people behaving and speaking illogicaly (not just horror-movie-illogicaly like "let's-go-into-the-dark-woods-to-look-for-our-missing-friends-despite-the-serial-killer-illogical), but unnatural in the contexts of the scene the characters are in the movie. The main character does things several times during the movie that in the real world would have gotten him arrested, but he is never arrested, his action seems at times to have no reason since they are rarely explained in the movie making the viewer have to guess time after time, the clues about what have happened and what is happening jumps back and forth between mystery/horror/occult/crime making the movie more confusing and messy than scary/thrilling. And people in this movie are EXTREMELY good at finding Kai Koss, even in the middle of the dark woods, while they at the same time seem to be unable to find the tip of their own nosees during daylight...

The movie begins pretty strong and has a strong visual sense throughout. Problem is, that the plot cannot hold the movie together as tight as it thinks it can (or should for that matter). The actors are good in a thriller of this kind. Still struggling to find the fine line of portraying their dilemmas is not really something that will work for most people.

Apart from that, if you have seen a few movies you won't be really surprised where the movie is heading. And other movies have gone that way better before. Still a decent effort if not a really good movie, at least with a nice scenery and cinematography in general