Draug

The set design and the locations are very good but the acting and the story is absolutely terrible. It's rare I dont finish the film and i had only 10 mins left

I'll admit that I'm not sharpest knife in the cutlery draw but, then again, I'm not exactly stupid either. That being said, I was lost when the end to this film eventually came into view. I think it was the last 20-30 minutes where I started to realise that I had very little idea of what exactly was going on. I'm still wondering now.

The locations are suitably bleak and moody and the acting was good. The film was a mystery tour, I enjoyed the journey, but I have no idea where it was we ended up.

It is the story of an area in 11th century Sweden which had been converted to christianity and where some local folks had been too hard on some of the pagan remnants. When a missionary disappears in this forested area, a village deputy gets a "posse" together to go onto the forest to retrieve him and his companions. The searchers are attacked by bandits at the edge of the forest and then, as they get further in, they are attacked by something else. These are the Draug.

As a historical movie it is very accurate; nothing anachronistic to distract in the dialogue, costuming, or sets. The acting was very good and the scenery was exceptional. Both used to advantage in telling a spooky story based on Norse mythical creatures. We loved it

The historical authenticity they gave this film was great and lent a hand in shaping the horror. The actors were well chosen and I enjoyed their characters. The special effects were not AAA but it got the point across and was done in such a way you would have to really scrutinize scenes to notice. So watch this film and enjoy a good time period horror movie.

Draug has a very small budget, probably even a microbudget, and it shows. Most of the critical reviews I've read of this movie on here really just read like people couldn't quite get over the fact that this movie didn't really have the budget to be doing a whole lot differently than it did. Really, if Draug had a hundred times the budget and had the special effects to match, some of these people would probably be head over heels about this movie.

If you get over the budget, this movie is fine. The pacing is good, the atmosphere is dark and brooding, and the colour palette fits the tone. The special effects are about as good as you're really ever going to get with a movie on a total shoelace budget like this. Overall, this is a very creepy movie and I think it's a good example of how to do a horror movie on a microbudget.

None of this is to say that this is a perfect movie. There are times when the pacing isn't quite perfect. Like, most of the comic relief moments are very heavily weighted towards the start of the movie, while I think it would have been better to have them spread out across the entire thing.

But is it terrible? God no. It does the horror elements very well, and that's basically what you want from a movie like this.