User reviews

Leo (Leonora), her daughter Alice, and her husband Jacob are struggling to survive in a postapocalyptic city, when a man peddling a dream too good to be true cons Leo into buying tickets to a theater performance and a hot meal at a luxury hotel. As a former actress, Leo is drawn to the promise of nourishment for her daughter's body and soul, and Jacob reluctantly plays along.

Alice with her big eyes, silky curls and red dress is the epitome of innocence, and Leo admits to a foolish hope for something better for her and for the family - what other choice does she have?

As the dinner theater begins, the emcee warns the guests that whatever they see is an act - and only the golden masks the guests are given will distinguish them from the cast members, who are strewn about the hotel. A couple of lovers stage a dramatic quarrel and lead the audience through the stairs and hallways to the many rooms where the story plays out with a few quick glimpses of sex and violence.

An intriguing start to the plot quickly fizzles with little to no suspense or character development. There is some air of mystery as characters disappear, but it's a crowd disappearing, not people we know, so it's less like a game of cat and mouse and more like turning on the lights in the bathroom and watching cockroaches flee into the walls.

If you're hoping for some good blood and gore, there are a few moments of blades splitting veins, but unfortunately the attempt at getting the viewer to second guess whether it is real or all part of the act leads to special effects so pedestrian that you may ask "does it really matter?"

The film misses the opportunity to leverage the family dynamics of the film - Will their love for each other be strong enough to help them survive?! - by splitting up family members too early, and providing the wrong choices at the wrong times to really give us any empathy or feel torn by their circumstances.

If you somehow hadn't figured out what the real purpose of the dinner theater is, the movie wastes no time in confirming your suspicions, but does throw in a little bit of backstory to explain the motivation of the villain. But like most elements in the film, it's shoved in as if it was the first idea to pop into the writer's head and is given no space to grow. You'll probably nod and say to yourself "oh."

A few tiny glimpses of foreshadowing make their way to the end of the movie - notably Leo's acting background and a moment of comfort she provided to her daughter to ward off scary monsters in the beginning - but it almost seems like an afterthought rather than a critical part of the story, leading more to frustration at how a bit more effort in writing the script would have led to a much more satisfying conclusion.

Perhaps in another ten or twenty years someone will produce a remake that knocks this movie's socks off. I hope they do. Sadly, for a plot and setting that had so many easy opportunities at success, the execution of this drops the ball in almost every way.

Acting, cinematography, effects and everything else was pretty good. What absolutely slaughtered this movie was the writing. This movie is so full of plot holes, obviously bad decisions by characters, badly scripted characters and a terribly predictable plot.

As a fan of post apocalyptic stories this should have been a solid film for me, but when taking in to consideration the overall lackluster delivery i am rather disappointed.

A common problem with Norwegian films in my experience and a quite obvious issue with Cadaver, is that the acting was at best average. Apart from Thorbjørn Harr's portrayal of Mathias and Stig Frode Henriksen as Hans the robotically delivered dialogue from the actors gave the impression that they were merely reading the script in stead of actually performing.

The story itself is rather solid, but if you have any experience with post apocalyptic films, then you don't have to get far before figuring out what "the big secret" is. So i wouldn't recommend going in with an expectation of being surprised by any plottwists.

Not bad Don't wait to see a horror masterpiece... Such is so hard to find in our days It has an easy going plot, some surprising moment, without making any difference to the over production of only by the name calling horror movies

Cadaver: The aftermath of a nuclear disaster in Norway, likely war. Things are bleak food is short, the city looks bombed out, there's a const gloomy fog/mist. A strange man arrives offering people food and entertainment in a local hotel. People are fed and an interactive theatre ensues. That's when reality becomes difficult to separate from the performance. People start to disappear, strange things happen. Some really horrific scenes as what is really going on becomes all too obvious. Not a totally original story but the execution gives it a fresh flavour. Some heavy handed allegories though and the running time could have been pruned. Once again a horror film which might have worked better as an episode of The Twilight Zone. Written and Directed by Jarand Herdal in his feature debut. On Netflix. 6/10.

Cadaver followers a family attending a show at a hotel in a post-apocalyptic world. There is no stage for performances but instead, each actor creates interesting stories enticing audiences to follow them around the hotel. Things change as people begin to go missing and the family find themselves in a horrifying situation in which they must escape. The premise of this movie is really creative and cool but the movie doesn't anything better than alright throughout. As more of the mystery of the theatre is uncovered by the protagonist, the story becomes a whole lot more intriguing with further creative aspects pushing the story beyond the extent it seemed to have to stop the movie from being really great. A very suspenseful horror film with a great story behind it.

Much as the central antagonist poses questions to his unhappy assembly during the first act, Cadaver asks us, the audience, what it means to be human. What would we really be prepared to do to survive? And would those actions take away some or all of our humanity?

Cadaver plays out the ramifications of these questions through its central premise - in post-apocalyptic Norway a starving family are invited to a mansion that remains oddly untroubled by poverty, where they will be fed and entertained by an unusual theatrical performance. The mansion is queasily reminiscent of such sinister spaces as the Overlook Hotel (The Shining) and the Black Lodge (Twin Peaks), a Grand Guignol nightmare of red walls and masked figures, a trap into which our family wanders through sheer desperation.

The scenario plays on fears familiar to all of us in 2020 - do we really want to know what's going on in the world? How the desperate and powerless sustain the comfortable lifestyles of others, whether through direct personal exploitation or by economic means?. In Cadaver, this exploitation is brought to its logical conclusion and invites us to make a judgement about how far we would go to ensure our own survival, and then asks us to consider if we would go even further for something beyond mere survival.

Cadaver is an intelligent film (ably directed and performed too, and it looks gorgeous) that deserves an appreciative audience. But are you the audience or a participant?

It's a nice timepass, but dont' expect too much. Everything is pretty much predictable. There are a few nice twists and I don't regret watching it, but I expected more. The characters are not very likable and at times even annoying. But I did like the post-apocalyptic scenery and the settings. Overall the plot and the idea behind it was not that bad. Just too predictable.

The hotel and depiction of the post apocalyptic world drips with great production values, but it stumbles with its story telling.

Despite it's short run, the movie drags quite a lot in the first half and ends in an anticlimactic way.

What a boring and predictable movie. The main characters are absolute idiots. And beyond the terrible scenario, the actors are just quite bad.

Skip this disaster of a movie.

I think this movie is one you will love or not. This isn't a slasher screaming teen movie - it takes watching and some ability to think a little.

The unusual story lends itself to the moody atmosphere of the production, with characters - excellently portrayed by the actors - that really suck you in to their world.

Well worth seeing.

Im sad beeing Norwegian watching this shait. Dont Waste your time ! Acting is cringeworthy, plot is just predictable and boring.

Horror movies about society ... you gotta love them. This is quite predictable and not just because of the title. Though as often is the case it isn't for the people involved. They seem oblivios to certain things happening around then ... maybe because they are too busy having fun (in different ways).

Visually speaking this really is well done - no pun intended. Story is as I already stated not as tension filled as it could be. Not the best Netflix production then, but I've seen worse too.

Kept me on my toes, not overly predictable. Very watchable

Terrible, just Terrible dialogue. The consept is interesting, but you find yourself wanting to bash your head through the wall in pure frustration over the stupidity.

Sometime after a nuclear disaster there is widespread famine and Leonora, Jacob and their daughter Alice are just about surviving. One day Alice hears a man outside advertising a theatrical production at a large hotel... as well as a play a meal is promised. Jacob cautions against going but Leo prevails and they attend. After eating the production begins; hotel owner Mathias explains that there is no stage; the production will take place throughout the hotel with the audience following various actors. To tell who is an actor and who is a member of the audience the latter are given masks to wear. Shortly afterwards Leo and Jacob lose sight of Alice and panic as they can't find her. They start to wonder what they have let themselves into; is it just a macabre production where, as Mathias said, nothing is real or is something very sinister going on around them?

Horror is a highly subjective genre; what scares one person won't scare another and what for one person is great tension building is just boring for somebody else. This really worked for me; the hotel provided a great atmosphere and for quite a while I was unsure whether anything really bad would happen or if Mathias was being honest when he said that nothing was real. The film does play with genre clichés; secret passages accessed via hidden buttons and even characters looking through holes in paintings where the eyes should be... I don't think I've seen that one since I watched 'Scooby Doo' in the 1970s! Sometimes the characters' behaviour is a little unrealistic but that can be justified by plot demands. The cast does a fine job and the film is shot in a way that looks really impressive. Overall I'd recommend this to horror fans who don't need a creatively gory death every few minutes... not that there is anything wrong with that!

These comments are based on watching the film in Norwegian with English subtitles.

Kadaver is a unusual post-apocalyptic horror thriller. I didnt see many campareble movies. I liked the idea of it and gave it a try, although the critics are not very positive. What i saw was a good and very atmospheric build up to a not very surprising and disappointing ending. To the end it gets a bit predictible and the ending itself coult have been much better as it was. But i didnt regret watching it. It was a good movie to watch for a saturday night. Dont expect to much and give it a try. If you like mystery horror movies you could like it. Nothing thats in your mind for a long time but okay for a movie night in wich you dont know how to watch.

Thriller movie from Norway. The film from the beginning creates the atmosphere of poverty, hopelessness, misery, desperation, "gray" that prevails and like a ray of light comes a theater in the area. A poor family hoping to give their child some joy decides to go to the play. But what really happens? Is there really a theatrical performance? How far can someone go to survive and what will one choose in the end when they know the truth? A special film that while it prepares the viewer for what will follow, a remarkable effort has been made, a very good job as a whole in interpretation, direction, scenery etc., and it is an overall interesting recommendation.