THE DAMNED (2024)

Studio:   Vertical
Director: Thordur Palsson
Writer:   Jamie Hannigan
Producer: Emilie Jouffroy, Kamilla Kristiane Hodol, John Keville, Conor Barry, Tim Headington, Theresa Steele Page, Nate Kamiya
Stars:    Odessa Young, Joe Cole, Turlough Convery, Lewis Gribben, Francis Magee, Michael Og Lane, Rory McCann, Siobhan Finneran

Review Score:

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Summary:

Strange visions of an undead figure haunt a 19th-century Icelandic fishing outpost after a devastating shipwreck.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

At a 19th-century Icelandic fishing station experiencing an exceptionally harsh winter, widow Eva Magnusson struggles to subsist off dwindling resources alongside superstitious Helga, helmsman Ragnar, Ragnar’s adult son Jonas, and fishermen Hakon, Skuli, Aron, and Daniel, the latter of whom shares a mutual romantic interest in Eva. While preparing for a fishing expedition, everyone sees a ship sink on the same distant rocks where Eva’s husband Magnus died. An argument ensues over whether to help the endangered sailors, with Ragnar contending they cannot risk their lives or supplies. Because the fishing boat belongs to her through her husband, Eva makes the final decision to side with Ragnar, leaving the sailors to their fate.

The next day, a barrel full of much-needed food washes ashore. Believing there might be more to find, Eva and the men mount a nighttime excursion to the shipwreck, but become overwhelmed by desperate survivors attempting to board their boat. Ragnar dies in the resulting commotion. Daniel uses an ax to kill one of the foreign fishermen. The other sailors are left to drown as everyone flees back to the outpost.

In the morning, dead sailors wash ashore. Daniel unexpectedly finds live eels inside the belly of the man he killed. The fishermen put the corpses in coffins, although Helga warns they could come back as undead creatures called draugur.

Eva and the others begin having recurring visions of a shadowy figure stalking them. Helga, who carves wards against the evil, tells Eva the draugur is known to remain hidden during the day, but it will try to get inside their minds at night. Helga further predicts the draugur will soon turn everyone against each other, and advises it can only be killed with fire.

The men catch an unusually large haul of fish. However, the fish inexplicably disappear the following day. Helga goes missing, too. Finding one of the coffins strangely empty, Eva has Hakon and Skuli dress the other dead bodies according to Helga’s tales to prevent them from transforming into draugur.

Hakon violently attacks Daniel during an intense hallucination. Aron kills Hakon with a hammer to save Daniel’s life.

Eva tells Daniel she believes the draugur is real and insists they must get rid of it. Daniel admits he has also been suffering from disturbing visions ever since he killed the shipwrecked sailor with his ax.

Blaming Eva for bringing evil upon them, Jonas refuses to fish. The other men fish anyway, but Daniel suffers a grave injury after being frightened by a shadowy shape. Daniel later attacks Jonas before using a knife to slit his throat in front of Eva.

With Skuli, Aron, and Jonas losing their minds, Eva insists on hunting the draugur so they can kill it with fire. The four of them conduct a search in fog-covered mountains where Eva witnesses Skuli falling off a cliff to his death. Eva also finds Helga’s dead body frozen in the snow.

Eva returns to the main cabin where she confronts a dark figure she thinks is the draugur. Eva shoots the apparent creature, sets fire to the cabin, and escapes outside to tell Aron and Jonas she believes their ordeal is finally over.

While watching the building burn, Eva remembers what really happened. A flashback shows the draugur was actually a shipwreck survivor. Speaking in a language she didn’t understand, the sailor tried explaining he stole the outpost’s food because he was angry about what happened to his crew, which included his brother. He then begged to use Eva’s boat but, believing him to be a creature, Eva killed the marooned man.

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Review:

From the time it appeared at a few festivals in 2024 to the time it arrived on home video in 2025, “The Damned” teetered precariously on the tip of a personal steeple where one side said, “This sounds like too much of a plodding period piece for my tastes,” and the other side optimistically countered, “Maybe I should give it a try anyway.” The film eventually slid down that second slope, although my middling experience with the movie makes me think I wouldn’t have been wrong if it wobbled the other way instead.

The distributor’s summary for the internationally funded film reads like this: “’The Damned’ follows a 19th-century widow who is tasked with making an impossible choice when a ship sinks off the coast of her isolated fishing outpost during the middle of an especially cruel winter. With provisions running low, Eva and her close-knit community must choose between rescuing the shipwrecked crew and prioritizing their own survival. Facing the consequences of their decision and tormented by guilt, the inhabitants wrestle with a mounting sense of dread and begin to believe they are all being punished for their choices.”

When a synopsis talks in terms like “19th-century Icelandic fishing village” and a “close-knit community” wracked with guilt while being “punished for their choices,” you get the initial impression of literary Oscar-bait geared for grandma’s afternoon at an arthouse. Stack that with accompanying art where a babushka-wearing woman walks through crosses on a snow-covered slant, and you’re further inclined to think you’re in for a stuffy snoozer, not a high-octane thriller. Nothing about “The Damned” outwardly indicates “horror,” whether its subtype be supernatural, psychological, or other.

But I kept coming across user reviews on IMDb and elsewhere that were generally pretty positive, and they didn’t sound scripted by the usual PR plants or easy-to-please people who praise everything with excessive hyperbole. While they were clear to correctly caution that “The Damned” was patiently paced as a mood-driven drama, it looked like level-headed moviegoers were giving the film fair scores just above average, so I decided to swim in its icy Arctic waters for myself.

I was also in the same boat as others who received an additional nudge from Rory McCann of “Game of Thrones” being in the cast, but the movie makes quick work of him since he’s the first fisherman killed. Normally, I’d label that as a spoiler, and I suppose it still is, although his death occurs only 20 minutes into the runtime.

You know you’re melting in the thick wick of a slow burn when a film’s opening sequence features two minutes of a woman, Eva, trudging across a blustery snowscape while her narration explains how devastating hunger has her village eating bait instead of fishing with it. The next scene then follows those villagers as they commiserate with conversation in front of a flickering fire for six minutes more.

Even with all this dread-dipped dreariness ready to close weary eyelids, “The Damned” surprisingly held my action-starved attention. It’s remarkable how much smoke a soft smolder can plume from simple cinematography and committed acting, even when the narrative enmeshed with those things doesn’t flow fast. Production design and staging don’t do anything more than necessary. There’s one main cabin, one mountain, and one sinking ship digitized in the distance. Yet the atmosphere emanating from the suggestion of a sinister presence stalking this scenery conjures chilly atmosphere to keep “The Damned” engaging on a cerebral level the setup doesn’t require to be consistently visceral.

But something else many of those aforementioned reviews had in common was a complaint about the ending. Charitable words said it “falls short.” Harsher words bluntly called it “bad.” I share the underlying sentiment, and I think the underwhelming conclusion hurts the movie even more than others have mentioned.

While what happens makes sense for the story, “The Damned” concludes on an unsatisfying explanation that retroactively reduces the entire experience to a big buildup for one minor moment. Because it’s structured as minimalist fiction, “The Damned” already doesn’t have a full tank of gas for its short journey. To putter into a rolling stop instills a feeling that this folklore fable is ultimately too small to be memorable, and that’s an unfortunate takeaway for an effectively eerie endeavor that started with such strong effort.

Review Score: 55

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