Amateur Hour: Just Killers (1999)

I'm sitting and watching a German splatter movie and somehow I came to think about the time when I wanted to be a filmmaker, during those years it was so simple to just get a bunch of friends together and make something, just have fun.

This short movie, Just Killers (a mix between Woo's Just Heroes and The Killer) is more or less 14-15 years old by now, "times flies", as some people say. I think it was mostly me and Leo (the small blonde guy being chased most of the time) who came up with this very primitive John Woo-tribute. We shot it at the office where I worked at the time for, I think, two evenings.

I had a pretty clear idea what I wanted to do and therefore we could shoot it very fast. It's amateurish and silly, but it has a few shots here and there that's quite stylish. The first version had stolen music but later on Markus Höglund wrote new stuff so we had a completely original movie. I have some memories of going back maybe a year later to shoot some extra inserts, just to make it flow a little bit better.

There's some hilarious examples of acting here also, so don't expect Oscars-material ;)



And here's some bloopers and stuff that I found today and decided to upload. Oh, those were the embarrassing days...

Cellofan - med døden til følge (1998)

Cellofan is a curious little thriller with a sad destiny, it more or less got lost and has rarely been since since 1998. Made as a co-production between Norway and Sweden and was, I guess after the traditional cinema release, sold to a distributor for a lot of money. That distributor then more or less ignored the film and it's hardly distributed since then - except in Hong Kong, where a now very rare DVD was released and that's about it. Well, I'm one of those that bought the DVD from DDDhouse (it's marked as OOP there now) and today I decided to watch it again after a couple of years. Because there was something peculiar about it, and it wasn't until now I realized what it was. Just take a look at this:

A journalist goes to a small town to investigate a mysterious disappearance that happened a long time ago. The disappearance of a young woman. The reason why this is brought up to the daylight again - much to the annoyance of the people in the small town, who just wants to forget - is that an old, respected man, reveals that someone has sent him a letter, once every month for 20 years, reminding him of the disappearance/murder. Soon the journalist is in danger and people is dying around her...

Yeah, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but in 1998 and in Norway. Now I know why I didn't think the set-up felt so fresh in the Swedish thriller mentioned above, there was something bothering me - something I've seen before. Okay, I'm being a bit manipulating here. That's just the main set-up, what we have here is a female journalist who on her fathers deathbed hears about the letters. She goes to Skogmark, the little town, pretending to write an article about the Christian home for drug abusers, but instead - in secret - starts to investigate in the murder, trying to save her fathers ass - he's the one accused for the murder in all the letters - and at the same time write a good story. So there's no data hacker  Goth chick, no prison awaiting the journalist, no bizarre twist ending - just a good old murder mystery and it's not that bad actually.

Sure, the script could have used a couple of rewrites to remove the worst plot holes, but the atmosphere (also very similar to Dragon Tattoo) is nice and there's some very good acting, especially from the always reliable Sverre Anker Ousdal (father to the equally brilliant Mads Ousdal, more famous as the lead in Norwegian Ninja). There's also an interesting attempt to referencing Psycho at one or two occasions, but that part of the story (and a few others...) is just left without much explanation. What's fun is that the killer, who suffocates his victims with a piece of cellophane, also wear black gloves and a black coat (and probably a black hat if they choose to filmed the head), which feels a lot like something directly out of a Giallo. There's more similar things reminding me of that, including the character who wants to tell something VERY important, but not now - later, when its dark and the killer have time to get rid of him before our heroine gets there in time.

Maybe it was slightly before its time. Maybe, if it was made now and with the same love and obsession for Scandinavians thrillers and mysteries, it could have been something bigger and better. It's not bad now, but this is a great movie to remake, to polish a bit, to make a bit more spectacular, throw in some more red herrings, maybe a little bit of gore, and it would be a hit. I'm pretty sure I'm correct. 

Bad Faith (2010)

As a Swedish loser I'm kinda interested in the few genre films made in Sweden and I'm trying to watch everything, even if it's worthless. The last few years have seen a few films from Sweden that deals with death, murder, supernatural and horror - from excellent productions like Psalm 21 to mediocre failures like Marianne. What makes Psalm 21 strong is that it dares to be a horror movie, while Marianne never goes that far and delivers more or less nothing worth watching - not to mention that lame ending. Bad Faith (original title Ond Tro) kinda falls in the middle of these two.

Sonja Richter is Mona, a Danish woman who just moved to an anonymous Swedish town to start a new job. One evening she's invited out for after work but decides to take a walk first - and finds a stabbed man, bleeding to death in a dark alley. She leaves him and goes back to the after work, in shock. He's the latest victim of the Bayonet Killer - the fifth in just a couple of months. She stays home from work and soon she can't stop thinking of the murdered and it all becomes even more clear when she sees a man she thinks is the killer. The obsession takes over and she starts to investigate herself, getting closer to the killer - or is the killer getting closer to her?

Like my pal Cinezilla writes, there's a lot of giallo-vibes over the story and the haunting cinematography by Hoyte Van Hoytema surely invokes the seventies with those wide, almost voyeuristic shots - like someone is watching the characters from a distance all the time, trying to figure out what's going on. Something that's more worrying is that director Kristian Petri never seem to care for the thriller/horror aspect of the story, it almost feels like he thinks genre cinema is a bit to cheap for him (which becomes even more clearer when he's announced he's not terrible interested in zombies and his next movie is a movie about the living dead - I demand love for what you're doing).

Now, make no mistake, it's a well-told story with VERY uneven acting. Jonas Karlsson, one of the biggest stars in Sweden is almost unbelievably bad while Norwegian actor Kristoffer Joner gives a very fine performance. Leading actress Sonja Richter gives is both the worst and the best of her talent, which is a pity. Really. Ah, with bad acting I mean just very much "theater", an unability to say the lines natural. They sound weird, with words (and the order of words) like no one uses - and it's meant to sound realistic.

What I really like about Bad Faith is the almost mystical, odd feeling. It's something in the air, an electric atmosphere (much like another movie starring Kristoffer Joner, the good but still disappointing Next Door from 2005) , something is wrong. From the reactions of more or less every single character to the story itself. I was first very, VERY afraid this would be another of those twists where... well, I'm not gonna tell you, but they actually tries to put a red herring and there to that direction and that was my biggest. Thank heavens it didn't happen, and instead we got another ending that I liked - even if I felt that too many questions was unanswered in the end.

The Scandinavian DVD has English subs, so I think you should give it a try. But prepare it's a bit too pretentious for its own good. 

Häxan (1922)

There's a sadness coming over me when I watch Benjamin Christensen's Häxan (aka Witchcraft Through the Ages), a sadness that a movie that wants to celebrate enlightenment and fight superstition and stupidity still is more relevant than ever. Now, in 2012, stupidity is on the same level as when poor women got burned alive for being witches, we're just not burning people on the same scale anymore. Our, the "modern" society have other methods to take care of minorities.

What is Häxan? Häxan is a documentary-drama that goes from the dark ages up to our time, which here means the early twenties. Christensen first examine old art, mostly engravings, who tells the story about those who was accused for dealing with the devil, being witches and the perverted idiots accusing them. In the end our hero, the director, makes direct comparisons with today and what might have caused people to think that innocent women was possessed by the devil. That's it and it's friggin' brilliant.

Häxan is such a strong movie in every possible way, from the graphic visuals - everything from babies being sacrificed, lots of different demons and devils, witches and wonderful, dark (everything was shot in darkness, with no sunlight at all - except the obvious scene with the airplane of course) cinematography. This is gothic horror: churches and cathedrals, shadows and fire. It has both a decadent and amusingly twisted atmosphere, not necessary negative in the portrayal of the occult, almost an admiringly view at the outsiders. At first Christensen seems to tell us how fantastic the twenties is, but then tells us how it actually differs very little from what we've just seen. There's always witches, no matter society or culture. What matters now is how much money they have.

Häxan is both - I would like to say atheistic, but it's not - a deeply critical deconstruction of the church and the clergy who used it power to control and destroy those opposing their view, but the movie stands firmly behind the poor people, those who can't defend themselves with money or fancy relatives. Sure, there's some stuff that feels less impressive, like the description of hysterical women with nervous problems - but I'm pretty sure Christensen would accept today's view on the matter. He just lived in a society where this was the latest, the best and the freshest take on the complexity of the human mind.

If Häxan had been made not it would have been even scarier. Today we have religious nuts running for president in the US, we have religions killing millions of peoples in war, there's an increasing level of racism and homophobia and science is treated like shit. Häxan is a worrying example of how times hasn't changed at all, except being a twisted and nasty horror movie.

This is obviously one of the best movies ever made and it's still a movie that shocks and disturbs the viewer, not only because of it's graphic nature and mocking of religions, but also because it's closer to our time than we ever thought.a 

I'm standing alone in the Easy Action zone!

Yeah, or maybe more like... "Bloooood Traaaacks! I'm standing alone in the dangers zone!"

Blood Tracks has always been an important part of my life and collection. I started out with the cut Swedish VHS, then moved on to a slightly longer Aussie tape, after that got fucked by the terrible and very censored French DVD and then finally came to heaven with the German DVD, under the name Shocking Heavy Metal.

Here you can see how damn cool it is! :D

Now the circle has closed, after so many years! Today I filmed (ok, just b-camera) an interview with two of the members of Easy Action, Bo Stagman (aka Zinny Zan) and Peo Thyrén conducted by journalist Stefan Malmqvist and produced by Stefan Nylén, former Klubb Super 8 co-worker and now at Studio S.

Blood Tracks is finally getting a FAT special edition, 2 disc with tons of interesting bonus stuff. I can't say that much yet, but it will be first and last release of Blood Tracks you need to own. It's that good. I don't know about English subs, but the movie itself and some other stuff will be enough even for you that don't understand Swedish.

Here's my review of the uncut DVD from Germany, a release that will be totally owned by the upcoming Swedish release from Studio S!

Operation Paratrooper (1988)

Here we have a forgotten Swedish oddity, or more exactly a co-production between Sweden, Yugoslavia and the US: Operation Paratrooper, now released by Studio S in Sweden under the title Fallskärmsjägaren. Starring none other than Andy Warhols old darling Joe Dallesandro! It's based on a story by extremely boring Swedish author Jan Guillou, but feels more like a mix of an Italian war movie mixed with an American slasher, with a dash of Swedish TV-production. This is the first time I've seen this movie in good quality, this is the best it looked in many years - but is it any good?

Joe Dallesandro is Sergeant Rayker, a tough motherfucker and an vietnam war veteran. He's deeply disturbed and treats his soldiers like animals, risking their lives with real ammunition and hand grenades. One day he goes to far and is fired and prosecuted for his stupidity. At the same time a general and his buddies are going up to a cabin to drink beer, do some illegal weapon affairs and just being macho - but Rayker is out for revenge and uses all his knowledge to kill them one by one, and the only man who can stop him is his own soldier who wants his own revenge...

How to explain Operation Paratrooper? For me it's one of those European genre movies that decided to me more serious and less trashy to be able to compete with the American movies of the same kind. This can of course be both good and bad. The Yugoslavian location automatically gives the movie a grey and quite boring look, closer to what we call social-realism (which is of course a lot more than locations, but I think you get my point). What takes out from the seriousness of the movie is the stupid dialogue and the over-acting from some of the talents involved. The best one is Joe Dallesandro, who here makes one of his most even and interesting performances I've seen, and its extra fun seeing him playing such a stuck-up, angry military when I've only seem him in more radikal and sexually liberal parts. Martin Hewitt, who plays Cooper, Rayker's old "student" also makes the best out of a badly written character.

Thank heavens Operation Paratrooper stick to it's exploitative roots and gives us an odd mix of First Blood, a random slasher and any war movie made during the eighties. It's is gory, but most of it is kept off screen and not show until the bloody aftermath, but director Frank De Palma keeps up the action with explosions and stunts and some nicely framed shots during the bulk of the movie. The ending feels a bit rushed and is hardly original, but works because the movie belongs to a certain degree of silliness.

Yugoslavian producer Djordje Zecevic (often credited under the name George Zecevic) also produced Mats Helge's ultra-cheesy rock-slasher Blood Tracks and I guess this means that Studio S was one of the last he made business with, because they're also releasing his Montenegro, a drama/comedy from 1981 starring Erland Josephson. I know it took for ever to close this deal, so I guess it was just a case of good luck that Mr Zecevic died in January 2012, after the deal was done after several years of communications through fax!

Operation Paratrooper/Fallskärmsjägaren is an entertaining and violent action-driven slasher-esque war thriller. And if that won't sell you this movie you probably should go back watching Arn: The Knight Templar or any other mediocre Jan Guillou adaptation!

Once Upon a Time in Sweden: Skräcken Har 1000 Ögon (1970)

I guess Torgny Wickman's Skräcken har 1000 ögon (The Fear Has 2000 Eyes) still is one of Swedens most talked-about horror movies, or "erotic horror" as some would say. It's still one of the most bashed horror movies made here, which today seem a bit weird - because it's actually not that bad and not better or worse than some of the more trashier Italian and Spanish counterparts. Just a little bit more snowy and stiff. Shot on location in the north of Sweden and at the Europa Studio in Sundbyberg, outside Stockholm, this is one of the more interesting genre productions made up in the cold north...

The priest Sven (Hans Wahlgren) and his wife Anna (Anita Sanders) comes home after being away for a while. Anna had psychiatric problems, probably connected to her pregnancy, and now it's time to start all over again. But something has changed at home.... something sinister and dark. Their maid Hedvig (Solveig Andersson) has started to dabble with black magic and she starts causing trouble with her spells. Soon people around them is starting to die and Anna isn't sure if she's going crazy again or if there's something otherworldly terrorizing them...

While the story is very thin the atmosphere is thick and juicy, with lots of mumbo jumbo, nudity and stiff acting from a nice cast of stiff actors. Stiffest of them all is Hans Wahlgren, but I've always liked him. He's not that colourful, but his good looks and dandy-like style is enough for be to adore him. Solveig Andersson has never been much of an actress and can't handle the simplest line, but she looks good and has a dangerous aura that works better than I thought it would. Anita Sanders is the of the main actors, which isn't surprising considering her earlier works together with Pupi Avati, Tinto Brass, Bruno Corbucci and Federico Fellini. She also, in 1976, worked as assistant director on Fellini's Casanova and starred in Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Canterbury Tales.

I find it extra fun to see character actor Bertil Norström playing the happy and corpulent Vilgot, who dies after being affected by a piece of genuine Voodoo bread! Bertil is a great actor and in 1970 he starred in this one and Roy Andersson's masterpiece A Love Story - one of the best movies EVER made in Sweden. Talk about a variety of acting parts!

As a horror movie this isn't scary at all - and the nudity and sex doesn't make it especially erotic either, but its strength is the atmosphere. The tension, the very weird details (like the three-legged baby dress, the voodoo bread and the Hedvig's tries to scary everyone with a glowing, white hand!) gives Skräcken Har 1000 Ögon a very interesting and successful feeling of madness and loneliness. The small hints from one of the characters that Christianity isn't much different from the occult seem like a personal message from the filmmakers. What few know is that this is partly based on real events, set in the real house where the movie was shot - a real home of a priest!

Really?

Yes. In 1922 two witnesses saw a white, glowing hand floating in the air above one of the nearby graves. A couple of days later the priest himself, Beskow, saw the hand floating inside the house pointing at a closet! The priest and his wife, including guest, experienced a lot of hauntings - including one time when their dog walked backwards out from the house and the door closed violent after him! The legend of the haunted rectory continued over the years and had it's zenith in 1927.

Skräcken Har 1000 Ögon is released by Klubb Super 8 in Sweden, not English subs. The DVD includes an interview with Hans Wahlgren and the producer Inge Ivarsson plus fifteen minutes of deleted scenes. 

Once Upon a Time in Sweden: The Forgotten Wells (1994)

I promised myself not to write about bad Swedish movies during this week, but the other day I found myself watching Mats Helge Olsson's The Forgotten Wells (aka Jagad i Underjorden aka Grottmorden), the last gasp of the not so spectacular Swedish empire of low budget genre movies Mats Helge created when he needed money after a very, very, very big flop called Sverige åt Svenskarna (but that's a totally different story). During the end of his career he got involved with muscle-boy Anders Hellquist (here credited as A.R. Hellquist), who in a couple of "action classics" starred as the shirt-ripping hero. It was also during that time that Olsson's pupil, Anders Nilsson, started to direct more and more and this movie is credited to them both.

Hellquist is Pete Savage, an adventurous journalist sent out by his boss (played by Frederick Offrein) to investigate a system of forgotten... wells! Yeah, that's true! Many years ago a boy is said to have disappeared in the underground system and Pete and his team is set out to find him! But what the hell, at the same time - from a nearby mental hospital - a crazy serial killer escapes and hides out in the wells! Bad luck for our heroes! And even worse, the brother of the killer - a very rich man named Tanner (Taggen Axelsson) - sends out his henchmen to kill every witness to his brother's bloody mayhem!

No, this is not a good movie. Actually, it's very far from a good movie. I guess it's suppose to be a horror/slasher (which I always forget), but the tension is nada and the "actors" mostly seem interested in beat each other in different not so creative ways. It's very dark and hard to see what's happening which is a brutal contrast to the scenes in the beginning that looks like they're from an extra cheap porn movie. The strongest part of the movie is the editing. Confusing, yes - but during the sloppy fight scenes it's actually quite good and works fine - but that's always been a fact in the work of Mats Helge: action is interesting for the filmmakers, the rest is just to fill out between the crappy fights.

I might seem harsh on the movie - and yes, that's what I am. But as a collector of Mats Helge movies and odd genre flicks from Sweden it's necessary to watch everything I find. For several years I had contact with Mats Helge, but stopped answered the phone after he started to rave about how the homosexuals and the Jews controlled media and destroyed his career - men like that are best to ignore before they take over your life. But he was friendly anyway and my interested also made me get to know some of the actors involved in his classics - and I casted three of the stars from this movie in a movie I produced morethan ten years ago. Fun times.

But back to The Forgotten Wells. Another thing I like about it is the underground locations - both real locations and built sets. Pity they're so dark it's impossible to follow the action. Sam Cook, who have a much bigger part in yesterdays Mask of Murder, also have a very small part here. Do anyone know who he was/is? Let me know, I'm curious! Another odd casting is Gareth Hunt, the British character actor (The New Avengers and the failed Bond-spoof Licensed to Love and Kill) who slums as a bad cop during most of the movie. How the hell did he end up in this micro budget Swedish crapfest?

I can't recommend The Forgotten Wells to anyone, but it's an interesting and failed attempt to make another slasher in Sweden - and every try is a welcome try.

Once Upon a Time in Sweden: Mask of Murder (1985)

Arne Mattsson's Mask of Murder have never been a movie with a good reputation in the horror community. Even the most fanatic and open-minded fans out there seems loving to bash it. I think this hangs together with the bully-system that the Swedish film community - lead by Ingmar Bergman - started against Arne Mattsson, and both colleagues and critics joined the herd and continued to bash him for the rest of his career. Why? Well, first of all - Arne was an easy target. He was a sensitive man, he didn't like to be trashed and was out-spoken in the matter. He was also a controversial man who often, through what seemed like shallow entertainment, loved to bring up subjects that few others dared to touch. Another reason was his love for crime stories. He wasn't forced into movies about murder and mayhem, he loved it and sported his own impressive collection of detective novels. This "weakness" for the commercial part of culture made him an easy target for the fancy critics and pretentious colleagues. By 1985 his career was since long more or less dead, but he continued to make movies and Mask of Murder seemed to have been a smaller hit on video shelves everywhere. I hope Arne got some of those money...

In a Canadian wintery town a serial killer is on the loose. He's has a white rubber mask with red lips painted on it. Some locals spots the suspect and calls the police. Bob McLaine (Rod Taylor),  Ray Cooper (Sam Cook) and their superior Jonathan Rich (Christopher Lee) heads out to the house where he hides, but it all ends in disaster and Jonathan gets shot and Bob executes the suspect in cold-blood. Everyone thinks the killer is dead, but some nights after someone is back with the mask - slashing the throats of young women!

It's a lot more to the story, but the less said about the twists and turns the better. Mask of Murder is a cheap movie, it looks quite rushed - and believe me, it's not shot in Canada or anywhere close to that continent. It's shot on Arne's own backyard, Uppsala and nearby areas. Uppsala was Arne's favourite town and used in many of this movies, and it's always a pleasure finding the locations he used. The script could have needed one or two extra passes, but it still works quite fine as a bleak and nasty murder mystery. Arne's favourite camera techniques is still there and makes the cheap locations looks way more nice than if a less competent director would shoot the same script. Like Hitchcock, Mattsson knew how to tell a story without unnecessary dialogue and tells a lot of the drama just by moving the camera in the right moment or the use of logical and intelligent editing (an art form that's totally forgotten nowadays...especially in bigger, mainstream movies).

Mask of Murder is also a very dark and cynical movie with a lot of nasty and bloody murders on women plus some bloody squibs. There's very few - if none - sympathetic characters to root for which might be the reason why a lot of fans have problem liking it. Personally I think that's just fantastic, because movies like that is needed. The world isn't a happy place, so why fool the audience?

The trio of lead actors, Taylor, Cook and Lee, makes excellent performances - but I find the supporting actors even more interesting. For example we have Heinz Hopf, more famous for his legendary role in They Call Her One Eye, as a slightly unstable hairdresser. In two even smaller parts we have Legendary (yes, with a big L) Hjördis Pettersson in, I think,  her last part + another veteran from the screen and stage, the brilliant Sif Ruud.

Mask of Murder is out on an okay-looking DVD from Studio S in Sweden and I guess that's the best way to go if you, as a serious movie collector, wants this movie in your collection. 

Once Upon a Time in Sweden: Besökarna (The Visitors, 1988)

Maybe I'm lacking the imagination I thought I had when it comes to find interesting Swedish genre movies to write about this week, but the fact is that there's not much movies to choose from. Besökarna (aka The Visitors) launched a short-lived Hollywood career for the Ersgård brothers (including a couple of Charles Band productions: Mandroid and Invisible: The Chronicles of Benjamin Knight) and after that a couple of fiascos in Sweden. It might sound like I don't like them, but I do - I just think they should go back to make a classic horror movie - because Besökarna, their first movie, proves that horror is what they can do best.

A new family is moving in, it's Frank (Kjell Bergqvist) and Sara (Lena Endre) and their two kids, Lotta and Peter. The house needs a renovation and Frank starts fixing it up directly while he's longing to Monday when he's gonna present an idea for an advertising campaign and get rich. But it won't take long until strange happens in the house. The wallpapers falls down over and over again and Frank starts to hear odd sounds. It won't get better when the clients hates his idea and he needs to come up with a new concept in just a couple of days. But the ghostly visions gets worse and soon he brings a psychic investigator, Allan Svensson (Johannes Brost), to the house - and then when it really goes to... HELL!

It was many years since I saw Besökarna the last time but what strikes me the most now is how terribly the actors are. I mean, this is the crappiest acting of the crappiest acting I've seen in a Swedish movie. Everything an actors gets angry he or she starts to scream and wave a round like a madman. It's ridiculous! Nowadays all the actors are beloved and even Kjell Bergqvist and Johannes Brost have become decent actors (Johannes just got a comeback after a few years out in the cold). But here, oh lord. It's unbelievable! Not sure non-Swedish speaking audiences can notice the same way as we do, but trust me.

So, that was some whining and here's some more: I need to point out the almost overly simple storyline. Good in some ways, but also lacking imagination. It feels a lot like Amityville 3 - lots of noise but nothing is shown, which a movie like this needs. The main ghost/demon looks cool, for example, but is seen for less than one single second. And no, that's not good. When you don't have so much to deliver, bring on the monster instead - but the Ersgård brothers stay away from that also.

On the other side: the second half is actually damn effective as a ghost movie. The filmmakers goes all the way (except showing the demon enough) with moving objects, violent entities trying to bash in the door, kids in danger, visuals effects and pyrotechnics - and a nice sequence when one character is stuck hanging upside-down trying to reach the button to stop the demon from breaking free from it's mirror-hell. Stuff like that, I love it so much. There's also a good and very well-edited car chase that actually is quite spectacular in it's own discreet way. Maybe the only good car chase ever filmed in Sweden.

I will try to end on a positive note. Besökarna is probably the best haunted house movie ever made in Sweden - but it might also be the ONLY haunted house movie ever made here (I'm not even counting the awful Scorched Heat from 1987). Okay, I tried. It's still entertaining and delivers a lot of visual treats during the last half. I think I can recommend it to fans of obscure Eighties horror-nonsense.

Once Upon a Time in Sweden: Stenansiktet (The Stone Face, 1973)

This Swedish oddity was produced by sleaze-maestro Inge Ivarson (Bel Ami, Justine & Juliette, Flossie, Language of Love and a ton of other sex-classics from Sweden) and directed by edgy dramedy-director Janne Halldoff, shot on location in Skärholmen, the famous concrete-suburb to Stockholm. Stenansiktet is very far from Ivarson's other movies, but the themes is as usual controversial and stuff you would never see in a movie about young teenagers in the US (for example).

Jan Blomberg is Harry, a social worker deeply involved in trying to make Stockholm and especially the suburbs a better place for humans. After his baby boy died in a freak accident on a playground - the ground being asphalted and easy for the kids to hurt themselves on - his wife gets a nervous breakdown and is committed to an asylum. Harry wants to change stuff, but the politicians won't listen to him. One day, after getting attacked by a gang of 13-15 year old boys he realizes that they can work for him, kidnapping corrupt and evil politicians so he can kill them in the safety of his own home!

An idea that originated in the sixties (in Sweden) was to build enormous areas of concrete living facilities for the workers to live in. Only live in. Work during they day and then go home, watch TV, sleep and then work again. Everything should be concrete and asphalt. This, of course, turned out to be a very bad idea. People need something else than a cube to live in. They need to live also. Gone was the nature, the parks, the playgrounds - left was a miserable state of humanity. Bored kids turned to drugs and violence and the parents sat at home brainwashed by the TV. After this huge mistake the government tried desperately to fix this, but the problems still are there - which especially during the last eight years has widen the class inequalities to alarming levels. Culture and creating is evil, work and slavery is good.

Stenansiktet (which literary means The Stone Face) is a lot about this, but also a story about the kids, growing up more and more cynical. When watching Stenansiktet it reminded me of everything from Bo Widerberg's Mannen på Taket, Kids, A Clockwork Orange and Roy Andersson's A Love Story. The location in Skärholmen makes the movie almost look futuristic, in that realistic seventies way with big concrete walls and house, underground parking lots and big empty squares.

The acting is very uneven, but Blomberg is great as Harry - both oozing of friendly goodwill and a dark undertone of being a manipulating psychopath. Interesting enough the only ones how looks through is the kids, which gives hope for the future.

I'm not sure how much Stenansiktet could attract non-Swedish viewers, but if you find a way to see it, give it a shot. It's satire, social-realism and often also quite funny. It's not out on DVD what I know, but many years ago Klubb Super 8 released it on VHS.

And how is Skärholmen and the rest of the concrete suburbs today? Nowadays its a lot better, the criminality is still there but the people are fighting for making it a better places, the squares are filled with vendors who sells fruits, vegetables, everything you need - and here we can only thank one group of people: the immigrants.

Without them these places would be dead. 

Sektor 236 (2010)

I consider myself I kind person. A man who can't hurt a fly and very rarely writes a bad word about the movies I watch. Some people mistake this for a complete lack of taste, but the fact is that I see a lot of CRAP that I just never care to review. What's the point of writing about something you dislike? I'm not one of those that like to waste my energy on stuff like that. Until now. Sektor 236, "the Swedish Predator", is by far the worst movie ever produced in Sweden. I admire that they've done the movie because it's rare with genre productions in this country, but why the f**k couldn't they have done it good?

Some silly time hole/dimension crap has opened itself in the north of Sweden and makes people disappear. A bunch of "young folks" goes out for a hike armed with an ouija board and a complete lack of acting talent and gets sucked into the dangerous situation. Good for them that another gang of worthless "actors", playing military, is going up there to close the whole and rescue the world from a little girl with a monster mouth. Or something.

It's not really the basic idea of Sektor 236 that's bad - I've seen worse stories turned into great movies. It's the concept that someone took a camera, some actors, wrote a script and decided to make a movie without the basic knowledge of how to tell a story. Storytelling, A and O of movies. You can make a movie about everything IF you can tell the story. If you can't - don't quit your day job. It's not enough with pointing the camera at the action, the pointing needs to be made with a thought. Why am I pointing the camera a these moronic kids playing with a damn Ouija board out in the wilderness? Is it to just find a cool angle or is it to make the shit scary?

You won't find any storytelling in Sektor 236. It's just good ol' camera-pointing. After squirming in the sofa over how the more experienced actors made fools of themselves, nothing could prepare me for the utter lack of talent the non-actors showed. I know it's a nice thing to make a movie without money and let everyone involved do something - but was it necessary to put them in front of the camera? During one scene a girl is telling an old story about how she and some friends got scared once. This sequence is THE worst acting I've seen in a Swedish movie. Sure, it could be because the monologue is so badly written my mother could write better in her sleep, but when the poor girl - who probably is very talented at something else - starts to force herself through the text the only thing that comes to my mind is Leena's monologues in Joe Sarno's Fäbodjäntan!

And why an Ouija board on a forest hike? And why complain about cell phone connection when you're in the middle of the wilderness? And why do that other girl scream like a pissed of drug addict everything she gets upset? And why not use an external microphone inside the military compound? It sounds like shit!

Oh, and hey, why did you let a retarded five year old kid make the pre- and end-credits? Just an honest question? Which reminds me of the DVD itself, in terrible quality and non-anamorphic - which makes a crappy movie even crappier. Some of the actors have some interest for cult movie fans. A.R. Hellquist starred in several of Mats Helge Olsson's productions from the eighties and Lars Lundgren - still talking lousy English after 40 years in the US - did a lot of stunts in everything from Planet of the Apes and They Call Her One Eye to Total Recall and License to Kill. Tintin Anderzon is the daughter of the talented Kim Anderzon who starred in Language of Love and The Lustful Vicar, among other Swedish classics.

Sorry of all the negativity, but I needed this. Sometimes a movie is just too crappy to be ignored.

Blödaren (1983)

Never has 80 minutes felt soooooo long. So drawn out and boring. But still, Blödaren, is unique because it's probably one of the first shot-on-video slashers (Sledgehammer came the same year, but I haven't seen it yet - recommended?) ever made - and also the first (I think) slasher ever produced in Sweden. That doesn't mean it's good - actually, it's the total opposite in every f**king little detail. "Directed" and produced by publisher Hans G Hatwig, who also used his extremely popular magazine OKEJ to promote the movie. The story? Well...

An all-female rock band, Rock Cats, is out on a tour through the Swedish countryside. After a not-so-spectacular concert at something that looks like the smallest park (we call it "folkpark" in Sweden) ever they hit off to the next destination - but of course their van breaks down and they're stuck out in nowhere! Lucky for us, because they're a crappy band, a crazy killer, Blödaren, takes care of what we all want to do - and kills them one by one!!!! Surprise!

Yeah, Blödaren is one of the most primitive slashers ever made - Mats Helge's Blood Tracks is a damn masterpiece in comparison. It's shot on cheap-looking video with just the classic point-the-camera-at-the-actor and nothing else approach of directing. To be fair, the locations are nice and I would have appreciated the movie a lot more if it just was a cheap vintage documentary about a crappy girl band. But no one can act and the complete lack of gore and blood makes it a quite boring mess to watch. The killer, played by talented drummer Åke Eriksson, acts like he's in an amateur movie shot by some school kids - but I guess he didn't get much direction to work with anyway. He more comes off like someone who really doesn't want to do the part and have a problem not laughing in some scenes.

So isn't there anything good with the movie? No, not really. But I still think the girls has some charm and it's fun to listen to their improvisations, which rarely sounds realistic - but is fun if you appreciate non-acting for such a long time. Blödaren (which literary means "The Bleeder") could have been much more fun if the director didn't want so act serious and skip the gore and blood. When making a simple slasher movie it's never smart to pretend to be Alfred Hitchcock.

To boost the interest of the movie Hatwig started to spread the rumour that Gene Simmons was the guy playing Blödaren, which he also used in his magazine. I found these two scans from Farbror Punk's blog and I decided to steal these for your viewing pleasure. The first is about the Gene Simmons rumour and then about the real actor, Åke Eriksson.

Thank heavens Blödaren isn't commercially available with English subs, but I guess that if you want to you can find it. But don't blame it on me please, don't shoot the messenger - shoot the movie makers instead!

Blood Tracks (1985)

"From the makers of A Nightmare on Elm Street" said the advertising material belong to Blood Tracks when it was sold in Cannes in the middle of the eighties! This came from the fact that it was distributed by New Line Cinema, who also distributed Mats Helges earlier hit movie The Ninja Mission and with the money from that one produced the first movie with legendary horror icon Freddy Krueger. But Blood Tracks is very far from the glitter and glam of Hollywood. Shot in the south of Sweden and a few scenes in Funäsdalen, this is a small but interesting piece of trash from the annals of Swedish trash cinema.

Easy Action arrives to a small village up in the mountains. They're gonna shoot a new music video there, as publicity for their new upcoming hit album! The director quickly finds an abandoned factory and the team decides to do some location scouting there. But an avalanche stops them from going back to civilisation and soon they're hunted by a murderous inbred tribe of crazies, the left-over's from a family that fled up there after a murder and never looked back! Now they want to protect what's theirs and they're very, very bloodthirsty!

Blood Tracks is basically a Swedish version of The Hills Have Eyes, but with more snow and more gore. I've seen this many times on tape and I never seen it as bloody and graphic as this version. Legendary for being hard to find in a complete version, this DVD from CMV Laservision could be the longest ever. It's far from perfect, but the full frame presentation is decent, but has a few cropping issues that blocks out nudity (not all, just one scene - I think the rest is complete). The Japanese version has always been considered the longest and a few alternative scenes, just based on the cropping, is included on this DVD and sourced from the Japanese tape. But the rest, yeah dammit, this could the best most uncut version so far.

The added gore really boosts the entertainment value of the movie. Mats Helge uses buckets of blood for a graphic impaling, stabbings, a burning, a ripped out eye and other nasty surprises. We're not talking Tom Savini quality here, but still - it's not bad at all. The most infamous scene, mostly because it's been cut everywhere, is when a woman is ripped apart (just like in Ruggero Deodato's Cut and Run and Fulci's Conquest). In every version I've seen you just see blood on her face and then cut to another character watching, but here you actually see her get ripped apart. The effect is primitive, but it's there and it's bloody. Other effects is also more visible, for example the cut of arm and another shot of a woman laying on the ground with a pipe through her chest.

Blood Tracks is very cheesy, cheap and silly, but finally it lives up to it's promise as a real, bloody and nasty slasher. I'm not saying it's a masterpiece, because it's not - Mats Helge was most of his career a very incompetent storyteller - but this ranks as his best together with The Ninja Mission.

The German (or Austrian?) DVD is released under the name Shocking Heavy Metal and it's a must for collectors of Swedish cult and gory slashers!

And because I'm so nice I'm sharing the uncut body ripping-scene (in German language, by mistake) with you, enjoy! I see now that she's not getting ripped apart, she's cut in two pieces by the rope!

Terror in the Midnight Sun (1959)

The original Swedish title, Rymdinvasion i Lappland, is actually the title I prefer, but for your sake I will us the British title Terror in the Midnight Sun and not the very silly and un-stylish “Invasion of the Animal People”, which was a different cut anyway. I first saw Terror at a bad movie festival in Östersund and it was an enormous success. But I think it’s important to realize that even if some parts are bad, it doesn’t mean that the whole movie is bad. It’s just so easy to laugh at everything on the screen when you just watched someone trying to imitate the Sami language. In comparison with other similar movies from the same time it’s not that bad, it’s just the script that’s very weak and a few absurd details here and there.

A UFO has landed (or maybe crashed) in the northern regions of Sweden, Lapland, and a team of fifties stereotypical scientists are sent there to investigate. The handsome scientist Erik Engström (Sten Gester) falls in love with the daughter to one of his colleagues, and she’s of course a famous Olympic figure skater played by Barbara Wilson who likes to shower. Up in Lapland they find out that it’s only a strange UFO creating tension, there’s also a huge hairy Chewbacca-type monster roaming the mountains attacking the Sami’s and eating their reindeers! What a life!

Terror has a lot of stupid stuff going on, but it’s also short and keeps a good pace from start to finish. Even of the Stockholm-scenes are a bit talky and stiff, the fun starts fast when they arrives to Lapland. A quite unexpected shower-scene and a performance by legendary Swedish singer Brita Borg (not at the same time of course) and the fantastic locations make it a unique old school sci-fi. Not much seem to have been shot in sets either, so it has plenty of fantastic sceneries. I mean, I hate skiing – but this movie makes me wanna ski! The snowy landscape and place of the UFO also reminded me of The Thing, both Howard Hawk’s and John Carpenter’s, but a lot cheesier.

The aliens themselves are just pale, big-headed guys wearing anoraks but their pet, the Chewbacca-monster is quite impressive. Without a doubt one of the best looking creatures from the golden era of monster movies. The sequence when the monster attacks the village is really well done with more than excellent miniatures being trashed by the beast. I think one of the reasons it looks so good is that it was shot on location with natural lightning, because details like that helps a lot creating more believable effects.

What makes this movie weaker than it should have been is the sudden ending, explaining absolutely nothing! I don’t demand explanations, but here it’s just no reason for the aliens to come to earth. They hang around for a while, their pet escapes and then they go away again. No actually communication occurs between the humans and spaceman and in the end everything leads to nothing and another movie is over.

Terror in the Midnight Sun is not bad, it’s very uneven. It’s worth watching for the cool monster and lovely locations, so if you’re into fifties sci-fi I think you could appreciate this classic co-production between Sweden and United States.

När mörkret faller (1960)

Arne Mattsson (1919-1995) was one of more interesting directors to come from Sweden, even of he got manipulated out from the big league by Ingmar Bergman (who was no stranger to pull strings to blacklist former colleagues from the Swedish movie community) and stuck with being the laughingstock by the Swedish movie critics. Why? It’s a bit absurd to read the reviews now, so many years after, because most of his movies are among the best every produced in Sweden. It’s important to realize that Mattsson was a big fan of thrillers and detective stories and that was something he wanted to do, so he wasn’t forced to make more commercial movies like some sell-out, he really loved a good murder mystery and stayed with the genre for his whole career.

När Mörkret Faller (aka When Darkness Falls) is based on story by Maria Lang, THE female thriller writer for many years. Her work is often very uneven, but like Mattsson films, filled with sexual innuendos and an interesting look at class and generation in Sweden. This is not her best story and not Mattsson’s best movie, but that just means it’s still very competent and skilfully produced slice of detective melodrama. It’s set in small village over Christmas and New Year. On Christmas Eve the local shop owner Arne Sandell (George Fant) is brutally hacked to death with an axe and soon everyone is a suspect. An army of suspects. Police inspector Christer Wijk (Karl-Arne Holmsten) arrives and takes charge of the investigation, but soon the killer strikes again…

This is a very traditional murder mystery, shot in atmospheric black & white by master cinematographer Hilding Bladh. It’s almost a bit too generic to be Mattsson, who always found a way to include some kind of story gimmick to catch the audience attention. It’s both a blessing and boring that most of the story is set inside one house, with a few studio-bound shots outside the church. It makes the story very claustrophobic and gives us an interesting chamber play, but Mattsson has always been a visual director and he would probably have done even better if he had more to work with. Not for lack of trying, because When Darkness Falls is filled with his trademark dolly tracks, scenes shot with mirrors reflecting other parts of the room, long scenes without cuts with a lot of details and red herrings. Mattsson was a master of using the whole room, the whole frame, and here’s an excellent movie to see that. Sometimes there is three-four layers of intrigue, from one of the suspects close to the camera listening with moving at all to next layer were a dialogue is happening and to the last one were a silhouette is listening in the background.

While the story is far from the best, the film is packed with the best of Swedish actors. One fo the leading characters, vicar Tord Ekstedt is played by the former Hollywood star Nils Asther, who was forced to go back to Sweden during his golden years when jobs started to dry up in the US and he did some bad affairs which affected his reputation in the biz. He hit it big as a silent movie star, but his accent prevented him to continue rise even higher as a star and he played mostly foreigners and bad guys. He shot two movies with Mattsson, this one and the excellent Vita Frun (aka Lady in White), which show so clearly what a magnificent actor he was. I can recommend both just because of him. Karl-Arne Holmsten is Inspector Wijk, and he was one of the more popular and charming leading men during the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, but retired from the screen at the end of the sixties with a few sporadic acting gigs after that. The supporting cast is nothing less than spectacular, with George Fant, Sif Ruud (the leading nice old lady of Swedish cinema), Hjördis Pettersson (the leading evil old lady of Swedish cinema), Adolf Jahr, Sigge Fürst and the “angry young man”, my favourite, Bengt Brunskog. Elsa Prawitz, Arne Mattsson’s wife, do a great job as the wife of the first murder victim also. Almost everyone is a veteran or future veteran of Mattsson’s movies. He always used the same actors and gave them wonderful and original parts.

Rarely seen and I’m not sure it’s been released on home video, it was shown a couple of days ago in TV. Far from classics like Mattsson’s predecessor to Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace, Mannekäng i Rött (1958) and The Lady in Black from the same year, but still a very nice murder mystery, perfect for a dark winter night.

Psalm 21 (2010)

First of all, a serious warning: there will be a lot of superlative's in this review. No, it's not a review. It's a tribute.

Sorry, my hands are shaking. I have genuine problem writing down what I feel about Psalm 21. I was SO skeptical before watching this movie, really. Because Swedish horror movies generally sucks big time! But what I think we have here is THE best Swedish horror movie made. Yes, I would say so. It has some faults, some minor problem – but that occurs during the first 15-20 minutes of the story. I’m not gonna go into those details, but if you have problem with the beginning (which I’m sure only will be for Swedish viewers), just wait and let the movie take you into a very, very dark story. A story which holds no punches what so ever with its message.

Jonas Malmsjö, son of famous Swedish actor Jan Malmsjö (Fanny and Alexander, Scenes from a Marriage etc), plays Henrik, a priest living a, on the surface, a happy wonderful life. He’s divorced and feels that the relationship with his son is cracking up. But that’s the least of his problem when his father, also a priest, dies in a drowning accident. They haven’t had contact for many years, but Henrik goes up to Hammerdal, the small town where his father had his church, to find out what really happen. A dramatic incident makes his car break down, and he’s stuck on a small road out in the deepest forest. He finally finds shelter in a remote house. The family that lives there are odd, and they seem to have some connection to his father. At the same time he starts to get visions, terrible visions…

Here we have a genuine Swedish horror movie, but for once it either tries to imitate US production or trying to be TO Swedish. And with “to Swedish” I mean very correct, very clear, very boring, silly, crappy and shallow. There’s stuff that are in every Swedish drama production – cello music, saliva when people yells or cry and very small towns – but thankfully director Fredrik Hiller never once falls in the terrible fucking pit of normality, “lagom” was we say in Sweden. “Lagom” means that something is either too much, too little, too bad, too good, too funny, too scary, too tasty and so on. A very normal mentality in Sweden, which is very sad.

But Psalm 21 delivers, for once. I can’t say it’s a gory movie, but it has it fair share of very effective shocks and special effects – all very well-done. The visuals of the movie are stunning, and the cinematography together with Hiller’s direction is among the best I’ve seen in our cinema for a long time. But where it’s most powerful is in its story, which I really don’t want to say so much about. But as ex-Christian, raised in a very nasty religious environment, this movie comes as a revelation. It’s like I, for once, counts in this sick thing we call religion and what that form of spiritual powerplay has done.. I’m sure some more emotionally sensitive people will be disturbed by the story that unfolds, but I’m also sure that a lot of people will take this to their hearts. But make no mistake, Psalm 21 is a supernatural (not some silly “It’s all in his mind”-shit) horror-thriller.

I also want to mention the actors. Jonas Malmsjö has never been a favourite actually, and he does some of his old acting-tricks – but does them very well. Per Ragnar, who plays his father, has always been an excellent actor, specialised in creepy, dark characters. He’s marvellous here. Görel Crona, I haven’t seen much for her lately, so it’s great to see her do such a low-key, but very fine-tuned part has the mother of the family. Her husband is played by Niklas Falk is downright fantastic. Their grown-up son is played by Björn Bengtsson, and he still has some theatrical mannerism in his acting, but handles the part very well – I’m impressed. Josefin Ljungman plays the teenager daughter, Nora, and makes it a realistic performance – totally superior to a lot of actresses in her age. Ok, I could mention everyone, so fuck it.

Psalm 21 is a – insert random superlative here – movie, and probably the best Swedish horror movie ever. Sorry for my ramblings, I need to buy a kebab now to calm me down.

Insane (2010)

Swedish slashers is rare and lousy, from Blödaren till Strandvaskaren and everything in-between. Nothing to see, move along please! So, do we need a Swedish slasher? Of course we do, especially because the rest of Scandinavia churns out genre production and we’re still walking around on the same boring, bloodless ground. Insane is directed by Anders Jacobsson and Tomas Sandquist, which makes a lot out of a small budget. Anders is most famous here in Sweden for directing the semi-classic Evil Ed and also was cinematographer behind the underrated Det Okända.

Anyway, this is the story about David, a weird man who runs his hotel without much disturbance. He sits in his office, painting toys and hopes that a nice woman will check in – which they do, and most of the times it ends up with them being dead at the end of the night. A person in a black coat, gasmask and a huge knife is killing them one by one… One day a woman comes by, she’s looking for her sister, and this could be her last night too…

I guess the obvious Psycho-references is a part of the plan, because much of the time it feels like a remake of Psycho, but with a couple of more twists and a slightly different killer of course. David (played by an excellent Lars Bethke) echoes Anthony Perkins a lot, and the story about the sister and the nearby lake is also very similar to Psycho. In a small part there’s also a copy which reminds me of Dr Loomis in Halloween, and the killer himself feels like the baddie from My Bloody Valentine! But this has always been a part of the Anders Jacobsson-legacy, some nods here and there to famous horror movies and I’ll accept that!

Gore and blood? Yes, it’s a gory show. Maybe not as graphic as I thought it would be, but we’re treated to some nasty splatter scenes (a crushed head, a nice knife thru head and a fun ripped off jaw is the highlights). Everything is very well done and fits the tone of the movie. Shot digital, this is a stylish and handsome production. It feels very Swedish, very IKEA. Simple and stripped sets and locations, not so much details. The important stuff is in the foreground.

Insane is a very ambitious slasher/horror movie (it’s shot in English by the way, but without the awkward accents) which in a way feels a bit too generic for my taste, but still holds my attention with some good chase scenes, impressive camera work and graphic violence. But I still can recommend it to 100 %. I will watch it again, and I hope for a sequel (please, can I play a victim?).

Baksmälla (1973)

Baksmälla literary mean ”hangover”, and that starts this chamber play with Jörn Donner and Diana Kjær as a couple of the verge of break-up and break-down. They are Leif and Lena, who after some years together finally got married yesterday and now wakes up to the bitter reality of marriage.

Things do not get better with the naked woman walking around in the house, someone who woke up in bed together with Leif… Then the day starts, first with a stubborn insurance salesman trying to sell them a new house insurance, which just reveals more about their relationship then he can handle. A series of flashbacks tells us their story, both together and in their own adventures. At the same time they’re trying to refurnish the house, drink a lot of alcohol and blame the airplanes above them for making the house a hell to live in…

Once again Klubb Super 8 delivers a fantastic package. Baksmälla is actually a quite serious movie, a smart relationship-drama with some nice black comedy, some nudity and a lot of truth. Jörn Donner, the Swedish-Finnish actor, director, producer was controversial from the beginning of his career, and still continues to stir up controversy when he feels for it. What people tend to forget is that he’s a good actor and an even better director (among the movies he directed is the 1978 feminist drama, Manrape. Great flick!). Diana Kjær is even better as Lena, the bored wife who looks back at her adventures in Spain. The acting is very naturalistic, and much of the dialogue has a feeling of ad-libbing.

This is hardly a glamorous movie, but an excellent example of the Scandinavian drama-sensibility that has been lost over the years and now only is over-worked, contrived orgies in self-indulgence.

The print used by Klubb Super 8 has some minor damage, but it’s still a beautiful and stunning print. It shows the Swedish (and Finnish) greyness in a great way. For those who want more exploitation, the UK version from 1978 is included to. I just fast-forwarded a bit, and it seems quite different with a lot added nudie-footage and much of the relationship-drama cut. That print is taken from VHS, but still looks acceptable.

I need to mention the awesome score by Claes Af Geijerstam too. I wish this was released somewhere. Some tracks is ironically over-the-top, but mixed with low-key piano-based songs which fits wonderful to dirty snow of Sweden.

Another fine release from KS8, and of course I would recommend everyone to buy it, watch it and realize that there are other relationship-dramas from Sweden than dear old Bergman.

Susanne (1960)

Susanne is a normal story about a well-behaved girl who finds booze and love, falls in love with a boy, gets in a car crash, becomes brain damaged and transforms into a chain-smoking slut who gets pregnant and then finds happiness in family-life. Directed, produced and written by doctor Kit Colfach and his wife Elsa. A morality tale about the dangers exposed to the Swedish youth!

Honestly, even in its primitive state of storytelling, it’s a very entertaining movie – especially the first half when Susanne is exploring her newfound freedom as a cute teenager. It slowly gets darker and more documentary in style. After the car accident, which is graphic for the time, we’re treated to some graphic real surgery footage and Susanne being a real bitch both towards friends and parents. Then she gets pregnant, and of course there’s real footage of a birth (not with the actress of course).

The style is simple, many shots is often out of focus and sometimes the camera seem to be somewhere else than filming the important thing in the scene. But this works for the story and it makes everything feel more realistic. Because of technical trouble, the whole movie is dubbed afterwards by other actors. They hired a deaf lip-reading expert to translate the mouth movements, which works so-so.

The symbolism is strong, it goes from the green Swedish countryside further into the grey concrete houses and in the end, when Susanne has gone thru hell but realized that she really loves her baby and her husband, family is everything. A little bit to right wing for me of course, but this was a different time in Sweden.

Now Klubb Super 8 has released a wonderful DVD of this movie, complete with English subtitles for those outside Sweden that wants to experience a classic piece of warning-movie. The print is very good, if you think about how obscure this movie is. The best thing is the brilliant commentary track with Susanne Ulfsäter, who plays Susanne, and her real-life daughter Lotten Sundgren. Lotten is a film journalist and asks so many good questions to her mother, and brings us a lot of very interesting facts about the movie. It’s a pity it’s only in Swedish.

A moralistic exploitation-movie made by an avid golfer/doctor – what can go wrong with that?