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.