‘The Damned’ (2024)

A folk horror drama set during 19th century Iceland, ‘The Damned’ follows Eva (Odessa Young) a young widow that manages a remote winter fishing outpost in an Arctic bay. Having inherited the outpost from her husband, Eva faces the harsh winter and difficult decisions as she and her fishermen crew have to live through the rough weather.

Spending her first year back at the outpost without her husband, Eva is reminded of his passing, as the outpost is near ‘the Teeth’, a protruding rock formation in the bay that lead to her husbands death. Worried about shortage of food and poor fishing, Eva doubts her leadership and the likelihood of the group surviving.

Preparing to go out to sea, Eva and the group witness a ship going down by ‘the Teeth’. Reluctantly deciding not to sail out and help the survivors due to shortage of resources, everyone watches the ship perish in the distance. A day later a barrel of salt pork washes ashore, prompting Eva to lead a nighttime expedition in search of more supplies.

The crew chance upon survivors, but tragedy strikes as a few men are lost and the group kill the survivors in order to defend themselves. Having sustained losses to their own group, Eva grapples with what to do next. The bodies of the sailors wash ashore soon after, for which Helga (Siobhan Finneran) wants to exercise ritualistic practices based on old Nordic folklore of the draugr.

Fearing the dead may come back as hate filled revenants looking for revenge, Helga and Eva start experiencing vivid visions of a dark figure. The sentiment soon spreads amongst the crew and the men begin to perish one after the other. Paranoia spreads like wildfire and the crew shrink to a handful of survivors.

Eva decides to lead the group in search of the draugr to kill it with fire. Losing another member, they circle back to their outpost where Eva is confronted by the dark figure. Managing to shoot it and set the house on fire, she retreats and rejoins the remaining crew and they watch the house as it is engulfed in flames. A flashback reveals Eva was confronted by a survivor of the ship that they saw sink. As he speaks Basque to her, and Eva us unable to understand him, she shoots and kills the survivor.

A strong directorial debut by Thordur Palsson, ‘The Damned’ places a reluctant leader into a difficult position, creating for devastating results regardless of the choice she makes. Placing the action in a location deserted and devoid of hope, ‘The Damned’ paints a very clear picture of man’s struggle against nature.

The contrast of the vast emptiness and the space occupied by the fishing outpost crew screams cabin fever and instills an unrelenting sense of unease at every turn. Accentuating the difficulties of survival, the only safe space for the crew exists with the main cabin of the outpost, surrounded entirely by snowy mountains and wintry flurries.

Carrying the burden of leadership is Odessa Young’s Eva. An unwilling and disinclined commander, she learns by doing and labors over every decision, unfamiliar with the duties of an overseer. An unbelievable tragedy and past trauma come back to loom over her choices and Young delivers the toll it takes on her Eva as she struggles to make life and death decisions. Painful to watch as the young widow is plagued by one tragedy after the other, Young toils and communicates the pain inflicted on her by impossible choices.

Quiet yet looming, the sense of danger never quite leaves the crew after that fateful night where so many lives were lost. Effective scares and anxiety inducing sequences bring fear to the screen as the crew struggle to make sense of what exactly is happening, inviting further consideration towards mysticism, superstition and malevolent happenings.

The beauty of the film lies with its cast, as they struggle to grasp the weight of guilt that overshadows every one of their actions. Irrevocably damaged by the catastrophic events, the group fail to address their trauma. Undiscussed go the tragic events, thereby allowing the fallout to fester and grow, resulting in a group hysteria. An excellent display of a group tormented and unraveling, ‘The Damned’ shows exactly how quickly things can deteriorate and become violent.

Delivering effective scares, an impossibly heavy and grim atmosphere, ‘The Damned’ succeeds in taking its viewers to a desolate winter wasteland that screams despair. Adding unseen threats and an experience paralleling a haunting, the film serves as potent nightmare fuel for a long time to come.

Score: 4/4