Johan is hoping to buy a disused hotel and ski resort in a remote area of Sweden, near the Norwegian border, so goes there with a group of friends to check it out. The resort was built several years ago but never opened because of a murder that took place there. It wasn't abandoned though; a caretaker was employed to look after the building. He isn't the friendliest of characters but shows them round; he tells them not to try to go down into the locked cellar. Disturbing things start to happen almost straight away; the first night one of the girls hears a banging from the cellar but even then the caretaker refuses to open the door. It soon becomes apparent that some people there are determined that Johan won't buy the resort but their motives aren't obvious. That is the least of their worries though. They start finding strange pictures, which look as though they were drawn by a child; then one of the girls attacks her boyfriend claiming that if she doesn't kill somebody she will die
things soon get even worse and it is clear that they won't all survive.
This was an impressive chiller; the beautiful snowbound location created a good sense of isolation and the old hotel was delightfully creepy. There were some genuinely scary moments; often this was when it felt like something bad was sure to happen any moment rather than when something actually happened. The question is to whether the threat was human or something else remained for some time; although the way several of the guests suffered what appeared to be an infection in one eye before going on to behave strangely suggested the latter. The story nicely incorporated Scandinavia myths, with talk of Mylings, references historical mistreatment of the native Sami people as well as more modern motives. There are some clichés of course; Johan and his friends are the typical attractive twenty-somethings and the ending is slightly ambiguous; there is a suggestion that the survivors won't last long but they are still well when the credits roll. Overall I'd recommend this series; it is nicely creepy, has some good scares and is different from most series coming out of Scandinavia (at least that have made it to the UK).
These comments are based on watching the series in the original languages with English subtitles.
This was an impressive chiller; the beautiful snowbound location created a good sense of isolation and the old hotel was delightfully creepy. There were some genuinely scary moments; often this was when it felt like something bad was sure to happen any moment rather than when something actually happened. The question is to whether the threat was human or something else remained for some time; although the way several of the guests suffered what appeared to be an infection in one eye before going on to behave strangely suggested the latter. The story nicely incorporated Scandinavia myths, with talk of Mylings, references historical mistreatment of the native Sami people as well as more modern motives. There are some clichés of course; Johan and his friends are the typical attractive twenty-somethings and the ending is slightly ambiguous; there is a suggestion that the survivors won't last long but they are still well when the credits roll. Overall I'd recommend this series; it is nicely creepy, has some good scares and is different from most series coming out of Scandinavia (at least that have made it to the UK).
These comments are based on watching the series in the original languages with English subtitles.