‘The Damned’ Review: A Cold Tale of Monstrous Guilt
The Damned establishes a dark mood early, and it never lets the viewer go.
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What is The Damned About?
The Damned utilizes folk horror, survival, and drama to create a bleak monster movie that leans heavily into psychological horror.
The story takes place in the late 1800s at a desolate, completely isolated fjord in Iceland. Surviving within the frozen landscape is Eva (Odessa Young), a widow who currently manages a fishing station she inherited from her late husband. With Eva is Helga (Siobhan Finneran)—a superstitious woman who helps with the cooking and cleaning—and a ragged crew of fishermen led by the stern and experienced Ragnar (Rory McCann). The fishing this winter is meager, and supplies are dwindling, which puts everyone on edge.
One morning the crew spots a ship sinking in the distance. Eva has a tortuous decision to make: help the ship’s crew and put her own men at risk of starvation, or leave the crew to their fate and help ensure the safety of her people. This and subsequent decisions lead to a devastating tragedy. Even worse, Eva and her crew’s choices might have created a monster.
The Damned Review
The Damned starts off grim, and it only gets darker from there. It’s an unrelenting film that piles hardships upon tragedies, mixing in heavy doses of dread and paranoia to color the oppressive atmosphere with horror. And for the most part, it’s all very well done.
Ultimately, The Damned is a movie about guilt. That guilt is represented by a draugr, a creature of Nordic origins that, in the movie, takes the form of something like a vengeful spirit. The fusion of monster and psychological horror is relatively seamless throughout the movie, which leads to powerful moments of effective terror. It’s the type of film that can be viewed as both a metaphor and as a straightforward horror movie, and both ways of looking at it work wonderfully.
The Icelandic setting perfectly fits the movie’s dismal tone. The ice-covered landscape looks beautiful, but the harshness of the land can be felt. This is a cold movie in more ways than one. The cinematography, by Eli Arenson (whose previous films include Lamb and The Watchers), gorgeously represents the stark nature of the story. Freezing whites and blues outside, and warmer colors inside as Eva tries to keep the draugr (and her own thoughts) at bay by the dim light of a lamp.
Ultimately, the most interesting element of The Damned comes down to the handling of the monster. The draugr remains hidden in fog and whispers as Eva and her crew succumb to guilt, isolation, superstition, and the crushing reality of impending starvation. But monsters are as real as you make them out to be, and the draugr gets closer to its victims the more they allow it to haunt them.
One part that might leave viewers a bit cold is, unfortunately, the ending. The strong psychological aspect of The Damned leads to the reality of the situation coming across as somewhat ambiguous. It can be difficult at times to discern what really happens, and what is in people’s heads. This is the biggest strength of the movie. The finale removes a portion of that ambiguity, needlessly so. The ending works okay, but it explains too much, which pushes the whole story a little further away from horror than it maybe should have.
The Damned Rating and Recommendation
Star Rating: 4 out of 5
Despite a slight stumble towards the end, The Damned creates some superb psychological horror for fans of the genre. Viewers who enjoy grim movies that include survival and folk horror should also check it out.
The Damned is currently only in theaters, and is set for a streaming release on January 21, 2025.
Further Reading
- Ship of the Damned Review: Cursed Cannibal Pirates on a Low-Budget Ship
- Bag of Lies Review: An Effectively Unsettling Supernatural Drama
- Hell Hole Review: Body Horror and Parasites from the Adams Family
- All You Need is Death Review: Irish Folk Horror with a Lyrical Quality
- Horror Movies That Take Place in Winter
- Best Isolation Horror Movies
