DRAUG (2018 - Swedish)

Studio:      Odmarden Filmproduktion
Director:    Klas Persson, Karin Engman
Writer:      Klas Persson, Karin Engman
Producer:  Klas Persson, Karin Engman
Stars:     Elna Karlsson, Thomas Hedengran, Oscar Skagerberg, Lina Hedlund, Urban Bergsten, Nina Filimoshkina, Ralf Beck, Matti Boustedt

Review Score:

---

Summary:

Swedish swordsmen looking for a lost missionary in a notorious forest uncover a curse connected to a young woman in their search party.

---

Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Hakon, a Swedish lord with a checkered past, forms a party to search for Bure, a missionary bishop who went missing with a royal cortege in the notorious Odmarden forest. Hakon brings swordsmen Gunder and Odd as well as Nanna, an orphan raised by Hakon who keeps a key as a memento from her forgotten childhood near Odmarden.

At a tavern, Hakon recruits drunken sheriff Kettil to join by reminding him Bure is their former partner from their swordsmen days. Kettil brings his slave Deja.

Kettil leads the party to a farm run by cowardly Are and his surly wife Randi. While Kettil questions Are about Bure’s disappearance in an intimidating manner, Nanna visits Randi’s sickly mother.

Randi discovers her brother Kol, a rogue leading the resistance against Swedish lords, hiding in the food storage shed. Fearful he may be involved in Bure’s disappearance, Randi keeps Kol hidden and evades Kettil’s questions concerning his whereabouts.

Kol and Randi’s mother drinks a potion. Nanna becomes frightened when the old woman seemingly becomes possessed.

Deja tells Kettil about something suspicious regarding the food storage shed. Kettil nearly discovers Kol inside, but is drawn away when the entranced old woman warns everyone to stay away from the northern trail.

The searchers camp in the woods for the night. Are chastises Kol for endangering his family while Kol reaffirms his plot to expel all Swedish lords from the countryside.

Kol leads a strike team of archers and swordsmen against Hakon’s party the next day. Following a bloody battle, Kettil takes Kol captive before retreating with the rest of Hakon’s party.

Hakon and the others find it strange that Kol’s party does not pursue them. Wounded in the fray, Odd raves about seeing a strange girl stalking them from a distance. Nanna follows whispers in the woods to a dead body that suddenly vanishes.

Anxious for information, Hakon and Kettil waterboard Kol. Nanna stops Kol’s torture by pointing everyone to ravens circling over the disfigured corpses of Bure and the royal cortege. Odd screams at the same time. Kol warns, “they are coming.”

Hakon decides that the party should continue moving north. Kettil expresses concern about going to that region with Nanna.

Nanna dreams of a witch wearing a blindfold. At the same time, a ghoulish figure crawls out of the trees onto Odd and kills him. Nanna’s sudden scream frightens away the ghouls while waking everyone else.

Despite Nanna’s claims of seeing inhuman figures, Hakon remains convinced that Kol’s ambushers returned. Hakon and Gunder elect to search a nearby cave where the assailants went. Hakon sees a ghostly girl at the same time Nanna encounters a similar figure outside the cave. The ghost kills Hakon, although Gunder only sees Hakon seemingly killing himself.

Gunder tells Kettil that Hakon appeared possessed when he died. Nanna claims a witch killed Hakon.

Kol claims they are being hunted by the living dead. Kol recounts a story his mother told him about villagers unleashing a curse when they tortured a woman named Groa for witchcraft. Kol explains that to destroy draugr, they must be beheaded, cremated, and have their ashes scattered, meaning they have to do the same to the bodies of the ghouls haunting them.

Deja becomes entranced by a little girl no one else can see. The ghoulish witch attacks again. When the witch is struck, a cloud of darkness emanates over the surrounding area. Deja willingly offers herself as a victim for the witch to kill.

Nanna digs up several corpses in chains near a ruined cabin. When she unlocks one of the skeletons, the darkness vanishes.

Kettil recounts how he, Hakon, and Bure were the men who slaughtered the family now haunting them. Kettil mentions that the family had a young daughter whom Hakon was supposed to execute, but she escaped.

Nanna finds chains in the ruins of the cabin where the slaughter took place. Nanna discovers that her keepsake key unlocks the chains, identifying her as the family’s survivor.

Acknowledging who she really is, Kettil attacks Nanna. Kol attacks Kettil. Gunder stops Kol, but puts Kettil in chains after Kol explains that Kettil attacked Nanna.

Nanna claims to know how to stop what is happening. Nanna digs up runes and occult items from the ruins to perform a ritual while blindfolded like the witch. A vision shows that the witch was Nanna’s mother. While entranced, Nanna sees the death goddess Hel, who tells Nanna to behold the curse of her mother. Hel reaches inside Nanna’s head and pulls something out.

Kol shakes Nanna out of her trance. With Nanna unconscious, Gunder and Kol get her to a rowboat while Kettil follows behind them. Before they can get onto the water to protect them from the undead, the ghostly little girl kills Gunder.

Once on the water, Kettil attacks Kol, which throws both men into rushing rapids. Kettil washes ashore with Nanna and begins choking her. Nanna shackles herself to Kettil and throws the key into the river. As Kettil strangles Nanna to death, Nanna sees the vision of the ghostly girl fade in the distance. However, the newborn ghost of Nanna as an adult manifests to attack Kettil.

The next morning, Kol revives in the water and swims to shore.

---

Review:

Partly thanks to Marvel movies, many already know key legends of Norse mythology like Odin, Thor, Ragnarok, and Frost Giants. Less familiar Icelandic folklore tells tales of “draugr” or “draug,” essentially the equivalent of a vampiric Viking zombie. These undead creatures stalk the search party at the center of the same-named Swedish chiller, although past sins plague everyone with figurative ghosts that are equally haunting.

“Draug” takes place one thousand years ago. After a missionary goes missing in a forbidding forest known for cutthroat thieving, Hakon makes it his mission to find his former ally with whom he once wielded swords. Drunken sheriff Kettil joins Hakon’s journey. Prone to more than a bit of brigandage, Kettil relishes the opportunity to intimidate and interrogate local farmers possibly plotting with rebels looking to rid the countryside of Swedish lords like himself.

Aside from Kettil’s slave Deja, the only other girl in the group is Nanna. An orphan raised by Hakon, Nanna hails from the northern region where they are headed. In her pocket she keeps a key as a keepsake from a childhood she doesn’t remember. In her mind she keeps traumatic flashbacks hinting at hidden horrors in her unknown origin.

Before reaching their destination, Hakon’s party encounters alarm in the form of raving witches, ambushing archers, and shadowy shapes not everyone sees. All of these omens are connected, as the phantom corpses coming toward the party have an agenda that weaves several sinister secrets together.

For their first feature film, co-writers, co-directors, and co-producers Klas Persson and Karin Engman build “Draug” using minimal money and maximum old-fashioned elbow grease. You wouldn’t necessarily know it though. Exquisite exterior settings, impassioned performances, and quality craftsmanship squeeze out an illusion of impressive scope only occasionally belittled by the budget.

“Draug” teaches a valuable lesson all independent filmmakers would do well to learn. Namely, making a fright film on a small scale mostly with favors, friends, and family doesn’t equal an excuse to take the path of least resistance. Persson and Engman told this particular tale not because it was easy, but because it was hard, and they knew it would be an opportunity to create a worthwhile experience out of a relatively straight story.

To pump up production value, Persson and Engman repeatedly anchor the camera in water, stage sequences in chilly outdoor nights, and task the cast with setting up shop in a forest for a one-month shoot without a flushing toilet. Any self-starter indie willing to expend the effort it takes to recreate 11th-century Sweden over, let’s say a simple slasher inside a house, automatically earns admiration for sincere dedication.

Although ambition doesn’t fully outgrow what this consistent commitment is capable of, there are moments when the movie plays like weekend warriors performing a cosplay reenactment. “Draug” includes caving, rafting, archery, swordfights, and horseback riding. While remarkable in terms of achievement, none of the actors are formally trained in any of the above, and their inexperience shows when the camera conspicuously tries to hide it.

A bloody battle between Hakon’s party and a band of rebels gets its choreography about 80% of the way toward earning suspension of disbelief. That’s close enough for many viewers to dismiss the missing one-fifth and convince individual imaginations to submit to immersion. Sticklers for detail may become hung up on how close the camera gets during an assault of arrows where framing feels like everyone is only inches apart despite the supposed scope of the scene.

Filming with a lot of natural light in overcast forests gets the better of the crew’s technical capabilities too. “Draug” doesn’t look its best on a big screen, with certain shots showing the warts of grainy blurriness from being underlit.

Most moments are predominantly of the conversational, atmosphere-setting variety. Hakon, Kettil, and the rest travel from one location to the next asking questions, ascertaining lays of the land, and having encounters to establish relationships that come into play later. Momentary stillness in momentum while soaking in sights of cobblestone, cabins, and farmland can give “Draug” the feeble feel of an “Elder Scrolls” fan film focused on an optional DLC side quest.

A low budget, Swedish-language slow burn set 1,000 years ago can be a hard sell for an audience to eagerly climb aboard. Even given its organic flaws however, “Draug” retains a sharp edge of distinctness as supernatural suspense stories go, with the period setting providing ample panache. An amusing recurring gag involving spitting after uttering a certain insult, Thomas Hedengran’s (Sweden’s Corbin Bernsen) portrayal of blustery blowhard Kettil, and visually ghoulish incarnations of undead witchiness amplify plentiful entertainment value.

Accomplishing much more than most slender spook shows do, “Draug” blazes a memorable trail in several subgenres at once. Its patient smolder and guerrilla style may slice at its ability to be broadly appealing. Yet its rich textures of throwback tones and application of Nordic mythos over familiar themes make room for alluringly eerie moods.

Review Score: 70

---