swedish horror movies – Horror Ghouls

Sleepwalker (2000)

Posted on January 5, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Ulrik Hansson is a 45 year old man living in a residential district in Sweden, together with his wife Monika and their two children. The family man appears to live a pretty normal life, with a decently paid job as an architect. There is also a new home he’s built which they’ll soon move into. All fine and dandy. One night, when he and his wife are about to go to sleep, he’s suddenly having what first appears to be a heart attack, scaring his wife to the point where she’s about to call for help, until he settles down and says he feels okay again. A panic attack, perhaps? He goes to sleep, but when he wakes up in the morning, he discovers that the bed is covered in blood. In a full panic, he runs around the house, shouting for his wife and two children only to discover that they are all gone…

Sleepwalker is a Swedish thriller from 2000, directed by Johannes Pinter and written by Johan Brännström. It was apparently hyped a bit in its home country, where taglines like “the most exciting film you can see in year 2000 is made in Sweden”, which set the bar rather high. Thus, upon release some found it a bit underwhelming compared to what they were expecting, but despite this it’s actually a pretty decent low-key thriller about a man who fears he’s done something terrible while sleepwalking. It’s not very high in tension or action-packed or anything, but it’s doing a steady job of keeping you wondering together with the protagonist.

The movie starts off like a found footage movie, where Ulrik is filming his family and friends, but this isn’t the movie’s format. There are some scenes where he straps the camera to the side of his head when he goes to sleep, hoping to capture what he does when sleepwalking, and these scenes are actually some of the most effective. You can also find quite an easter-egg in this movie: there is one scene at the start where Ulrik’s children are watching a horror movie, and this movie is none other than Evil Ed (another Swedish film which is considerably more well known). And that’s not all, the actor who played Ed in that movie, Johan Rudebeck, also has a role here where he appears as one of Ulrik’s colleagues.

Sleepwalker is a decent mystery thriller, where we follow a man who appears to be in some kind of way responsible for this own family’s disappearance. And he doesn’t even know whether he is guilty or not, as he doesn’t remember anything. While I feel the ending was a little bit weak, I still found the movie to be quite enjoyable.

Director: Johannes Pinter
Writer: Johan Brännström
Country & year: Sweden, Norway, 2000
Actors: Ralph Carlsson, Ewa Carlsson, Anders Palm, Tuva Novotny, Donald Högberg, Fredrik Hammar, Mats Rudal, Sylvia Rauan, Christoffer Edström, Silke Lauren, Toivo Tolonen, Aina Lesse
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0228871/

Breaking Point (1975)

Posted on September 1, 2023September 5, 2023 by HorrorGhouls

The Swedish filmmaker Bo Arne Vibenius got some sweet taste of success and fame after his ultra violent rape/revenge film and magnum opus Thriller: A Cruel Picture became a hit at the Cannes Film Festival in 1974. One year later it was time for his next film, which was originally supposed to be a far more clean and commercial film for the mainstream surface audiences.

But something went wrong, you see. Horribly wrong.

Some sources say that it was issues with the financial part that forced Vibenius to take some quick and drastic decisions. Instead of cancelling the film entirely, he rewrote the script in two days and started shooting on day three with a handheld camera around the Stockholm area. The result is Breaking Point – a spiteful, mean-spirited, bleak as bleak can be, anti-commercial, morbidly hilarious and utterly mentally deranged little sexploitation flick which makes Thriller look like a sunny day in Disneyland. All shot in English dialogue with Swedish subtitles, just in case the film wouldn’t get banned in its home country, which it of course did. Hur tråkigt.

The film centers around a middle-aged man, Bob Bellings, who looks like a cross between Peter Sellers and Ryan Gosling, where anyone with eyesight can spot his big red flags waving miles away. He’s a working stiff wearing a suit and tie at an office in a high rise building in the middle of the city, where his days consist of stamping documents. Another thing that’s stiff is his cock, and he has to stick it in someone and rather NOW before his ballsack explodes! When he’s not sitting around and fantasising about his female coworkers undressing in front of his desk or sucking his dick, he uses his free time to rape and murder women around the local area. When he can’t control his urges at work, he has the lunchtime to “do some errands”. The film starts with his first victim whom he stalks and assaults in her apartment. He smashes her skull with an ashtray and rapes her dead body.

If this wasn’t bad enough, Belling then sees a psychologist on TV who has the brilliant theory that all women have a deep, inner desire to get raped, only if you don’t kill them. Alrighty then. Now that his actions feel way more morally righteous (for lack of a better term), it’s time to extend the horizon by buying a car and heading out to the countryside to hunt for more pussy to drill. His car plate has the letters CUW (yes, with a W) just to make it obvious in a sarcastic way that his psychotic journey into pure nihilistic perversion and beyond has just begun where no one on his destructive path is safe. All I can say is just get ready for a lot of absurdity, a lot of unpleasant hardcore fucking, oral sex, reckless driving and even some hints of – TRIGGER WARNING – pedophilia.

What Breaking Point and Thriller have in common is the authentic porn scenes. But this one goes overload, to put it that way. During Bob Belling’s hazy and dream-like odyssey we can also ask what’s real and if we’re just witnessing some deep, obsessive rape fantasies from the mind of a disturbed man. Not quite easy to tell. We can also ask if the raw, impulsive and overall chaotic nature of Breaking Point is a reflection of a very troubled and angry director who’s going through an epic storm of a mental collapse or a serious existential crisis while he goes all the way to self-sabotage his own film career. This was his last film, so in that case, he succeeded.

Andreas Bellis, who mainly works as a cinematographer, has his first and last main role as the killer/rapist Bob Bellings, here under the fitting pseudonym Anton Rotchild. With his thin hair, big glasses in front of his death-staring eyes, stone-cold face and of course the big mushroom for the ladies, he certainly looks the part which he seems to embrace every second with no problem, flashing his erect dick left and right and exposing himself in the explicit hardcore porn scenes. Even though the porn is as straight-forward as can be, the film is done with the most pitch-dark cynical sense of humor, with layers of satire and some social commentary where American Psycho meets Falling Dawn in a bushy glory hole. The ending is absolutely bonkers.

And speaking of pseudonyms: names such as Oscar Wilde, Adolf Deutch and Urban Hitler can be seen in the opening credit scene. Because why not …

Although Vibenius was confident enough to get Breaking Point screened at the Cannes Festival which turned out to be a complete disaster shitshow, he feels to this day very bitter about the film and wants no one to see it. Can I blame him? Maybe, maybe not. He went as far as to do his very best to erase the film entirely from its existence by stopping it from spreading on the bootleg market. So no, Breaking Point will never get a physical dick-release and is as obscure and rare like a snowball in hell. The only place to watch it online as for now is on the porn site spankbang. Have fun!

Director: Bo Arne Vibenius
Writers: Bo Arne Vibenius, Nat Sharp
Also known as: Breaking Point – En Pornografisk Thriller
Country & year: Sweden, 1975
Actors: Andreas Bellis, Barbara Scott, Jane McIntosch, Susanne Audrian, Bertha Klingspor, Marlyn Inverness, Liza June, Adolf Deutch, Joachim Bender
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0072736/

Breaking Point – Feature film from Vibenius on Vimeo.

Andra Sidan (2020)

Posted on February 3, 2021January 5, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Shirin moves to a new house together with her boyfriend Fredrik and his young son, Lucas. Their new home is a vertically divided semi-detached house, where the other side is uninhabited and in a slight state of disrepair. As Fredrik’s job requires a bit of travelling, Shirin must stay at their new home with her stepson, who misses his mother (who died of cancer). When the boy makes a new friend who he claims is living next doors in the uninhabited part of the building, Shirin starts to realize that this isn’t all child’s play.

Horror Ghouls have had their first theatrical screening this year, and it’s a movie from our neighbour country (Sweden), called Andra Sidan (which translates to “The Other Side”, but the english title is The Evil Next Door). It’s a ghost/haunted house horror flick, by the director duo Tord Danielsson and Oskar Mellander. It’s also their debut feature film.

Ghosts and haunted houses are among the most popular themes in horror, which also makes it one of the hardest genres to make anything that feels fresh and new to a viewer who has browsed through tons of movies like this. There’s bound to be some usage of cliché’s, and similar plot points and concepts. This doesn’t mean that new horror movies with said themes need to constantly reinvent the wheel, however, and sometimes you simply use what works despite that it’s been used before. What I’m trying to say, is that Andra Sidan is pretty much a bag filled with more of the same old tricks we’ve seen a lot of times before, but fortunately it belongs to the bunch that pulls it off pretty well. It’s quite obvious that the directors have been getting a lot of inspiration from other supernatural movies, and there’s imprints of James Wan all over the place.

There are some nice highlights here (including an attic that is creepy as hell). The house actually does look darn ominous, with its “other side” giving off bad vibes right from the start simply by how it looks. There’s good sound work, and nothing bad to point out about the acting, either, as the actors depict their roles and conflicting emotions in a believable and realistic way. Also, it was fun to see a small and partly obscured The Exorcist reference in the latter part of the movie. Regarding the claim that it’s “inspired by real events”, there is very little information to find about what the source of inspiration actually stems from, which could have been interesting to know. While “inspired by” very rarely means that a movie portrays something close to an actual event (as opposed to when movies say they’re “based on”), it would be nice to know what the source of said inspiration is.

The movie does leave a few questions unanswered, however, which leaves a certain hope for a possible prequel-sequel. Getting and in-depth version of what actually happened on that other side of the house, could be an interesting concept for a prequel story. In fact, we really hope they do make a prequel because there’s a strong foundation to make something really good here.

Overall, Andra Sidan is a dish we’ve tasted a lot of times before, but it’s still a strong addition to the haunted house/supernatural horror genre. Brooding, creepy atmosphere and well-aimed scares makes this a competent and satisfactory entry which I hope won’t be the last we see from the directors.

Directors: Tord Danielsson, Oskar Mellander
Country & year: Sweden, 2020
Actors: Jakob Fahlstedt, Janna Granström, Dilan Gwyn, Karin Holmberg, Troy James, Niklas Jarneheim, Henrik Norlén, Sovi Rydén, Linus Wahlgren
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11320192/

Wither (2012)

Posted on July 3, 2020September 12, 2023 by HorrorGhouls

When one would think that Evil Ed was the only splatter film Sweden had to offer, we came, by a coincidence, across this title called Wither – a homage to The Evil Dead, spiced with its own Swedish folklore called Vittre (Wither) to add some of its own personality to it. It was promoted as the first Swedish zombie movie when it came out in 2012, and the film received a very polarized reception in its home country, everything from praise to pure panning. One of the biggest newspapers in Sweden was obviously so offended by the film that the reviewer spent a full five sentences commenting on the film while the rest was spent on personal attacks against directors Sonny Laguna and Tommy Wiklund. Classy. But someone who clearly liked the movie must be producer Dallas Sonnier, who hired the duo to direct the twelfth Puppet Master movie a few years later. Cheers for that! Now, back to Wither:

A group of young party-ready people go to an abandoned house for a weekend far in the woods to get loose. They have no idea who owned it, except that the previous occupants left the house rotting like a sinking ship with all the belongings inside. At the same time, an elderly man with a rifle is lurking in the area, looking for his missing daughter. Maybe not the best place to spend the weekend. After a quick exploration in the immediate area, two of the kids find another abandoned house where one of them sneaks inside through the window where she comes across a cellar trapdoor. And what do we say then? Don’t go in the basement! Yeah, right. She returns to the gang that is well underway with the party. Traumatized by what she saw downstairs in the basement, she locks herself in the bathroom and suffers panic attacks. It goes from bad to worse when she starts pissing blood, her eyes have become bloodshot, and she collapses. Then she resurrects like a demonic zombie, hungry for human flesh. And there’s full blood-splattering carnage from here on.

One can also draw more comparisons to the 2012 remake of The Evil Dead (which is awesome, by the way) with its gritty, serious tone. There is no over-the-top gallows humor here, and while one may not care much about the characters and who’s what, the acting is pretty decent. Technically, the film looks good with some great effects, good make-up, and probably a usage of several gallons of fake blood that the actors had to slip through. A strong and crisp soundtrack also helps, but the film has its obvious weaknesses. The script halts in which several scenes become too tedious, and the last 30 minutes could honestly have been trimmed down a bit or two. A main protagonist to root for, an Ash if you will, is also missed here. However, I still enjoyed the film as a whole, and it probably helped with some low expectations. But one thing is certain: if you want blood, you got it!

Directors: Sonny Laguna, Tommy Wiklund
Original title: Vittra
Country & year: Sweden, 2012
Actors: Patrik Berg-Almkvisth, Lisa Henni, Patrick Saxe, Johannes Brost, Amanda Renberg, Jessica Blomkvist, Max Wallmo, Anna Henriksson, Ingar Sigvardsdotter, Ralf Beck, Sanna Ekman, Julia Knutson, Jessica Darberg
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt2140671/

Evil Ed (1995)

Posted on February 15, 2019March 11, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Edward Tor Swenson (Johan Rudebeck) is editing dull swedish drama-films that nobody wants to see. When the former editor in the building’s “Splatter and Gore Department” became mad and stuffed a grenade in his mouth, Ed is set up to replace him, a task he would quickly regret. Ed gets his own, dark house in the woods where he sits through the newest film in a horror movie series called «The Loose Limbs», which serves as a parody of all of the trashy horror sequels we got in the 1980’s. Ed becomes increasingly influenced by all the cruel violence he must sit through and it drives him crazy, or drives him “Evil Ed”, if you will. Now the world shall pay for making these influential garbage films, and he goes on a wild rampage.

«Evil Ed» is first and foremost a satire and spoof against the Cinemabureau of the State in Sweden that edited out explicit and gory scenes in horror movies to such an extent that it was only dry meat left. The scenes where the gory things happened would jump-cut right into the end of the scene. Not only did we miss the gory stuff, but also the whole context of the scenes. It looked choppy and messy and was irritating as hell. Those of us who grew up in the 80s and 90s, are aware of how horror movies on VHS were brutally treated by cencorship, especially in Norway (where I am from). They really showed no mercy to those poor celluloids, and even a scene in “Ghostbusters” were cut from the VHS in the norwegian release back in the day. Fortunately, things are different now.

With the cencorship history in the back of your mind, you will probably get more out of «Evil Ed», but this is still a fun little low-budget slasher made with lots of energy, enthusiasm, and a ton of horror references and cheesy dubbing. And music by E-Type, of course.

Director: Anders Jacobsson
Country & year: Sweden, 1995
Actors: Johan Rudebeck, Per Löfberg, Olof Rhodin, Camela Leierth, Gert Fylking, Cecilia Ljung, Michael Kallaanvaara
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0116247/