Tale of Vampires

Over here in Europe, and especially during the annual Horror & Fantasy Festivals all over the continent, "Frostbite" got endlessly praised and acclaimed as one of the most innovating and creative new vampire movies of the last few decades, but you honestly have to put all this eulogy into perspective a little. First of all because European horror critics understandably wish to promote our own stuff as opposed to that uninspired American "junk" and, secondly, because the guys behind the camera (director Anders Banke and producer Magnus Paulsson) used to be involved in the organization of the Swedish Fantasy Festival and thus the critics support each other. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the horror-festivals and I'm grateful that I can go and watch a truckload of new cult stuff there every year, but this circle of European Fantasy Festivals is undeniably some sort of elite club. That being said, I don't intend to state "Frostbite" is a bad film or anything … It just isn't as original and refreshing as it pretends to be. Given the North-Swedish setting, the tag line and the synopsis, I was anticipating a sort of predecessor to "30 Days of Night" but it's actually something completely different. The story revolves on an obsessive doctor trying to create the ultimate breed of vampires ever since he himself became one during World War II. He invented these red pills to fine-tune vampirism, but they accidentally end up at a local teenager's house party and all the guests gradually transform into bloodthirsty monsters. "Frostbite" features a lot of ideas and simultaneously attempts to parody the horror genre, but unfortunately it only became a very incoherent, not-so-funny and seemingly finished horror movie. The intro-flashback is overlong and, in general, not a whole lot is happening during the first hour. The last half hour compensates for a lot, though, since the film becomes extremely gory, absurd and tasteless. The actual ending comes abruptly and makes no sense at all, but the foregoing house-party massacre is quite cool to watch. The special and make-up effects are excellent (clearly, most of the budget went there) and the acting performances of the primarily young and inexperienced cast members are more than adequate. "Frostbite" is definitely an interesting and potentially terrific film, but the writers nearly didn't make enough use of the location's possibilities and the polar night concept.

If you're expecting a true horror movie, you'll be disappointed. This movie was hilarious. And that is exactly the way it was meant to be enjoyed, as a comedy horror (along the lines of "Shawn of the Dead"). The storyline that follows the daughter is better developed than the one with the mother, and plays for more laughs. I saw it courtesy of the Seattle International Film Festival, at midnight, with a theatre full of other vampire film lovers. My biggest complaint would be that it does take a little too long for the opening sequence (taking place during WWII, German with Swedish and English subtitles) to be explained. It's also the scariest part of the whole film. If you don't like horror films, this is a great one to see. Rent it and have a bunch of friends over.

This is one of the best Swedish movies ever! It is however not a horror movie, it felt more like a black comedy with some smaller horror elements. The main story is about a girl that moves with her mother to a small town in the north of Sweden, where it is dark 24/7 during the winter. She tries to make friends at her new school, and meets a goth-girl called Vega. Strange things start happening in the town, people are found dead completely drained of blood, without any trace of any killer. Anyway, this is a great movie, it has good effects and good music. The only thing I can really complain about is some of the actors, who reminds me very much of amateurs. Overall however this was a really enjoyable movie, I laughed a lot and so did the whole audience at the theater. I saw it at the Arctic Light Film Festival in Kiruna, February 2006. Great movie!

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Bad focus from time to time. Lack of creativity.

EDITING: Pretty good considering the cinematography.

ACTING: Various

LIGHTING: Nice but i prefer fog and mist-lighting effects in horror movies.

MUSIC: Very well written and performed. Almost too good to work effectively together with some of the scenes. Gets too melodramatic at times, like the old silent films that scared the crap out the audience a long time ago.

DIRECTING: ?

VAMPIRES: Super nice! Realistic make up and CG.

SCARE: Bad timing in editing and bad choice of camera angles. If the movie tries to make the audience jump out of their seats with fear, we jump with laughter.

HUMOUR: Funny situations appear in the story. Maybe the next Swedish film project.

OPENING SCENE: Boring and not quite convincing.

SCRIPT: Correct thinking in structure but unfortunately, some of the characters feel superfluous. Vampire-Sebastian would be a lot more fun idea for a movie.

OTHER COMMENTS: They have overseen some of the best opportunities to capture beautiful and scary scenes involving white snow, fog and blood. Desipite the fact that the action is taking place in the middle of the cold winter, this wasn't used as a physical problem for the characters. I believe it was much colder for the slow working film crew than what was captured in the final result of the film. Where did all the money go?

I just watched the film in a small town in the southern of Sweden called Laholm and I must start this review by saying that I'm mighty impressed by this movie.

On my way in I cached a few words with a woman standing in line and I also tough I recognized a man in her company, but I could place him and later when they got up on "stage", to present the movie, it all came clear to me who they were. I had seen the man on TV doing an interview and if I just had tough of that earlier…

But anyway, on to the review.

To begin somewhere, I will start with the Visuals. I think the camera placement in the scenes were OK and with good colors. Sometimes it could seem like it was getting a bit out of focus but I think it was intended to add a good feel to it. The special effects were nice and not to flashy.

Then we come to the audio part. Music was really nice and fitting. The audio were clear and the dialog felt real.

On to the story. It was an interesting story with a great beginning as well as ending.

The feel. The whole thing felt very real, not at all Swedish and not to "Hollywood". I have heard that the movie were somewhat comical and when I heard I taught something like "No, not another silly comedy", but now after I've seen the film I must say that it had some funny moments but they all felt real and not silly comedy as you see in a lot of movies these days (Maybe the talking dogs were a bit to silly, but it were kind of cool the first time). Vampire movies are often either action, splatter or vampires-are-good movies but this movie had a good blend of events that made it unreleasable in any of these categories. It didn't feel like a Horror movie, walking home alone at midnight in a small dark "village" after seeing the movie were no problem, although I cached a glimpse over my shoulder once in a wile just to make sure. Also the fact that the producers of the film were there and presented the whole thing is always a bonus.

The Rating I give this movie 7/10… no, because of some circumstances 8/10.

The Circumstances ^ I don't like to compare movies to other movies from the same country, but I must say that this were really nice, not just for being a Swedish movie. And then maybe some people think vampire movies should be all dark and fogy and sure these are great movies to, but they shouldn't be compared to this one. There were some few things that I didn't like but they really were few and I think you can overlook one or two things in a movie and still think it is great.

//SteffeB