Wither

Wither (Vittra) (2012)

Runtime: 95 minutes

Directed by: Sonny Laguna/Tommy Wiklund

Starring: Patrik Almkvist, Lisa Henni, Patrick Saxe, Johannes Brost, Jessica Blomkvist

From: Stockholm Syndrome Film

I actually saw this movie on Sunday night and I am just posting the review of it here now. Whoops. I'll post another review Wednesday proper. For now, read about Swedish The Evil Dead:

This is one of the many random low-budget horror films that can be found for free on Amazon Prime, if you have that service like I do. A decent chunk of that is foreign horror, such as this film. It can be described rather easily: “Swedish The Evil Dead.” Even the Amazon blurb said this in so many words. It's not an official remake, but a group of young people go to a cabin in the woods, and most of them turn into what's essentially Deadites. There's no Naturom Demonto which is read from but it's rather obvious what the influences are; the hero even wears a button-up blue shirt. Another 80's horror film or two was an “inspiration”.

I know many will disagree but I found this far better than the official Evil Dead remake from Fede Alvarez. That I've seen twice (the first time the theatrical cut, the second time the unrated cut found only via a streaming rental) and both times, I was annoyed by how bad it was and how I did not care for the story or the characters or how it was terrible compared to the great original film from Sam Raimi. Wither, there isn't exactly a lot of characterization and our hero is no Ash. Yet, I cared more for these people than in Evil Dead and there was no insultingly stupid plot point like the lead going into the woods to “cure drug addiction”, a plot point that ended up being pretty meaningless. Sure, this film had some inexplicable moments but nothing was as astoundingly dumb as the lead girl Mia “being cured” in Alvarez's movie.

I can say this is fine overall, even if they didn't quite stick the landing, i.e. the ending. I found this to be enjoyable fun and if you felt the same way about the official remake like I did, you may prefer this instead. An important thing to note: this has comparable amounts of graphic gore to that aforementioned remake. Sure, there's no Slayer song moment at the end, but that was a lame “trying way too hard” thing anyhow, so it was not missed by me. A lot of the effects appeared to be practical, too. Those that like gore will definitely enjoy all the gallons of blood spilled and be delighted by an upper lip being ripped off, an arm amputation or other bits I dare not spoil. Plus, Fede's movie did not have a supporting character I like to call SWEDISH HAL HOLBROOK (as in, how Hal looked in the 70's), so that's another bonus.

This isn't a beloved classic like The Evil Dead (it could have had more of a sense of humor) and yet this was better than what I expected from the plot description and the practical effects were appreciated by me.