THE DAMNED (2025) - Mark Reviews Movies

The Damned, Vertical

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Review by Mark Dujsik | January 2, 2025

One can almost feel the biting cold of The Damned, set in a remote fishing village on the coast of Iceland during the mid-19th century. Director Thordur Palsson seems especially keen on giving that sense of atmosphere to his feature debut, because everything else about it feels overly familiar and half considered.

Initially, the story shows some promise, in terms of the setting, the desperate characters trying to survive within it, and a couple of moral quandaries that arise. In charge of the operation, even though she seems among the unlikeliest of candidates, is Eva (Odessa Young), the young widow of the owner of the fishermen's boat. He died while traversing the shallow waters around a distant but still-visible rock formation dubbed "the Teeth," and after briefly introducing a crew led by helmsman Ragnar (Rory McCann), Jamie Hannigan's screenplay gives them all something to debate and by which to be haunted—figuratively at first, at least.

A masted ship has become stuck in the center of the Teeth and is clearly taking on water. On the shore, the fishermen can hear the distant cries for help and screams for some human or divine rescue, and while some of the younger crewmembers want to provide that aid, Ragnar is adamant about doing nothing. They don't have the space in their rowboat for a rescue, and even if the crew did save anyone, those would be extra mouths to feed.

This winter has been particularly tough for the fishermen, and they've already started to eat from the bait meant for their expeditions. Any of the ship's survivors would likely starve with them, and having more people in camp would likely guarantee starvation, instead of it seeming like a probability. Despite it condemning the wrecked ship's crew to the same awful fate as her husband, Eva, who has the last word on any decision, agrees with Ragnar.

It's a difficult choice but, in order for the fishermen to avoid danger and survive the cold, likely the correct one, but the script doesn't simply leave it at that. No, there's also a bit of a benefit for the crew for not saving the sailors on the doomed vessel, although it also means Ragnar's worries about the lack of food and supplies were ultimately meaningless. While walking along the shore the following morning, Eva discovers a barrel filled with food, washed up from the now-sunken ship. Suddenly, neither she nor the helmsman have any concerns about rowing out to the Teeth, because there must be more to recover.

There's one more step to the setup, which won't be revealed here because it's probably the last and only surprise the movie has to offer. Either way, the premise is laid out even without this detail. Eva and the fishermen let the ship's crew die, scavenged their supplies, and, now, have to live with the guilt, as well as some other consequences, of their decisions, inaction, and, with that last unspoken bit, deeds.

Almost immediately, the movie turns from the human and practical implications of this narrative toward the supernatural. The fishermen, finding bodies from the shipwreck washing on shore, put the corpses in coffins (after one's stomach moves a bit in a sickening revelation) and debate if more should be done. There are old superstitions, not of ghosts or spirits, but of unnatural entities—the resurrected bodies of drowned or killed sailors driving others mad. Eva dismisses such ideas, and so, too, does Daniel (Joe Cole), a fisherman who wants to get close to the widow. In terms of characterization, his motive and personality might be the most developed of the supporting cast, which isn't saying much of anything, obviously.

That's mainly because the crewmembers become the usual fodder of horror tales, to be killed off one by one as an apparent threat invades the village. Eva starts to see a figure in the shadows, slowly rising with slippery movements accompanied by wet slurps. The shape disappears, of course, whenever someone else enters the room or notices her staring at the corner. Is she going mad with regret and remorse for consigning the sailors to their fate, or are the old superstitions grounded in terrible reality?

The fishermen start behaving strangely, too, on account of guilt, illness, similar visions, or, perhaps, the diabolical aims of a ghostly thing that has come to camp. With nothing more than a few names and the broad sense that most of these characters are the inevitable victims in a horror movie, there's little reason to be invested in the strange happenings and sometimes-grisly deaths.

That's especially the case as soon as the makers of The Damned reveal they don't have anything else in mind than the movie's mood, the broad question of whether or not the haunting is real, and the pattern of one supporting character after another disappearing, only to be found dead later, or meeting a violent end. It's repetitive and hollow, despite how chilling the first act may be and chilly—both the temperature and sense of detachment—the rest of the movie may feel.

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