I knew some things from the book, that I read when I was a wee 17-yearold baby 'Trige. I quite liked it, and some parts stuck out, like, the death creature, that lady who was religious, Elias the zombie child, and the hamster incedent. But apart from that I didn't remember much.
But I knew pretty quickly that some people were altered or stuck together. Like Flora, who met death as a kid, is now the big sister of the kid with the hamster, and it is a bunny now, not a hamster. The religous lady is gone. I don't even remember an old lesbian couple, but they might have been in the book. The parts of the book that I loved the most, how realistically it was handled by the goverment and such, barely showed. Ok so..
The lady who died in a carcrash, and awoke a few hours later. It was mostky about the family, and not about her. But the scene where she sqweezed the bunny to death was there. How she talked and how she acted, wasn't there much. She didn't talk, and I get that the actors was supposed to, play dead.. And how do you even do that? But I felt it needed more, of something, with the lady who died in the car crash.
The old couple was sweet and sad, and I did like that a quite a lot more, emotionwize. She cried, was in the fridge, refused to eat and so on. It felt like she was sleepwalking in a way, but with a sollem undertone. Her wife, man, that was so sad. In the end, she killed herself and her dead wife ate her. So the zombie thing was there. But by far the worst, and best part, was of course Elias, the dead child.
That grandfather was a damn good actor first of all, and the kid oh man. The realistic parts of how a corpse decomposes and all of that, ugh it was so damn gross. The part when the grandpa washed Elias in the tub made me want to puke. But it too was convinsing actingwise. The kid seemed like a dazed shell of a person. And his decomposing corpse was so gross, with eyedrops to open the eyes that were shut, the mother pressing out the poop when she pushed on his petruding belly. Ugh and the bathing. The way the kid wheezed in pain, his eyes looking at his mother, it was really well done. But the mother, she was in some parts convinsing. And in others, not. Like, how would you react when an unknown man/zombie bites and killled your aging father? She didn't react all that much. And ended up throwing her decomposing son overboard of a rowboat after he bit her, and after her father died. She didn't react much in the end. But the depravity and strength of a mother's love was evident, and acted well. But her reactions to things in the end of the film wasn't, done very well. The part where she says goodbye to her son made my friend cry. And she told me she remembers when loved ones has died and you always wish them back. But this movie shows the price of that actually happening, and how the grief gets extended and more painful. So it sin't worth it.
I hoped I would see death in this film, as a wolf or something, ya know? Or a flashback from when Flora fell into the river, or lake?? But no, nothing. She had a boyfriend, that didn't really go anywhere. Her kid brother sang funural prayer song in arabic? I am not sure that is correct, for his lil bunny, and probably mother. That was nice. But I just, didn't connect with that family. I don't know why, because apart from the dead mother zombie parts, the acting was so good. I had hoped for the more supernatural aspects of the book to shine, and the more administrative goverment things to show more, and that the dead mother had something to say. That would have been so cool. But no, and the ending was sort of open ended too. But I think that was from the book?
I am not gonna see this film again, because the parts with Elias disgusted me so, which is the point of course. But all in all it was a pretty good film. Especially for a Norwegian made film, they are usually pretty terrible. (Not like the Swedes and Danes who are known to make pretty good movies) I was impressed, and the make.up was pretty stellar. Very convincing. Whoever diracted that kid should earn some sort of reward. The sound design was pretty good, and creepy, too. Both with disgusting soundeffects and creepy music. Pretty good. And many of the shots reminded me a lot of LTROI in that was was long slow moving shots with people moving about past it and beyond it. But it was pretty, I'll give it that.
So that's what I think
