I am a very big fan of Dennis Jürgensen's books, have read nearly all of his work. So when I find out he's written the screenplay for a Danish horror movie, of course I make sure to see it. However, the book of this film is easier to come by than the movie itself, so I read that first. I was in no way disappointed; reading the book is like reading the script of one of the American slasher masterpieces, like Halloween, only in Jürgensen's style. I heavily recommend it to fans of Jürgensen. I don't, however, recommend this mess of a slasher movie. The script is written by Jürgensen all right, but a good script doesn't equal a good movie. Having read the book, I could recognize a lot of scenes and lines, but the film just lacks the intensity and mood of the book. Jürgensen has always had a talent in giving the reader chills down the spine, unfortunately it doesn't seem that this can be successfully copied into film; or maybe this just had the wrong director. Not that the cast helps much; most of the actors talents stretch no further than reciting their lines. They convey either too little or too much emotion in almost each scene. The plot is good enough, but it's the same as in the book, so you might as well read that. The actors are, as I said, either acting badly or overacting. The characters are fairly diverse, but they lack the development that the book supplies. A lot of the book was compressed to make sure the movie wasn't too long or boring. However, with so little development, you barely care at all about the characters, and therefore you don't feel for them when they die. The effects are weak; the death scene effects are especially below average. I realize that Danish films have less money than American do, to spend on effects, but I've seen independent films that had better effects. The movie does have some fairly good atmosphere in the beginning, but this quickly vanishes and we're left with some (sub)standard attempts at shocking you, by having a character leap out of the shadows every five seconds. Some parts of the story, which were scary in the book, also seem ridiculous and laughable in the film; for example, when I first read the end of the book, I actually had a chill down my spine... when I saw it in the film, I chuckled, mainly at the bad acting. All in all, an OK slasher film, average at best. I recommend this film to fans of slashers, but I urge you to read the book first/instead. It's far better. 5/10
Review of Mørkeleg
