The Big Picture

A historical horror with great performances across the board,

Thordur Palsson’s
The Damned
offers a chilling exploration of survival and madness.
The film delves into folklore and trauma, grappling with the dark forces that lurk in the recesses of our minds as they unravel.
Odessa Young gives an outstanding performance, with even just her eyes capturing a sense of terror that cuts deeper than the coldest of nights.

Throughout The Damned, writer-director Thordur Palsson’s formidable feature debut, the phrase that kept echoing through my head was the chilling proclamation that the “world is dark and full of terrors.” Yes, this is a quote from Game of Thrones, whose Rory McCann is part of the cast here. However, he is not what kept bringing it to mind. No, it was the terror in the eyes of those like Odessa Young and Joe Cole where this was most felt. In the isolated Icelandic fishing village their characters inhabit in the 19th century, this desolate darkness is where death awaits. Not only is this where you can freeze to death, but it’s where the forces beyond our understanding may also lurk. Whether they’re there or not, which is something that’s best left to discover in the film for yourself, they certainly feel petrifyingly real. Even as the story can be occasionally more standard stuff, the execution of how it is all brought together is frequently stunning work, making for a film you won’t be so easily able to shake.

This is especially felt in the hands of cinematographer Eli Arenson, who previously did good work on the much less successful horror film The Watchers, as he captures the beauty of this world just as he does the looming brutality. You gasp in awe at the vast landscapes, which are as magnificent to see as they are terrifying, just as your throat freezes up over the fear that there may be no getting free once it has you in its icy grasp. It is an experience where the darkness of the mind can swallow you just as completely as that of the world around you. When you least expect it, everything and anything you know can be ripped away from you. Whether it is because you are driven to madness or because there is really a menacing force waiting to strike, the devastation that it wreaks remains the same no matter how you look at it.

What Is ‘The Damned’ About?
Image via Tribeca

The one at the core of this is Eva (Odessa) who has recently been dealing with the loss of her husband. Though she has managed to carry on, survival is still no easy task, especially as hunger begins to set in. In the opening narration and a simple yet sinister extended shot, we see how their food stores have run low. While it could be redundant to hear this spelled out to us, it gives the film a more melancholic tone as we hear Eva frankly laying out how things have gotten so bad that they have taken to eating the fish that they would typically put aside for bait. Desperate people, even the best among us, will do desperate things to survive. Thus, when they see a ship that is in trouble just offshore, they have to decide what to do. Initially, they decide that they will leave the survivors out there to die. After all, how can they hope to help others when they are constantly on the edge of catastrophe themselves? This becomes more complicated when a barrel washes up and they discover that they may have resources they could use. The decision they make may then bring doom down on all of their heads.

With each scene, The Damned decisively descends further into all-consuming darkness. An early violent encounter and the aftermath of one shattering final blow is merely the beginning of the haunting tone that Palsson drags us into. Along with his co-writer Jamie Hannigan, character traits and details tumble out naturally just as the suffocating sense of dread feels distinctly unnatural. Specifically, the film references what is known as The Draugur. One could, perhaps reductively, classify them as being zombies, but The Damned smartly doesn’t ever make anything quite so concrete. As bodies wash ashore, we get some explanation about what may happen and how to potentially stop it. Critically, this still all feels like speculation, as nobody is certain about what is going on. Unexpectedly, the film that most came to mind as this is playing out was David Cronenberg’s underrated recent Cannes film, The Shrouds.

This is not because it has any formal similarities to The Damned, but because both attempt to look deeper into why it is that we create narratives to comfort ourselves. Even though they can seem terrifying, it’s easier than the truth that could be staring us right in the face. The mind can become untethered when faced with immense trauma, and we will turn to whatever we can to pull it back together again. For Cronenberg, it was conspiracy theories, while for Palsson, it’s something closer to folklore, which end up being not so different. It’s about making sense of a chaotic world where the people we thought we were and the situations we find ourselves in get upended. Is it not easier to imagine there is some dark force lurking than the potential that we may be flawed, even cruel, people who are doing what we can to survive? There are flashes of everything from The Witch to The Thing just as it carves out a distinct sense of dread in its period setting where you can feel the cold emanating from every frame.

‘The Damned’ Is a Damn Good Psychological Horror Movie
Image via Tribeca

Palsson never lays this on thick, even as you can cut the atmosphere with a knife. What makes The Damned so effective is how grounded it all is in the characters and their perception of the world. As Eva begins to form a connection with Daniel (Joe Cole), it seems like there could be some warmth and kindness in this cold world. This only makes the dashing of the fragile moments of tranquility the two share all the more painful. Cole gets some moments towards the end when his character is in a bad way that are brutal to watch yet still oddly mesmerizing. You can see the man Daniel once was in his eyes, but there is a distance too that is disconcerting. As the charm he once had fades, all that is left is a cold that cuts to the very bone more completely than even the most frigid of snowstorms. The one who carries all this on her shoulders is then Young who gives one of her best performances to date. Where she was given a rather thankless part in the recent Manodrome, Eva is a character of layers that we get to see her perfectly capture in agonizing detail as they all unravel before us. With every nightmarish vision we are immersed in, we feel via Young’s performance how complete despair and the madness that follows are always waiting in the wings to drag you away.

This includes the fitting finale which, while not the most surprising closer in the world, still burns bright. The manner in which this consumes Eva is a testament to the power of Young’s performance. It is in how she subtly captures the way her character begins to lose her grasp on reality that makes the moment where the floor drops out all the more brutal. It echoes something closer to Saint Maud and the way all of us are capable of falling prey to the depths of our minds. Whether Eva and her companions are truly as damned as the title would suggest is the fundamental question to which there is no easy answer. There is a literal one in terms of what happened, but the question of the soul is another entirely. What is clear is that, as we get one final look at the terror creeping into Young’s unblinking eyes, we see how it is the most damning truths that can utterly destroy us faster than even the coldest of nights.

Rating: 7/10

The Damned had its World Premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival.