Today I took my first foray into Norwegian horror. I’m always a little excited when I discover horror from a country I’ve not seen a horror entry from before because it opens up a new world of things to discover. Sometimes it can be difficult to understand or “get” the horror for cultural or other reasons and the movie turns out being non-scary or even comical, or in the worst cases, derivative. Other times, as with Japanese or even Korean horror, there are terrible things that are universal to all ethnicities and it tends to be a breath of fresh air for an American like me to discover how production companies around the world do horror. There was this great Scandinavian entry I watched a year or two ago called Rare Exports but if I recall correctly, that was Finnish.

A crew of five hazardous waste workers are sent to a massive, abandoned sanatorium deep in the mountains. But their routine assignment takes a dark turn when they encounter the building’s terrifying past. -Amazon Prime

First things first. The production of Villmark Asylum is top notch. Professional camera work, professional actors, with a plot and story to go along with. Definitely a premiere production company and probably well known producer/director in Norway. Sometimes we can overlook shoddy camera work, or some bad acting, or even someone who’s not even trying. Not the case with Villmark Asylum. Though the setup may sound generic, a group of people go to an abandoned building deep in the wooded countryside and the creepfest begins, it’s the perfect introduction for Villmark Asylum. It works. There’s no preliminary unneeded tête-à-tête with the 5 workers at the beginning wasting film space as the character development develops along with the story, as it should.

Second, the story. We follow a hazardous waste worker team inventorying an old World War II era asylum deep in the Norwegian countryside. The asylum is huge with a main central area and wings to either side. Definitely fits the bill for an old asylum. These types of workers are usually surveying for hazardous materials such as asbestos that was used for fireproofing and things like old leaded window panes which was common back in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, and possibly mercury in the water. As they make their way into the asylum and start looking around a diorama of the area and nearby lake is found with a model of a German Fokker fighter plane possibly having crashed into the lake. Synne, one of our hazardous waste workers notices something in the lake of the diorama and it turns out to be German World War II era dog tags. She pockets them as a memento? Weird. Though there probably is some historical as well as collector value in such items, as American Beauty has taught us. The workers find a large room to use as base camp and start setting up their equipment. Live, pronounced ‘leev’, the senior or manager of the crew notices a small necklace or bracelet with the letters ‘L’, ‘I’, ‘F’, ‘H’, and ‘E’ on the floor. These letters become a recurring theme throughout the movie and will be found in various locations as the movie progresses.

Finally, with a great production, serious actors doing their part, and a creepy story stringing us along, an intriguing and downright scary tale develops. There’s some great originality, a little misdirection, all the things we want to see and feel from a story we’ve become engrossed in. Sometimes those feelings are far from great when watching a horror but I think the genre is perfect for manipulating our psyche’s and ultimately I think we all do it for the thrill it gives. Safe in our theater rows or our couches at home it’s fun, at least for me, to get a little scared and think back to childhood when fears seemed a little more real. I’ve personally always been interested in the paranormal or far out and horror movies are just another vehicle to prod the soul with. There’s not much of that in Villmark Asylum, but there’s plenty of horror inbound.

I’m impressed with my first foray into Norwegian horror, though the movie could have been seen or made from any viewpoint as the horrors of war and scary locations are universal. As I did further research into Villmark Asylum I’ve discovered that it seems to be a part 2 or possibly an “in universe” entry for another Norwegian film entitled “Villmark“. Thus far I have had some difficulty locating this particular film. Apparently the title goes by another name, under the English moniker Dark Woods. I have found other movies named the same but they are not the specific Norwegian title I am looking for. Because I enjoyed Villmark Asylum I am going to continue to look for what might be that part 1, or prequel, or whatever simply because I have become intrigued by the difficulty in locating the movie, as well as having enjoyed Villmark Asylum. The two movies have this common theme of a red tent and that’s something I want to know more about.

Villmark Asylum is definitely a scary story with an interesting premise in its plot. The movie was entertaining and it did rouse some feelings during my viewing of it and that I think is ultimately what I look for when watching a movie to help me decide whether I liked it or not and whether it merits an article. So, if this article piques your interest or you’re simply looking for a decent horror to watch, you won’t go wrong with Villmark Asylum; it’ll be worth your time.