Pulpmovies Reviews

Craig, the film, opens with a house fire which has left two parents dead and their daughter in a coma. The circumstances are suspicious and, inevitably, the police decide to interview the only surviving family member, Craig (Kim Sønderholm).

The interview goes badly and ends with Craig storming out. The police, led by Johnny (Peter Ottesen) let him go – they know where he is and don’t think he’s guilty – although Johnny does have a sense that there is more to Craig than has so far been revealed.

We then jump forward six months and things are going badly for Craig. He still hasn’t moved on from his parents’ deaths, his sister is still in a coma and he is struggling through life with the aid of anti-depressants and a psychologist (Anja Owe). And he’s lonely.

Although desperate for human contact, Craig is a pretty inept character socially and his attempts to meet people are consistently rebuffed. This leads Craig to create a downward spiral for himself in which his increasingly sleazy behaviour leads to his being on the receiving end of a stream of humiliations, which he responds to by becoming increasingly squalid.

It’s this downward spiral that takes up much of the running time of the film and, as with Delivery, we do get a real sense of Craig’s damaged character. And it’s to Kim Sønderholm’s great credit that he manages to maintain a great deal of sympathy for his character as we watch him go to pieces and descend increasingly into his disturbingly violent fantasy world.

It’s this insight into the character of Craig, and the empathy that has been engendered for how he sees things, that makes the film stand out. When he does reach his final straw, Craig’s behaviour becomes both shocking and understandable, and it’s this combination that makes the film such a disturbing experience.

The atmosphere of the film also helps immeasurably here, and what an atmosphere it is. Both the suitably grimy cinematography and the admirably downbeat score are combined superbly with Sønderholm’s effective juxtaposing of pornography and violence to build an experience that is both engrossing and discomforting.

Craig does take a bit of time to get going but once it does, the pay off is well worth the wait. Writers Kim Sønderholm and Jan T. Jensen have taken the time to build a solid and believable character and to deliver a remarkably intense horror/thriller that really does get under your skin.

It’s a strongly atmospheric film that draws together a number of very capable actors from both sides of the Atlantic, all of whom put in an effective performance, to deliver a powerfully effective horror story that really does deserve to be seen.

Trackback this Post | Feed on comments to this Post