The world is full of morons. I’d say the majority of meat walking this planet is a moron. Nitwits hooking up with twits and creating more morons. These little morons do stupid things and this stupidity usually comes back around to bite these young idjits on the ass. Even in lovely Sweden.
Two Swedish children have had enough with their physically abusive teacher. They plan on playing a little joke on the bully of a man and sneak up to his house one late night in October. Tossing in some fireworks, their goofy fun blows up in their faces metaphorically by blowing up all over their professor literally. The asshole burns to death and the two prepubescent dinks scamper on off. Twenty tears pass and things are not copacetic.
After the incident, Steve and his family left Sweden for the sunnier shores of America. Steve’s had a pretty successful life as a record producer (?) in Dallas. His old buddy, Eric, has not been so fortunate. His mental health seems to be diminishing and he’s convinced that the teacher they pretty much murdered all those years ago is haunting him. He writes a letter to the man he hasn’t seen in two decades, and Steve gets worried that Eric may be close to confessing their murderiffic secret. Canceling his vacation with his wife, Linda, Steve plans on heading home. Linda is (rightfully) pissed that the plans have changed and demands to go along. He eventually caves and the couple are off to Sweden.
They find Eric a drunken and paranoid mess. He attacks Steve at first but eventually calms down enough to tell Steve that the dead teacher is back and is using hallucinations to drive him insane. Steve doesn’t believe him but he soon starts seeing things and has to come around to his old buddy’s side of things. Poor Linda gets swept up in it too and the trio are terrorized by the charred skeletal ghost who talks with a echoey monster voice. Linda gets the bright idea (thanks to a scary book she read) to destroy what remains of the dead man’s house and get rid of his ghost forever. Sure. Why not?
There’s a lot going on while nothing fucking happens. It’s a confusing mix that luckily fits well with the atmosphere the movie is going for. Robotic performances and nonsensical dialogue add to the fever dream burning your brain as you’re lulled to sleep by heavy Swedish accents. It’s not just poorly performed roles that give you the cold sweats.
A chubby police officer shows up looking for a burglar and then gets suspicious thanks to the obviously hiding something Eric. A gang of lame ass hooligans that belong in a bottom of the barrel Italian Mad Max rip-off take out heroes prisoner for a brief moment and then disappear as quickly as they came. Possession, a car chase and a knife wielding ventriloquist dummy pop in for a brief hello and then exit faster than an Irishman leaving a party. I’m confused and a little dumber for watching this but (as I am one of the aforementioned morons) can’t hate this weirdo bit of Swedish garbage. Oh yeah. It’s wrapped up by a cowboy hat wearing, eye-patched punk explaining to the fat cop what happened at the former home of the burnt professor. Wonderful. 6/10
Spook du jour 