phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2025

The Damned



IMDb Info

Release Year: 2024
Runtime: 1h 29m
Country: Ireland, UK, Iceland, Belgium
Language: English
Genre Tags: Drama, Horror, Mystery
Plot Summary: A 19th-century widow has to make an impossible choice when, during an especially cruel winter, a foreign ship sinks off the coast of her Icelandic fishing village.

Poster - Title Card


phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: Everyone in this movie is damned by one impossible decision and undone by the literal specter of guilt and grief. Beautifully shot in Iceland, somehow dreamy and naturalistic at the same time. A tense and moody affair that mines its dread in the quiet moments.


Outside Reviews:

Glenn Kenny
3 out of 4 stars - rogerebert.com

The tension is underscored by composer Stephen McKeon's high-pitched strings, recalling the Penderecki music Kubrick grafted to horror imagery to memorable effect in "The Shining." The entire cast, including British "Peaky Blinders" star Joe Cole, hangs in throughout the nerve-wracking proceedings in appropriately downcast modes. By the finale, in which the fire that Eva was told was necessary to break the curse of the dead materializes, it's in the service of a genuinely gasp-inducing twist. Speaking of breaking curses, the first movies of any given year are usually among the worst. Not this one. It's a keeper, so treat yourself to a scary New Year's celebration.


Jim Vorel
Grade: 7.9 out of 10 - Chilly Icelandic Horror The Damned Is Worth a Shiver

Still, The Damned gets by more than well enough via the elemental strength of its moral dilemma and the pristine beauty and unrelenting inhospitality of the Icelandic wilderness that is its scene-stealing star. At the very least, it's enough to make one grateful for a warm blanket and mug of tea on a cold winter's night, and the freedom to dismiss the howl of the wind outside your door as simply an element of the natural world, rather than an approaching undead revenant bent on your destruction. Got to appreciate the little things, right?