One thing is guaranteed when making summaries of the year gone by: Sweden has not produced a horror film (again) and children are blessed with numerous genre productions, even if they don’t really realize it. Here’s a brief overview. The most prevalent factors in Nordic genre cinema is that the overall output is small, unstable…
Today, TV channels across the Nordic region launch the annual highlight for many children; the TV calendars. The tradition has become a spearhead for fantasy based children’s entertainment. For almost 60 years, televised advent calendars in the form of short 24-episode drama series for children have aired in the Nordic region between December 1st and…
In a few days, the Nordic public broadcasters unleash some of their biggest efforts throughout the year; the Christmas Calendars, aimed mostly at children and airing every day from December 1st to 24th. The Nordic region has a long tradition of Christmas countdown TV drama for children, so-called Christmas calendars, which are the TV equivalent of…
Today we mourn the Icelandic actor Gunnar Hansen, known to the world as the lead villain in one of the most notorius movies of all times, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The Nordic region has lost one of its earliest and most iconic horror actors. Gunnar Hansen bas born in Reykjavik on Iceland in 1947 and moved to the…
The Icelandic horror film Frost is gaining distribution, but could also be turned into a franchise, if the producer gets his way. Do not confuse Frost with Disney’s Frozen or Frost (both 2013) or the Swedish vampires in Frostbitten (2006). Reynir Lyngdal’s 2012 found footage horror film is a different beast, and as the UK…
It’s no surprice that Vikings and Norse mythology are the themes of Legends of Valhalla: Thor, the first animated feature film made on Iceland. In a small nation, it is relatively easy to be the first with something. Iceland’s first horror film came in 2009, and their first animated feature (this film) was released in…
Ask someone if they can name a handful of Icelandic horror movies, and most people will scratch their heads and raise their shoulders, including Icelandic film fans. With two horror films under his belt, director Vidar Vikingsson is responsible for a large portion of Iceland’s fearful films. It says a lot about a country’s film…
In the meager Icelandic horror scene Draugasaga is unique in that it is the first in what is possibly a “series” of sorts; it’s the first of two otherwise unrelated horror films made in Iceland in the mid 80s. Ghosts have existed in all cultures and so it was no wonder that ghosts were the…
This very rare Icelandic spooky horror movie is about a creature native to Icelandic folklore, the tilberi. A shocking surprise to many viewers when it first aired, Tilbury is one of the best films made within horror and dark fantasy in the Nordic region in the 1980s. In the 1980s, Icelandic director Vidar Vikingsson made…
Legends of Valhalla: Thor is an upcoming animated feature aimed at children. Coming to theatres in stereoscopic 3D, it is an action adventure comedy, and not surprisingly for an Icelandic fantasy film, it focuses on Nordic mythology and viking gods. Under the direction of Oskar Jonasson and co-director Toby Genkel, Legends of Valhalla: Thor is…
Iceland’s first horror film, aptly titled Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre, debuts on DVD in the US in December, and will also be made available in many other countries. Movies become unique when they are grown from local conditions, and what is more Icelandic than whales and whale hunting? Maybe vikings, but they don’t exist anymore.…
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