Blending psychological horror with classic Gothic supernatural tropes, The Damned offers a chilling look at isolation, guilt, and grief in the perilous backdrop of a 19th-century Icelandic fishing outpost. Directed by Thordur Palsson, the film follows young widow Eva (Odessa Young) who, after the death of her husband Magnus a year prior, has taken control of an isolated fishing outpost and its fisherman, led by Ragnar (Rory McCann). After a shipwreck in the ocean, Eva is faced with the gut-wrenching decision between saving the crew or prioritising her community’s survival by using the drowning sailors’ rations through the winter. She decides upon the latter, but when they find survivors on the wreckage, tragedy strikes as Ragnar and the remaining shipmates are lost to the sea. Wracked with guilt, Eva and the members of the outpost begin experiencing heightened paranoia as strange phenomena and visions lead them to believe they are being punished for their choices.
The vast, snowy wasteland the group lives in, as well as the thrashing tides and crashing waves, are as much antagonists in The Damned as any other, adding to the heightened sense of dread palpable from its opening scenes. While the descent into madness and otherworldly visions are haunting, the very real, impending danger the elements pose act as the source of much of the film’s tension. That is not to say The Damned lacks in ghostly frights, offering plenty of spine-chilling scares that blur the lines between reality and surreality as Eva and the community’s guilt begins to consume their every thought. This guilt and the moral conundrum faced by the group is at the heart of The Damned, exploring a catch-22 situation in which Eva must decide between further depleting the village’s resources and condemning them all to starvation or choosing to let a group of innocents die. It’s impossible not to ask yourself what you would do in the same situation, making the events that unfold feel all the more horrifying. At times, The Damned suffers from the many paths it treads, with the narrative lulling in the second act to a point it almost derails entirely before plunging toward a somewhat predictable ending for genre fans.
Young’s performance as Eva is captivating, bolstered by impeccable supporting performances from Joe Cole and Siobhan Finnernan as Daniel and Helga respectively. Eva acts as the grounded voice of reason among the village, attempting to calm those who spread tales of the undead and ancient spirits that could be behind their misfortune. Coupled with the beautiful yet deadly landscape, moody lighting, and eerie score, The Damned is an effectively unsettling psychological horror that explores the monsters we can become when faced with a fight for survival.
