There's Something in the Barn

Eine Weihnachtskomödie für die ganze Familie mit „Horror-Elementen“. Sie kennen das – man hört eine beunruhigende Musik, als ob etwas Schlimmes passieren würde, aber die Szene enthält Witze und es ist klar, dass niemandem etwas passiert. Und der Humor ist wie vom wütenden Chris Columbus und nicht von Tommy Wirkola, der daraus eine richtig schwarzhumorige Geschichte hätte machen können. Magnus Martens nutzt nur bekannte Klischees für Mainstream-Zuschauer*innen. Diese werden wahrscheinlich zufrieden sein – der Film ist handwerklich einwandfrei und sympathisch besetzt. Die Handlung ist schwungvoll und actionreich. Und was auch mich erfreut hat, sind treffende Witze über die Unterschiede zwischen der US-amerikanischen (Schießen) und norwegischen (Saufen) Kultur. [Sitges FF] (08.10.2023)

There’s Something in the Barn is much more a comedy than a horror movie. As a comedy, it’s a solid film featuring a privileged and ignorant American family that moves to snow-covered Norway before Christmas with the naïve idea that they will take selfies there and watch the aurora borealis every evening. They are kept company by the peculiar local characters, while the film satirically makes fun of the stereotypes of both nations. Nevertheless, it is disappointing as a horror movie in that it starts out by whetting the viewer’s appetite for a bloodily coarse spectacle along the lines of Krampus or Violent Night  (and yes, it achieves that a few times), but in comparison with those films, it is generally lame and even almost like a family movie. For any proper action, we have to wait until the final third, which is solidly packed with such action, but logic and the previously established rules rather go by the wayside. This will probably not become a Christmas classic because the loud and silly protagonists, depicted in a derisively unsympathetic light, rather make us want to root for their peace- and order-loving antagonists. (08.10.2023)

This new Christmas horror film from the Norwegians would like to become the sibling of Wirkola's Dead Snow, but it is miles away; unfortunately there is nothing interesting to see here. A family moves to a mountain cottage in Norway before Christmas. There is a goblin elf hiding in the barn, he likes his peace and strict rules must be followed to not piss him off, which of course fails. During the first 50 minutes almost nothing interesting happens, the family is unlikeable, except for the sexy step mom, she was nice, but the father was a terrible loser and the kids were uninteresting. Once the elf gets pissed off and an army of elves appears, there is some action, but it's boring. We don't get any decent gore, it's a light/soft horror film for children. The humor doesn't work, overall it's quite bland and uninteresting, where no element stands out in anything. Visually, it's not completely bad, but if I went to see it in the cinema, I'd leave even more pissed off. It may serve well as a background while baking cookies or unwrapping gifts at Christmas, otherwise it's a waste of time. 4/10. (12.12.2023)