Review by Quin
If I had a million dollars to just give away, I would be asking you all to find me a review of the 2012 Swedish horror film Wither that does not mention a certain 80’s classic about a group of young people spending a weekend in a cabin. The person who finds the review would of course get the money. I do not have a million dollars and I also don’t think that review exists. Writing it yourself would be against the rules, by the way. But this little hypothetical giveaway will never happen, at least not in this universe. Maybe in a parallel one where I am filthy rich, in which case, good luck to you. I actually had a brief moment where I had decided I was going to ignore this aforementioned film in my review – just to be different. Then I remembered, the purpose of a film critic is to describe the viewing experience the best way they can, and to talk about the feelings that the film gives them as well as their response to those feelings. So I determined I would be doing you all an incredible disservice if I made no mention of this film. But you have to pay attention. I’m only going to say it once and then we are going to move on with this review. Are you ready? It’s Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead. There. Now that we have that out of the way, I will let you draw your own comparisons based on what I write.
Wither has a plot we’ve seen hundreds, maybe even thousands of times before. A group of young people go away for a weekend stay at a cabin in the woods. Woah, Déjà vu. The cabin in which they are staying is said to have been abandoned for about five years, so the only clear and good decision for these people to make is to get in the car and make use of the place. I mean, someone should be using it, right? It’s only collecting dust…or is it? Well, duh. This is a horror movie and of course you know what’s going to happen. To paraphrase the great film critic Roger Ebert (Or maybe he was quoting Pauline Kael, I can’t remember) it’s not what the film is about that’s important, it’s how it’s about it. Here we have a well acted and well made movie that is never boring and turns familiar territory into something exciting and even poignant at times. So it should be forgiven that the cabin has a trap door leading to the cellar; or that the inhabitants become “not themselves” one by one. The film also has the usual assortment of characters, thankfully not teens this time, but there is a creepy hunter who roams the woods nearby. He’s played mysterious at first, and then we grow to like him. The actor is a guy named Johannes Bost. He is mostly known for his comedic roles and apparently he’s a close personal friend of Mick Jagger.
In the opening sequence, the cinematography had a Ridley Scott Black Hawk Down/Gladiator era sort of look to it. I think it has to do with the frames per second and a bunch of technical junk that I could look up and bore you with, but I won’t. I just know it has a distinctive look that is choppy, but when there is a lot of fast moving action the image is clearer. Thankfully, this was only used in that opening scene. It would have gotten annoying and distracting if it had gone on any longer.
I mentioned before that the film is in Swedish. Sometimes the translation seemed a little awkward and I had to pause to re-read a few lines to understand the context. They also move extremely fast, and with the intense and inventive visuals on the screen, this isn’t the kind of movie you want to spend the whole time reading. You can easily watch Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal and read the subtitles while glancing back and forth at the images. Withered is no Bergman film, but I think that’s probably obvious. The story is uncomplicated and it moves fast. You won’t spend a lot of time wondering what it all means. But something that the movie won’t tell you – the original Swedish title of the film is Vittra, which is a mythological creature in Scandinavian mythology. They’re typically described as pixies or elves, and there are no such sprites in Wither. At least not like what you would see in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
I hope I have convinced you to see Wither. It’s a tricky thing to talk about how unoriginal the story is, while urging you to see it anyway because the movie is awesome. I bet most of you will get a kick out if it because there is so much blood. It get’s smeared on the walls, caked and coagulated all over the actors in a way that enhances and completes the composition of the shots. Also, the second half of the movie is almost all action with so much screaming. If it were up to me I would replace the remake of that movie I said I wasn’t going to mention again, with this one. It does some of the same things, but much better. If I haven’t convinced you to see Wither, I tried – perhaps you only slumbered here while these words did appear.
Wither is available now in the US from Artsploitation Films.