By Sarah Musnicky
Nature as a force and mirror to a character's inner workings takes centerstage in Thordur Palsson's THE DAMNED. Fusing Icelandic folklore with a tinge of Romanticism, i.e., nature vs man, this latest horror film perfectly encapsulates the isolation and ugliness of human nature in our need to survive. It's no wonder, then, that the natural environment and location of an isolated Icelandic village served as inspiration for both Palsson and actress Odessa Young in THE DAMNED.
THE DAMNED follows Eve (Young), a young widow who has taken over her husband's fishing business. While not the only woman in the film, there is a power imbalance between her and the other workers. A boating incident offshore forces the young widow into one of many uncomfortable decisions, prioritizing the survival of her workers over the lives of others. There's a fine line between greed and survival, however, and Eve's decisions come back to haunt her and the men.
For the theatrical release of THE DAMNED, Creepy Kingdom's Sarah Musnicky chats with director Thordur Palsson and Odessa Young. During their conversation, they discussed the influence of Iceland's countryside and folklore on the story and how the environment's natural scenery proved to be the best source of inspiration for Young's approach to her character.
Folklore leads to the inciting incident of THE DAMNED
The Icelandic village that THE DAMNED is set in, from a horror writing standpoint, is just so fruitful for the imagination. Thor, can you talk a little bit about the process of coming up with the story and finding the right location?
Thordur Palsson: This would be eight or nine years ago, but I stayed for about three months in a small fishing village. I'm not from there. I'm a city boy. I'm not from that kind of [environment], so I had never been [there before]. I got snowed in during the winter. I couldn't get my car out of the driveway. And so, you start feeling this isolation, and then you're meeting a lot of these fishermen, where you hear their stories. From there, you start to find the story.
A lot of it has to do with the myth of the Draugr, which is translated into 'ghost,' but it's rotting flesh and bone, something that comes back to get revenge. Then the question came through [that], which is, you would say, the inciting incident of the story, where they see the ship that has sunk off their shores. These characters don't have enough food for themselves. They are snowed in for the winter. What does one do in the situation?
When the next question came up, "What would you actually do when you saw these people?" I thought, "Oh, we have a nice place as a launching point for a good story." I think from there, Jamie Hannigan, the screenwriter, came on board, and it all started cooking.
The environment was a huge creative factor in THE DAMNED
Odessa, your character has to make a lot of decisions for everyone else. What was it about the character that drew you to her? And also, how did the setting inform your approach to the character and the performance?
Odessa Young: These are great questions. I think your observation about her making these decisions is exactly what drew me to the film. You get so used to reading horror films as a young woman, where this young female character is at the whim of all these things happening around her, and she's not active in the decision-making process. She's always the kind of person to which these things just happen.
But what I've really loved about [THE DAMNED], what I loved about reading this character, is how active she was and how implicated in the consequences she ended up being, and I just found that to be a very refreshing take on a story like this.
The environment and circumstances in the film were incredibly apt for how she feels. She's so tiny in this huge world, with massive cliffs and vast plains of snow and nothing, and the ocean is this wall that she cannot get past.
The weather meant that we were just swaddled in these thick layers of clothing. We couldn't move our bodies properly, and it was claustrophobic. Everything ended up lending itself, in this very natural and easy way, to the feeling of [THE DAMNED], to being so stuck and so unable to breathe, just unable to take a second and assess your situation, because you're always too cold or too swaddled or too "something." It helped immensely to create that character and that feeling.
THE DAMNED releases only in theaters on January 3, 2025.