Witnessing a vessel sinking just off the coast the group face an agonising decision; brave the icy waters to rescue the crew and risk the possibility of their own death in the cold, or leave the vessel's occupants to a watery fate. Eva, nominally in command, chooses the latter.
But if Eva and her group thought that the cost of the decision would be restricted to a few guilty sleepless nights, cook Helga (Siobhan Finneran), a woman not short of a folk tale or two, warns that the ship's dead will come back as a draugur – a being that "has no life in it - just hate".
When the bodies of the drowned sailors are washed up on the beach, the fishing crew grant them the dignity of makeshift coffins. It's the last dignified act they do carry out, thereafter descending to bickering, fighting and worse. Suspecting that something walks among them, Eva re-opens the coffins, only two find one body missing. Has the draugur become a reality?
Watching Palsson's debut feature there's more than a whiff of John Carpenter's 1982 flick The Thing and the recent TV drama The Terror (based on Dan Simmons's novel of the same name) in its tale of snowbound folk steadily going out of their gourd. The Damned manages to carve out its own identity largely by a careful mix of Icelandic myth, underplayed performances and well deployed nightmarish imagery (squirming eels cut from the belly of a dead sailor being just one example). The authentic wintry backdrop perfectly complements the rising anxiety of the crew (although the studio set interiors looked just a little warm in contrast) and veteran composer Stephen McKeon's soundtrack compounds the sense of isolation. In a cast that mixes familiar and newcomer Young's Eva is terrific as a young woman placed in a position that she didn't want, but rising stolidly to the challenge; even if the outcome is resolutely bleak.
Well worth checking out, The Damned is in cinemas from 10 January and will no doubt be streaming soon - but see it while winter's still upon us; you'll get more out of it.
