Wow, this movie is underrated by IMDb users. Just saw this again on DVD, and it still holds up. A lot of people i know really love this movie, so I'll give it a ten just to even things out.
The people who dislike it don't seem to be familiar with the sub-genre it obviously homages. Rovdyr is an exploitation-film in the best sense; a dirty, uncompromising little low-budget gem devoid of pretensions. Hell, it even has a David Hess song on the opening titles! It seems like most people expected a snappy and glossy teen-flick with lots of twists and turns, but what they got was a dirty and gritty horror-film that pulls no punches.
The films style is rugged, and it comes across as a simple and horrific survival-horror. It doesn't focus on plot, this is not a whodunnit by all means, but it's more about the exact situations the characters face and how they react to it, as survival-horrors are supposed to. As always in these films, the prey becomes the hunter and the characters find their inner strength and so on. So nothing new, but it's well done.
The actors are good as well, being both realistic and believable in the beginning, and convincingly portraying real terror as all hell breaks loose. This is actually pretty powerful stuff. It's well shot, with a dirty visual style, almost all hand-held and in close-ups throughout the film. The sound-design is top-notch, and the music by Simon Boswell (who also scored Jodorowskis "Santa Sangre" among others, another cool detail) is surprisingly serious and emotional. It's evident that the folks behind this film love the genre, know the genre and take it seriously. The effects are great and the violence is punishing too; there's some really nasty stuff here.
Sure, we've seen these types of films before, but done right it's always entertaining. It's as if someone made a shameless rip-off of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1975, without any of our modern-day influences, intending it to play in drive-in theaters. There are a few problems in the first act, and sometimes you wish they had been more original, but it's simplicity is also one of it's major strengths, so i guess it evens out.
So, this is not a flawless piece, but i liked it because it was brutal and true to its roots.
I also read somewhere that the director was just 24 years old when they started shooting it, that it was made for an extremely low budget, and that the main crew worked for very little money in order to make this film. Take that into account and it's a pretty impressive little film.
The people who dislike it don't seem to be familiar with the sub-genre it obviously homages. Rovdyr is an exploitation-film in the best sense; a dirty, uncompromising little low-budget gem devoid of pretensions. Hell, it even has a David Hess song on the opening titles! It seems like most people expected a snappy and glossy teen-flick with lots of twists and turns, but what they got was a dirty and gritty horror-film that pulls no punches.
The films style is rugged, and it comes across as a simple and horrific survival-horror. It doesn't focus on plot, this is not a whodunnit by all means, but it's more about the exact situations the characters face and how they react to it, as survival-horrors are supposed to. As always in these films, the prey becomes the hunter and the characters find their inner strength and so on. So nothing new, but it's well done.
The actors are good as well, being both realistic and believable in the beginning, and convincingly portraying real terror as all hell breaks loose. This is actually pretty powerful stuff. It's well shot, with a dirty visual style, almost all hand-held and in close-ups throughout the film. The sound-design is top-notch, and the music by Simon Boswell (who also scored Jodorowskis "Santa Sangre" among others, another cool detail) is surprisingly serious and emotional. It's evident that the folks behind this film love the genre, know the genre and take it seriously. The effects are great and the violence is punishing too; there's some really nasty stuff here.
Sure, we've seen these types of films before, but done right it's always entertaining. It's as if someone made a shameless rip-off of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1975, without any of our modern-day influences, intending it to play in drive-in theaters. There are a few problems in the first act, and sometimes you wish they had been more original, but it's simplicity is also one of it's major strengths, so i guess it evens out.
So, this is not a flawless piece, but i liked it because it was brutal and true to its roots.
I also read somewhere that the director was just 24 years old when they started shooting it, that it was made for an extremely low budget, and that the main crew worked for very little money in order to make this film. Take that into account and it's a pretty impressive little film.