Marerittet (2022)

	Directed by: Kjersti Helen Rasmussen	COUNTRY Norway Genre Horror/Thriller INTERNATIONAL TITLE Nightmare RUNNING TIME 100 minutes
	Produced by: John Einar Hagen Einar Loftesnes
	Written by: Kjersti Helen Rasmussen

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Mona	Eili Harboe
Robbie	Herman Tømmeraas
Aksel	Dennis Storhøi
Liv	Siri Black Ndiaye	-
Martin	Peter Førde	-
Siren	Gine Therese Grønner	-
David	Preben Hodneland	-

Review

A horror story set in and around an old apartment in Bergen, Norway, which the young couple of Mona and Robbie move into. And soon after, Mona finds herself ridden by insomnia, sleep paralysis and nightmares (in the etymological sense of the word). This fairly intriguing premise is handled with some ambition by director Kjersti Helen Rasmussen, who tries to suck us into her protagonist's traumatic experiences by shifting seamlessly between dreams and reality, just as Mona herself would experience the situation. Although this may seem effective in theory, it doesn't quite work here, because the movie oversells its horror inclinations and creates an atmosphere in which the psychological facets of the story are gradually downplayed and replaced by mythology and superstition. The end result is a film that doesn't quite know what it wants to be. There is a fine lead performance by the talented Eili Harboe (Thelma), even though her character's predicament and the actress' solid dramatic work in the end is traded in for some all too familiar horror tropes. Dennis Storhøi, who was so effective as pianist Arthur Berg in the mini-series A Storm for Christmas last year, doesn't quite seem to believe in his character as the mysterious psychologist who Mona turns to for help.