So I caught this the other night at the San Francisco International Film Festival.
It was okay.
Some key points:
It is supposedly the first horror film to be made in Norway
It cost 2 Million to make.
Taking that into consideration, it was pretty darn good (i.e. Hollywood could learn something from the Norsk filmmakers since the film looked better than most 75 Million dollar horror films).
That said, storywise it followed the basic slasher blueprint to a T (group of young people--the "good" couple, the "sexy/naughty" couple, and the geeky 5th wheel dude terrorized by a masked marauder), although the acting seemed a bit better than your average H-Wood teen slasher flick.
The look of the film was great, all washed out and metallic blue tones that really captured the cold of Norway during winter.
Sadly, there wasn't a ton of boarding. Only about the first 15 minutes (and really only about 7 of that was actual riding shots) consisted of boarding related imagery. The riding didn't seem overly impressive either (not like you see in some of the TGR or Warren Miller films), but the scenery was insane! The mountains in the area where they filmed look amazing.
Several times in the film a character would put on old school Scandinavian x-c skis (with the leather bindings) but they always got hacked up before they could deliver the goods. I kept waiting to have see a serious ski chase sequence with one of the frenzied youth being hunted down by the killer and delivering some sweet tele turns or something. Sadly, never happened.
So all in all it was pretty standard except for the English subtitles (yes, the film is in Norwegian).
I talked with a Norwegian skier via TGR and he says they filmed it here:
Fritt Vilt was filmed at
Leirvassbu -
http://www.leirvassbu.no/
