Haunted Child - DVD

Film: For a long time Catherine (Synnøve Macody Lund) has had no contact with her father. When she learns of his death, she takes the news relatively calmly. For her there is now really only one priority: she wants to sell as soon as possible the country house of her father, which she has inherited. To do this, she travels to the remote village where she spent many years of her childhood - years she largely can't remember. Eerie noises, disturbing dreams and mysterious statements from neighbours soon lead Catherine to suspect that a dark secret lies over the house. To solve it, however, she must confront the events from her childhood that she has repressed for so long...

"Haunted Child" is a quietly told mystery thriller from Norway that makes use of many familiar genre ingredients. This works quite well, especially at the beginning: the shots of deep snowy, rural Norway paired with classic "Haunted House" effects makes for comforting creepiness. Even though the mystery associated with the house may be relatively obvious, director Carl Christian Raabe does a very good job of throwing his audience off the scent in at least one respect. For example, there is actually a real surprise just before the finale - even if it only works to a limited extent.

The problem with the film is that despite its fairly short running time of just 78 minutes, it feels very plodding. There are scenes that are extremely drawn out, even though as a viewer it has long been clear where the journey is headed. Here, Raabe would have liked to focus a bit more on creepiness instead of just atmosphere. Especially since Synnøve Macody Lund isn't strong enough as an actress to carry the story almost alone over such weak moments. She's only really good in the very last shot, which gives the ending a pleasantly dark aftertaste.

"Haunted Child" is a decent, but also a bit too worn told mystery thriller, which can score especially with its atmospheric landscape shots and some light creepy effects. Not an overachiever, but definitely nice genre fodder for in between. And for this there is - with small deductions in the B grade - then quite a satisfied: worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: The image of the DVD convinces especially in the atmospheric outdoor shots with a good overall sharpness and an atmospheric color scheme. In the darker shots, there are point deductions in the detail representation. Slight image noise is also noticeable here and there. The audio is present in a rather restrained Dolby Digital 5.1 mix that uses purposefully placed sound effects to coherently capture the mood of the story. Good!

Extras: Apart from the trailer, the DVD has no extras to offer.

Conclusion: "Haunted Child" is a very quiet, atmospheric mystery thriller with very subtle horror (or rather scary) elements. This works quite well despite the very worn narrative pace, only the resolution disappoints a little - which in turn is made up for a little with the final shot. The DVD presents the film in atmospheric picture and sound quality, unfortunately there is no bonus material. All in all, there is a decent here: recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp