Rift (2017)

MOVIE #1,974 • SCORE 8/10 • 09.17.24
SERIES: TWO FOR TUESDAY

It’s gay Icelandic horror/thriller time — who’s ready? The only major complaint I have here is the score is sometimes annoying/pandering, gunning for tension when the visuals are fine on their own. But I enjoyed that I couldn't ever quite pin down the mystery of it for the duration. Is the guy's ex-boyfriend a ghost? Is he? Perhaps he's actually the little boy and/or the little boy's invisible friend from childhood? Some of this is likely half-right at least.

On some level the lovely, stark Icelandic landscape is doing the heavy lifting: you could make any movie in these locations and it would be pretty good, I feel. Narratively speaking, this film is definitely open to interpretation — especially the incredibly creepy third act — in a vaguely Lynchian way. How the film plays with time is slyly fascinating and completely changes your perception of things too.

Traditionally, the complete lack of development re the old man who turns out to be villain/monster would be a flaw but not if you think of him as an idea. A (probably wrong) interpretation: that he is the manifestation of sexual repression — either a literal monster born out of an unfulfilled life or the thematic representation of one. Either way (and I might be miles if not light-years off with this analysis), metaphors abound. They abound. It’s a good movie.

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Rift (Icelandic: Rökkur) is a 2017 Icelandic horror film written and directed by Erlingur Thoroddsen. Rift is a gay psychological thriller, in which Gunnar (Björn Stefánsson) and Einar (Sigurður Þór Óskarsson) get to grips with their fractured relationship amid some spooky situations in a remote cabin in Iceland. It was released on May 15, 2011.