User Reviews

I only watched this first episode so far but I am pretty sure I will like the rest of it as well. I am very comfortable with the short span of time given to the story. In fact you can guess easily where it is going so there is really no need to drag things out. I think this show is not a very serious mystery horror show. It has a very simple promise, which is to present the audience an urban legend, twilight zone sort of idea to enjoy and maybe think further before you go to sleep. What would i do kind of questions came to my mind. It does not ask you to suspend belief or commit so seriously into anything happening on the screen. For this episode at least, the fast unfolding of the events in this story actually provided some comic relief and softened the heavy dramatic aspects. Just sit back, watch it and toy with the idea yourself. It is a folk tale after all, need not be realistic! And one more very important thing : USE THE SUBTITLES ! the episode did not work with dubbing . It was unwatchable. Really decreases the quality of the acting . Definitely should be watched with original Norwegian conversation. That is usually the case with all Nordic cinematographic pieces anyway (unless the Nordic actors themselves speak English for international audiences) but here the english version's quality is so low that the whole atmosphere is lost.

The frustrating problem with this episode is that the problem that kills it isn't the plot or the acting or the writing (all of which were...adequate if not particularly memorable.) The real problem is far more basic -- it was a terrible choice for a 1/2 hour episode of TV. The events progress far more quickly that a reasonable suspension of belief can deal with. From the mother witnessing what happened in the woods (avoiding spoilers here) to her calm, almost blase acceptance of the story as she sits drinking with the ladies in the backyard, to her descent into evil and then into pure psychopathy...it developed so quickly that it was impossible to take seriously as a story, or, for that matter, as character development. This episode might have worked over the space of an hour, laying the groundwork and allowing the characters to evolve naturally at the shocks of each new revelation. But in the short amount of time allotted? It simply didn't work.

And, no, the mother expressing general dissatisfaction with moving to the country in the beginning of the episode didn't remotely justify how quickly and blandly events transpired afterwards.

It had promise, but couldn't possibly overcome this very foreseeable flaw.

To be honest I think I'm only going to watch the first in this series. If this is the flagship episode that's going to encourage me to watch the rest of the series then I'm giving up now and saving my time for something better. It's not that it's bad, it's that it's not good. There is nothing that makes this stand out and nothing memorable about it. The storytelling is blunt force, every word every action is for the story. They should have invested in the characters as we got the story quicker than they think we did. The ending is wholly predictable. It is engaging enough but also hard to believe, I just didn't believe they would act like this. Ultimately another forgettable series/film on Netflix. Filmmakers/commissioners: take a risk, have some heart!