DETOUR is a dull little Norwegian horror/thriller with a plot that we've seen play out countless times. Sadly it looks cheap and derivative, failing to bring out the isolated beauty of the forested Norwegian locations. In addition, it's a film set at night that takes place in pitch black conditions almost all the way through, so that it's all but impossible to make out what's supposed to be going on.
The set-up is intensely predictable: a young and carefree couple are driving through an isolated location and come into contact with the creepy locals. Bizarrely, there's a voyeur who has dotted video cameras around the locations so that he can spy on what's going on, like that angle hasn't been covered before. After a while the film turns into the usual woman-in-peril type thriller, with far too many false scares, random sub-plots that add nothing but pad out the running time, and virtually nothing in the way of real horror or fear.
I'm glad that the makers of DETOUR never descended into the fully-fledged arena of torture porn but at the same time there's nothing here to enjoy either. The thumping death metal soundtrack is headache-inducing, the camera-work is muddled and poor, and there's no characterisation so that you're never involved in the proceedings. I like Scandinavian cinema as a rule, but DETOUR is a real chore to sit through.