Description

We know how badly you've been longing to see a big-budget Swedish vampire film. Call it a knack. Well, gear up your garlic, friends, because your unspoken wish is our command! Behold, the first-ever vampire film production to emerge from the land of Opeth and Bergman. The bloodline begins during World War II, when Swedish soldiers combat the Nazis and stumble into very unfortunate undead happenings. Cutting to modern times, we are introduced to medical doctor Annika and her teenage daughter Saga as they relocate to a new town in snowy northern Sweden to accommodate a job at the local hospital. Experiencing night in the middle of the afternoon becomes boring fast, and Saga is less than excited to be there. She is quickly befriended by Vega, an outgoing Goth girl, and is almost getting comfortable with the community when she begins to notice that there are an unusually high number of deaths and accidents plaguing this relatively small town. People die here. Quite often, at that. The undying bloodlust from WWII has never left this place, and it is about to become a very big part of Saga's life. Good thing then, that sunrise is only about one month away!

It's somewhat incredible that it took this long for a film like Frostbite to be made, when you consider how Sweden's Polar Night, that period during which the sun stays beneath the horizon, causing months of darkness without sunlight, is quite likely the ultimate device for a vampire film. A comedy-horror, with heavy emphasis on the first side of the equation, Frostbite is a fun, lavish take on the bloodsucker mythos. The people of Sweden should be proud that their film culture now includes a production in which a talking dog gets eaten! Anders Banke, who previously co-directed There And Back Again, a documentary on artist John Howe, was given an almost unheard-of budget, and he and producers Magnus Paulsson (longtime programming director at Lund's celebrated Fantastisk Filmfestival) and Goran Lindstrom used a large portion to load their film with state-of-the-art makeup and visual effects on par with any American studio release. Featuring the most destructive use of a garden gnome ever, and a soundtrack the mixes contemporary pop with an original score by the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra, Frostbite marks the opening of a new chapter in Scandinavian cinema. Children of the Arctic night, get ready to party until your eyes turn black.

—Mitch Davis

Website

http://www.frostbiten.se

Credits

Director: Anders Banke
Screenplay: Daniel Ojanlatva
Cast: Petra Nielsen, Grete Havneskold, Emma Aberg, Jonas Karlstrom, Mans Nathanaelson
Producers: Goran Lindstrom, Magnus Paulsson
Distributor: Wellspring