With dreams of starting a perfect family, Saga and her British husband Jon move to the isolated house where she spent much of her childhood, deep in the Finnish forest. But as soon as their baby is born, despite the reassurance of all around her, Saga knows there's something terribly wrong. As their marriage starts to crack, Jon struggles to support his wife, but only Saga suspects the disturbing truth... see more
With dreams of starting a perfect family, Saga and her British husband Jon move to the isolated house where she spent much of her childhood, deep in the Finnish forest. But as soon as their baby is born, despite the reassurance of all around her, Saga knows there's something terribly wrong. As their marriage starts to crack, Jon struggles to support his wife, but only Saga suspects the disturbing truth... see more
Very weird movie. Folk horror steeped in finnish folklore of trolls who inhabit the forest and who take babies if they aren't blessed.
Its set in rural Finland and most of the film is in Finnish, except when Saga is speaking to her husband and his family.
Saga and Jon move to a house in the forest and conceive a child in the forest on the ground in the moss amongst the trees. A jump cut later and Saga is giving birth.
From there its like they took all the weirdness of babies and the feelings of postpartum and explored them through the lens of horror.
The mother is clearly experiencing postpartum. She is isn't bonding well with the baby and the baby cries all the time (as babies do) and refuses to eat normal solid food. Add to this the baby is drawing blood when breastfed (which does happen irl) and the father is somewhat absent/not present on and off, leaving her to cope alone (which also happens a lot irl).
For most of the movie, you're never really sure if its just postpartum, if Saga is losing her mind, or if there is something actually supernatural going on, at least until the end of the movie where more is revealed. It often does feel like Saga is losing her mind, especially when those around her seem oblivious to what is going on and are actively critiquing her mothering and telling her what a terrible job she is doing.
The movie does a pretty good job of keeping the child's face hidden for the majority of the movie which adds to the atmosphere and creepiness.
All told this was a good creepy movie, that had a very folkish feel to it.