February 3, 2025
by Carla Hay

Directed by Thordur Palsson
Culture Representation: Taking place in Iceland’s Westfjords region in 1870, the horror film “The Damned” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class.
Culture Clash: Fishing workers in a remote part of Iceland encounter strangers and a possible supernatural killer on the loose.
Culture Audience: “The Damned” will appeal mainly to people who don’t mind watching well-acted horror movies that aren’t about non-stop violent scares but are more about psychological torment.

“The Damned” is a “slow burn” psychological thriller about a widow leading a group of fishermen with a “survival of the fittest” attitude in a remote part of Iceland. It’s a horror film about the evil that can come from extreme mistrust. Some viewers might be bored by the movie’s deliberate pacing, or if they are expecting a typical slasher film. “The Damned” is more about toxic fear that can develop from being isolated.
Directed by Thordur Palsson and written by Jamie Hannigan, “The Damned” had its world premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Festival. The movie takes place in the winter of 1870, in a remote area in Iceland’s Westfjords region, where the movie was filmed on location. Certain viewers who might immediately be disinterested in watching this movie because of the time period and location because they might want to watch a movie taking place in modern times.
The main protagonist of “The Damned” is a young widow named Eva (played by Odessa Young), whose husband Magnus died the previous year, near the rocks at sea during a fishing expedition. Magnus was the owner of a fishing station business that employs fishermen for seasonal work and provides lodging for them during their employment. After the death of Magnus, Eva took over the business. Magnus and Eva did not have any children.
There is trouble brewing because of a decreasing supply of food. In the movie’s very first scene, Eva can be heard saying in a voiceover: “We should not be here. Magnus said it was a place of opportunity if you can enjoy the cold, the long nights, the hunger.”
As empty fish racks are shown, Eva says in the voiceover: “This time last year, all of these racks were full. Yesterday, we started eating the fish set aside for bait. The men don’t want to think of anything but the next day at sea. Perhaps, that way they can survive. But walking blindly into the dark is something I will not do.”
The fisherman are mostly roughneck types who are crude and not accustomed to a woman being their boss. Many are somewhat skeptical about Eva’s abilities to be a leader. However, whatever doubts that these fishermen have about Eva, they still know that she is their employer, so they follow her orders.
In an early scene in the movie, the fishermen are gathered at night around a table to drink alcohol and eat. The men tell Eva that Magnus had a tradition of giving the fishermen a drinking toast on a mid-winter’s night. Eva feels pressure to continue the tradition, and she gives a short and slightly awkward toast: “May the Lord protect you from hidden rocks, harmful creatures and dangerous pirates.”
The only other woman in this isolated group is middle-aged Helga (played by Siobhan Finneran), who has cooking and cleaning duties for the living quarters. Helga is very superstitious and is the person in the group who is most likely to tell folk tales and ways to ward off evil spirits. Helga has a certain flair for storytelling which can make people wonder if there’s some truth in what she’s saying.
When “The Damned” begins, about 10 fishermen are part of the crew that uses a large rowboat (owned by Eva) for their fishing duties. Daniel (played by Joe Cole) is close in age to Eva. There’s an unspoken attraction between Eva and Daniel. The movie shows whether or not Daniel and Eva act on this attraction. At one point, Eva tells Daniel: “Magnus was my family … The fishing station is all I have left.”
Many of the other fisherman are generic characters that don’t have significant speaking roles. However, some of the men are deliberately written as having noticeable personalities. Daniel is mostly a “good guy” who is genuinely respectful of Eva, unlike some of the other men, which is why Eva trusts him the most. Ragnar (played by Rory McCann) is aggressive and highly suspicious of people whom he considers to be “outsiders.”
Aron (played by Mícheál Óg Lane) is mostly mild-mannered and seems to have learning development that’s slower than the other men. Jonas (played by Lewis Gribben) is a very religious Christian. Skúli (played by Francis Magee) doesn’t believe in ghosts or anything supernatural. Hákon (played by Turlough Convery) is an unpredictable loose cannon.
“The Damned” has a total running time of 89 minutes. Not much happens for the first 20 minutes, but a pivotal point in the movie is when the Eva and the fishermen see a recent shipwreck from a distance. Eva agrees with Ragnar’s adamant opinion that they shouldn’t help anyone from this shipwreck because they can’t trust these strangers, and there isn’t enough food to accommodate anyone new in their small and isolated community.
At night, Eva accompanies the fishermen on the boat to get a closer look at the shipwreck and to see if they can take any valuables that were left behind. The shipwreck has some survivors, who try to fight their way on to boat. All hell breaks loose, setting the course of the rest of the story. The tone of “The Damned” is best described as “brooding and spooky” instead of “intensely scary.”
The cast members capably perform their roles “The Damned,” whose emotional core is primarily with Eva. Young gives a compelling performance in the role. The movie keeps viewers guessing if Eva has psychic abilities to see the supernatural or if she is mentally ill. Either way, as tensions begin to soar within the community, Eva sees disturbing things that affect her tenuous authority over the increasingly agitated fishermen.
Viewers who appreciate “The Damned” have to be open-minded enough to not expect a formulaic horror movie or an assumed outcome. The movie (which has excellent cinematography by Eli Arenson) gets a little repetitive, but it’s effective at showing how monotony and desperate starvation can erode relationships, trust and loyalty in a community. What’s most haunting about “The Damned” isn’t any real or imagined supernatural activity but how destructive inhumanity can be.
Vertical released “The Damned” in U.S. cinemas on January 3, 2025. The movie was released on digital and VOD on January 21, 2025.