Review of Sauna (2008) by Juha L — 03 Nov 2008

Sauna. Perkele. What's more Finnish than that? Well this was interesting. The golden age of horror movies is long gone and the art that it once was has completely been raped by the sick and twisted fucks in Hollywood that spend millions and millions of dollars either making disgusting and pointless torture porn or re-making old classics or great Japanese or Spanish films.

Either way, Hollywood has long ago run out of ideas and I don't remember the last time I saw creative or imaginative horror filmmaking come from the States. So when it was told that there was going to be a Finnish horror movie called "Sauna" it raised very mixed feelings.

It was supposed to be a teen slasher film with bunch of half naked chicks running around screaming but the director AJ Annila changed everything but the name. Thank God. And I guess this is generally labeled as a horror movie but that's actually not really the case here.

It really is more of a psychological and mysterious thriller and it deals with some intense themes like sin, redemption, moral and forgiveness. There are horror elements there but that's not the main focus so we don't see a lot of blood or violence.

But as always, it's the things you don't see that are the scariest. The look and feel of the film is amazing. It's propably the best looking Finnish film ever made and it really stands up to any comparison with much more expensive foreign films.

The team has done an amazing job with limited budget and the cinematography and art design are really wonderful. The performances are all and all pretty decent but Ville Virtanen is just perfect as the older brother dealing with his inner demons.

The performance really is quite powerful. This is not a perfect movie and it has some of the basic flaws of most Finnish films like some pretty awkward dialogue but it's still something quite special.

A Finnish horror movie that looks amazing and can be taken seriously? Well here we have it. Wonderful visuals, interesting story, solid performances and imaginative and creative subject. That's pretty damn good at this day and age.

But sadly the typical moviegoer won't appreciate any of this because this movie does something that has been long forgotten. It challenges you to use your brain and think for yourself. It doesn't give all the answers and there is no big pay-off where everything is explained.

You will not understand everything the first time you see it. And for the most of the people the fact that they don't understand something basically means that it's shit and they don't like it.

So what is there to say? I think the last 15 minutes of this film were propably the most mindbogglingly amazing stuff I have EVER seen in a Finnish movie and all and all in a "horror" movie in a long time.

But if you're brain is not able to appreciate creative and thought-provoking filmmaking and you are just like 99% of today's moviegoing population, don't worry - they just released "Saw V".

It's your loss.