By David Dent
In Magnus Martins’ sprightly but desperately unfunny horror comedy, a family of four uproot from California to snowy Norway to take up residence in a house left to dad by a relative.
The kids feel the displacement greatly. As a stroppy teenager Nora (Zoe Winter-Hansen) misses her friends and hates everything about the move, whereas younger brother Lucas (Townes Brunner) maintains more of a childlike sense of wonder, particularly when he glimpses an elf (Kiran Shah) that lives in the dilapidated barn (that’s the ‘something’ in case you were wondering) which mum and dad want to fix up as a rental; the barn not the elf.
People in the town, a not particularly friendly bunch, and a local police officer (an amusing turn from Henriette Steenstrup) originally deny knowledge of elves in the vicinity, but Lucas finds out that to get along with the little chap, one needs to minimise noise, light etc. Too late as Christmas approaches and the family are intent on illuminating the barn, firing up the Christmas tunes and plying the locals with grog.
Such flagrant disregard of the basic tenets of elf civility are met with fury, not just from the original behatted geezer but his mates too, and very soon it’s a family vs elf fight to the death.
Now I love Christmas horror movies, particularly those with snow (real preferred). Therefore I adore Gremlins (which TSitB clearly rips off) and Michael Dougherty’s Krampus (although my tolerance for ‘Krampus’ themed films – of which there are many – is limited to this one). I did not love TSitB.
Plus points; it looks great. It’s beautifully lit and the colour palette is gorgeous, really playing up the Christmas greens and reds. When the falling snow gathers among the forest firs, it’s quite something.
The downside; it’s the most obviously scripted film I’ve seen this year. Not one of the gags lands and I counted at least four occasions when I knew what was going to be said next well before it was uttered. Everything is overplayed to breaking point – this does not make things funny. And the second half of the film derives its ‘humour’ from watching people of restricted height run around dressed as elves and falling over; for a very long time. I could have understood the movie better if it was played for bad taste, but it actually comes across like a PG movie with a bit of gore and a few f-bombs. Really not very good at all.
There’s Something in the Barn is released in UK cinemas on 3 November 2023.
Bloody Flicks 