Thirst review

By Simon Thompson

Co-directors Steinþór Hróar Steinþórsson and Gaukur Úlfarsson, and writer Björn Leó Brynjarsson’s Thirst is a painfully average horror comedy that never scared me or made me laugh. Despite being pleasant to look at in places and technically well-made, it’s a movie that sadly failed to grab me. 

Thirst follows Hulda (Hulda Lind Kristinsdóttir), a drug addict who is at her lowest ebb. Accused of murdering her brother, the police are forced to let her go due to insufficient evidence. Wandering around the city streets hungry and desperate, she meets Hjörtur ( Hjörtur Sævar Steinason). While Hjörtur at first appears to be a regular old man, Hulda quickly finds out that he is in fact a thousand year old vampire. Hjörtur takes Hulda under his wing as they are forced to contend with both a rogue hardboiled cop who is investigating the bodies found in their wake, and a religious doomsday cult. 

The problem that this script has, is that it tries to spin too many plates all at once. Both the religious cult and the hardboiled cop plots are substantial enough that they could form their own three act structure, having them both going on in the narrative at the same time, makes them uninteresting by default because neither one is given the appropriate time it needs to be fully fleshed out. 

The comedy simply isn’t funny. Most of the gags revolved around Hjörtur comedically ripping certain parts of the male anatomy off most of his victims, and after the five thousandth time that Brynjarsson’s script has pulled the same joke it wears out its welcome faster than a rain soaked Labrador in a fancy restaurant.

Hakon Sverrisson’s cinematography, is the one saving grace that Thirst has. Sverrisson’s use of colour is excellent, creating a neo-noirish moody feel to the film’s setting which compliments how graphic the story gets. Sverrisson’s use of location shooting and a washed out colour scheme strongly reminded me of Leos Carax’s Holy Motors in how it uses gloss and stylisation to show off the seedier parts of a city. 

Overall Thirst is an unfunny and listless horror comedy that fails to create any real sense of atmosphere. Although Hulda Lind Kristinsdóttir and Hjörtur Sævar Steinason are likeable enough actors who do an admirable job in their respective parts, given the limited material that they have had to work with, Thirst is the kind of film that ends up on page 964 of the Tubi horror section.