Nordling here.
Don’t say that here at Ain’t It Cool we don’t ever give you anything. Here’s a free movie!
I reviewed Filip Tegstedt’s MARIANNE last year. AICN Horror has also reviewed it. In full disclosure, I know Filip – he’s been to several BNATs and has been a longtime friend of the site. I remember him telling several of us at BNAT a few years before it was released that LET THE RIGHT ONE IN was a movie to keep an eye out for, and damn if he wasn’t proven correct. He’s also a director in his own right, and in my opinion, a really good one.
MARIANNE is a very atmospheric, mood piece of a horror film. Those expecting cats jumping on beds or a ton of gore will be disappointed – that’s not what MARIANNE is going for. Instead, it builds a sense of dread and horror over its running time, as forces close in on Krister (Thomas Hendengran). Tegstedt makes the most of his small budget, but it’s the family drama that makes MARIANNE so compelling. We care for these people even as the vise tightens, and the movie just wouldn’t work if not for that empathy. Krister is not a perfect man – he’s seriously flawed, but as his story is told we sympathize with his plight. Tegstedt even landed Peter Stormare to take part in the movie, and he’s terrific. All the performances are, including Sandra Larsson, who plays Krister’s troubled daughter. Tegstedt gets great work from everyone.
But when MARIANNE gets scary, it’s not a cheat. Tegstedt ramps up the tension quite nicely, and we are disturbed as the film goes on. I think MARIANNE is quite good and I hope to see more from Tegstedt in the future.
And Ain’t It Cool Is offering MARIANNE for free for one week! Simply go to:
https://vimeo.com/jamtfilm/marianneaicn
and type the password BewareTheMoon starting at 3:00 PM Central time. The movie will stay up for one week. Feel free to share with your friends, and I really hope you enjoy the movie. Hell, if you dig it, drop Filip a line on Twitter. Thanks, as always, for reading. Here's Filip with an introduction:
Submitted for your approval; a man who lives in the small isolated town of Östersund, in the Swedish northlands. A man haunted not only of guilt and grief but by a spectre from long ago. Krister has never been an easy person to get along with, nor one to know his limitations.
Ultimately, it's not the external threats that gets to us, but our inner demons.
My name is Filip Tegstedt. Thank you for taking the time to watch this film.
The reason I'm doing this is to find a way to reach out to a bigger audience in a legal way, as "Marianne" still has not been released outside Sweden.
This is an independent film, and the cast and crew who worked very hard for a very long time, including myself who paid for it all, still has not seen a profit.
In fact, a break-even is still very far away. The population of Sweden is simply too small for a feature film. It's a question of numbers.
It is my hope, that if enough people see this very simple lo-fi drama/horror about a family torn apart and enjoy it, I get to continue to tell my stories. I have a lot of them.
If you like this film, it's available on DVD from our Swedish distributor Njutafilms (PAL region 2 (only unfortunately) and you can order it from their webshop if you don't live in Sweden, http://subdvd.com or you could order it from http://diabolikdvd.com too, they ship from America. It's subtitled in English.
I hope, in the future, there will be an NTSC DVD and/or Blu-ray too, but we're not there yet I'm afraid and I don't know for certain that we ever will be.
Please don't support independent films being shared on pirate bay. That's... That's not cool, man. Seriously. Waitresses are better paid than people who work with independent films.
But I'm rambling. And get off my lawn.
Anyway, turn your iPhones off for two hours (unless you're like on a train and you're watching it on your iPhone, in which case don't), turn down the lights, have some coffee or whatever you enjoy drinking and remember it's okay to laugh. Enjoy the show, and let me know on twitter (@TheNorthlander) what you thought. Also, shameless plug: http://filmengryning.se
That's all from me.
Thank you.
