Frostbite (Frostbiten) first published by Film4
In the popular imagination, Sweden may readily accommodate Seventies supergroups, mobile phones, reliable cars and flat-packed furniture, but vampires are less obviously at home there [note: this was written two years before the release of Thomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In, 2008] – which is all part of the surreal fun of Frostbite (Frostbiten), in which a sleepy town in the northernmost regions of Sweden finds itself host to an unlikely outbreak of the undead. For like Tremors (1990), Braindead (1992), Undead (2003), Shaun of the Dead (2004), Slither (2006) and The Host (2006), Anders Banke’s feature debut blends the supernaturally exotic and the mundanely parochial to dark comic effect – as is perfectly crystallised by Frostbite‘s funniest moment, in which a vampire’s attack is thwarted with, of all things, a garden gnome.
Ukraine, 1944. A panzer division of the German army shelters in a snowbound cabin, only to discover that they are sharing it with a family of hungry vampires. Cut to present-day Sweden, and single mother Annika (Petra Nielsen) has just moved to a dull town in Norrbotten for a hospital job where she hopes to work with the reclusive geneticist Professor Beckert (Carl-Åke Eriksson). Annika’s teenaged daughter Saga (Grete Havnesköld) is unenthusiastic about their new life in the sticks, – but when a young man shows up dead in mysterious circumstances, and Beckert’s supply of highly experimental drugs accidentally finds its way to a crowded house party, this dead-end town is set to come alive for the long, long nights of the Nordic winter.
Frostbite updates the biting comic sensibility of The Lost Boys (1987) with the sort of sophisticated visual effects that vampire-lovers have come to expect since the Blade trilogy, while allowing all its blood to splatter in stylistic crimson against pure white snows. Complete with dumb cops, joyriding teens, prankster interns and, yes, talking dogs, it is all very silly, though just about knowing enough to get away with its own more glaring absurdities. Banke at times shows a real flair for direction, especially in some of the film’s visual gags – one memorable sequence in particular shows the shadow of an upraised hammer hovering over the head an unconscious hospital patient (in a clear nod to the menacing expressionism of Murnau’s 1922 classic Nosferatu), before pulling back to reveal that the shadow in fact belongs to a bunch of flowers.
At other times, however, the film suffers from the same lack of direction as its smalltown denizens, with set-pieces linked one to the other in a seemingly arbitrary fashion. The fault here lies largely with the Daniel Ojanlatva and Pidde Andersson’s screenplay, introducing many dramatis personae, but hardly developing any of them. This is not really a terminal problem for a film that does not pretend to be much more than a sensationalist thrill-ride – but it does mean that Frostbite is more likely to be remembered as a curiosity piece (look, Swedish vampires!) than for its plot, themes and characters.
Which is a pity, for buried somewhere amidst all the monstrous transformations and belly laughs is an uncomfortable critique of Sweden’s much-vaunted wartime neutrality, and her current anxieties about immigration. For this is the tale of a Nazi soldier finding refuge in Sweden with surprising ease, and continuing unchecked in a eugenics programme of his own (with bloodsuckers as the new master race) – and the locals either fail altogether to notice what is happening in their midst, or else fall in line with alarming gusto. And that is where this film’s teeth might have been a lot sharper.
Verdict: Anders Banke’s first feature is also the debut of the undead in Swedish cinema, but somewhat defanged by its own lack of focus.
