Psalm 21 (2009)

Absolutely Fantastic

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The screenplay from Psalm 21 is quite similar to the modern Asian horror which is extinguishing. Or, more precisely, Psalm 21 takes some elements from the Asian horror and it combines them with a religious doctrine in order to create an unstable film which I found tedious, confusing and extremely repetitive.The screenplay from Psalm 21 loses the control very quickly, and its paranormal elements are accumulated without a concrete purpose. Besides, I hated the excessive use of digital effects in order to create demonic faces without rhyme or reason; instead of scaring me, that trick produced me unintentional laughs sometimes, and irritation in other ones.Despite some good technical aspects, I did not like Psalm 21, mainly because I found it lacking of any suspense, horror and ingenuity. In summary, I cannot recommend it, basically due to the fact that it ignored basic conditions; for example, it should have not made me snooze with such a frequency, nor it should have tried to scare us with the same cheap trick like 100 times.

In Stockholm, the priest Henrik Horneus (Jonas Malmsjö) is beloved by his parish flock, and in his sermon, he frequently mentions the Psalm 21 that is the favorite of his father and also priest Gabriel (Per Ragnar) that lives in Hammerdal.Henrik has relationship problems with his son Jesper that lives with his mother Elsie (Gunvor Pontén) and is spending his birthday with him. When Jesper is ready to go home with his mother, Henrik's girlfriend Karolina (Julia Dufvenius) receives a phone call from the coroner of Hammerdal telling that his estranged father has been found drowned in the Dead Lake. Henrik decides to drive alone in the middle of the night to his father's hometown to attend the funeral and learn what has happened to him.Out of the blue, a person appears on the dark road and Henrik runs over her. Henrik pulls the car over but he does not see anybody on the road. Henrik returns to the car but it does not start, so he walks to a small farm to ask for help. He sees lights in the barn and he sees a blond little girl. When he talks to her, she transforms into an evil creature. Hentik runs to the house and he meets a weird family that lodges him.Henrik has scary nightmares and daydreams and fells like he is trapped in hell. He learns that his father was murdered and dumped in the lake. Further, he has already been buried and sooner Hemrik finds the truth about Gabriel. When Henrik returns to his parish, he questions the nonexistence of hell declared by the Swedish Church in 1983."Psalm 21" is a messy Swedish horror film that has a promising beginning but becomes boring and senseless. The screenplay is absolutely confused and there are scenes without explanation. For example, why Henrik is seduced and has sex with the demon-girl in the barn? His offensive final speech to his flock seems also to be out of the context and gives the sensation that Henrik is deranged or possessed. If Henrik has learned the truth, he should be more careful and prepare his congregation to embrace the new ideas. My vote is four.Title (Brazil): "Salmo 21" ("Psalm 21")

A fairly good attempt of venturing into the genre of modern Asian horror, although, with a Scandinavian touch to it. In the story line, we follow when a young priest battles his personal stand point alongside with the modern theology, involving the issue that hell does not exist! However, he will soon experience the contrary when he visits the village where his father recently died.The move contains some chilling scenes when normal people transforms into demon like characters. These special effects are regurgitated throughout the movie, which, in the end loses its supposed scariness.Due to this, my drowsy eyes gains control and the only thing that is occupying my mind is the need of a good night rest. That night, I slept like a baby!

#may contain spoilers# I just watched this movie last night and to tell the truth i didn't expect much since there are very few Swedish films worth seeing. But this one actually surprised me, in a very bad way.The first thing that hit me was the dialogue and this is one of my major problems with Swedish films in general. Not one person in this entire country speaks this way, all the dialogue feels very forced and clinical. Not to mention the fact the movie is supposed to take place in the northern part of the country yet everyone talks in dialect that is used in our capital.Plotwise there isn't anything even remotely original about it either, its a pretty basic ghost story(although you could argue that there are no ghosts at all) with a few twists that doesn't make any sense at all and an ending that just serves the directors wish to make his views on religion crystal clear.As far as the horror elements go it is also very lacking, basically they're just Ringu inspired ghosts(one scene is almost copy/pasted right out of Ringu 1) and considering how scary the deep woods in northern Sweden can actually be at night they completely messed up by not taking advantage of that.To sum up, this movie isn't worth your time or money. The acting is bellow average but with a script like this im not sure you can blame the actors. Add to this a nonsensical plot and the sub-par horror elements you will only be wasting your time.