THALE (2012) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Aleksander Nordaas
Silje Reinåmo, Erlend Nervold, Jon Sigve Skard
Leo and Elvis are a couple of sanitation technicians working for an outfit called the No Shit Cleaning Service, hired to mop up grisly crime and accident scenes. One day, they're looking for body parts in and around an outhouse, when they discover a squalid but well-stocked laboratory hidden away under the loo. What they find in the lab is both wonderful and terrifying: a strange, mute, young woman with a tail, a creature straight out of Nordic myth. This leads to an hour's worth of well-tuned suspense, where you're down there with the cleanup guys and the creature, the impulsive Elvis unable to keep his hands off anything, the methodical Leo suggesting they leave the place alone and wait for reinforcements. The conclusion comes unexpectedly, leaving it unclear whether the filmmakers ran out of story to tell, or just didn't know where to go with it, but as fantasy thrillers go, this is a good one, playing on what you don't know and can't quite see. You could wish for the none-too-bright and much-too-curious Elvis not to go down those stairs, or open that door, or venture into that next dark room, but what good would that do? The fun is in knowing he will.
