I once visited Požega, Croatia in December and it was magic. All those woods, a kind of sinister atmosphere, some invisible spirit of old in the air. Well, Kktz, veteran and legend of Croatian underground scene delivered another release with his black metal entity Tenebrositas. This time, significant news is that on this release Tenebrositas is a duo with Kktz handling vox. guitars and bass and O. handling drums and production. This is in fact one epic tale, song of just under fifteen minutes which indicates a bit of new path for Tenebrositas. It is still fast and raw almost hypnotic black metal with repetitive melody on guitar that kind of rolls through all song parts reappearing again and again. Atmosphere is dark yet fighting, victorious and persisting that dark hordes will prevail one day. Vocals are fantastic as always but this time Kktz tried some new things, by this I don’t mean clean singing but a bit more following guitar melody and melancholy with his shrieks. I love how the opus kind of slows down almost doomy towards the end but then wakes up to promise us another battle. This is in my opinion best Tenebrositas yet, I follow this entity for years in my zine. Recommendation.
Folk horror is so much featured in today’s horror movie scene but this Norwegian jewel has been almost forgotten until recent documentary about folk horror called Woodlands Dark…where I saw this one and immediately got interested. Norwegian horror scene is little but they have solid horror movies like Skjult or Rovdyr falling to my mind almost instantly, but this one has in fact been only Norwegian horror movie for a long time.
The story evolves around eerie haunted lake in the middle of the woods where there is supposedly no bottom and it draws souls to its depths. There is also a story about a crazy man Tore Gravik who killed her sister’s lover and then she and he drowned in this lake, also his screams can be heard every year upon the date of his death. Fast forward to nowadays, group of friends travel to the remote cabin on that lake where Liljan’s brother Werner is about to meet them but he disappeared and his dog was shot in the head. Group shares the story that Tore’s ghost enters people, makes them kill and drown in the lake so the plot thickens and strange things start to happen, Liljan’s boyfriend Braten is killed and they start to wonder has Tore returned from the dead or is it something more sinister but not otherworldly here?
Well, I enjoyed this one very much, although it is black and white, it has that Scandinavian mystery feel and atmosphere with some plot twists that would make modern movies hide in shame. Characters are well written and acting is awesome, so it is a pleasure to watch this one. It also contains a movie scene which was for a long time most famous in Norwegian movie industry, where Liljan throws herself in the lake to drown(not a spoiler). There is also parts of Nordic humor which just fits perfectly in that parts of the movie. I recommend this one as history of folk horror mystery.
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