- Directed by Nico van den Brink
- Written by Dean Baker, Nico van den Brink
- Stars Sallie Harmsen, Anneke Blok, Markoesa Hamer
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thCNuuI_YkI
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
They find well-preserved bodies in the bog that appear to have been sacrificed with their necks cut in a specific way. But that’s just ancient history, right? Well, not exactly. This one is good, creepy, and builds nicely as we figure out what’s going on here.
Synopsis
In 1991 we start in a house next to a huge peat bog. Where a little girl sits in a closet, trying to catch a mouse. There’s screaming coming from the floor above, but the girl doesn’t want to hear that. Then blood drips through the ceiling, and she hides. Thirty years later, we see Betriek, all grown up with a daughter of her own. Credits roll.
Betriek and her daughter live with her mother and grandfather. Grandfather Roel says that they found something weird in the bog. That night, out on the moors, “The Bag Man” digs in a hole. He suddenly stops and sees something– they find his corpse the next morning.
Some American experts come in to study the thing they found, and they ask about the police investigating the dead man in the next field. They say he died of hypothermia last night. The Americans check out what looks like a really old dead body in the bog.
Betriek wakes up when she hears her mother having a seizure. As she puts her daughter back to bed, she sees someone standing outside. Grandad blames the nearby American party, but Jonas, the leader of the Americans, doesn’t know anything about it.
The doctor suggests that mother’s seizures may be caused by something not physical, maybe some old trauma. Grandad shows his great-grandaughter, Hannah, the wildlife cameras he’s installed on the property.
Betriek has drinks with Jonas later that evening. She tells him there’s a kind of “family curse” that keeps the locals afraid of her family.
That night, Grandad decides to sit outside and watch for possible trespassers. Betriek finds a strange man in the kitchen. “I’m sorry– they’re making me do it!” He lets out a scream and almost kills her mother when Grandpa comes in and whacks the man with a hammer. Everyone is pretty traumatized after that.
Jonas comes over the next morning to apologize, since it was one of his men who snapped. Betriek asks if the man would have been around age ten back in 1991 which is very oddly specific. Grandpa says “It’s all happening again. It’s her again. We must leave as soon as possible.” Mother then has another seizure which results in an MRI. While at the hospital, Betriek, runs into a weird little girl who mumbles something to her, and she gets a glimpse of something monstrous. The girl says, “Nu amerit,” which translates to “She never died.”
The American, Jonas, tells Betriek that the afflicted man, Radu, was last seen digging on his own away from the site. He says that they dug up another old bog-body, and it was at least hundreds of years old. They talk to the Bagman’s father, who claims that his son was “sensitive” and he just knew where to dig. They talk about the legend of Faeke, and how some people take it really seriously. It’s even been incorporated into the school musical. Supposedly, the bog whispers to people. Betriek and Jonas argue and she runs out across the bog with him in pursuit. They end up smooching away. Nothing a little swamp-sex to liven up a relationship!
Jonas returns to his camp, and his experts show that the various bodies they found all had their throats cut, vertically. Back at home, Grandpa’s friend says they’re in the same place they were thirty years ago; they both know what’s happening. Jonas’s assistant Sonja looks up the legend of Faeke. As she reads the story, we see the school children on stage re-enacting the story. The evil Walter got Faeke pregnant, and Helen, Walter’s wife, accused Faeke of being a witch. The heathen god of child sacrifice, Moloch, helped her to escape in return for her offspring. Faeke cut her own throat– vertically. This was the source of the curse.
Betriek goes to see the Bagman’s father again, and he talks about psychic vibrations. He manages to hypnotize her and put her into a trance where she remembers the pre-credit sequence; she was the little girl in the closet.
Betriek goes to Jonas’s tent and finds the eight bodies they dug up. They’re all from different eras, and they’re all female. They are also all related. Back at the house, Grandpa Tases one of the scientists who was approaching the house. Something else comes up behind him…
Betriek explains to her mother that these women were all sacrifices to Moloch, just like grandma was. Her mother wants to know how she knew that. Back in the swamp, Grandpa sees his dead wife’s ghost. Sonja asks Jonas, “You don’t think it’s still happening?” At this point, he figures it out. “They’re still sacrificing people to Moloch!” Naturally, tonight is the big Faeke Festival, and there’s a parade and ceremonies.
Grandpa comes back to the house, and he now looks a lot like Radu did when he was possessed. Betriek hides her daughter in the closet as Grandpa breaks in the back door and tries to kill her. Betriek whacks him with a fireplace shovel. He’s out cold now, but her mother has vanished. He wakes up and mother, who is now possessed, kills him.
Jonas is trying to reach the house, but gets his foot stuck in a bear trap. Betriek’s mother, along with a number of townspeople who are dressed up to look like buffaloes, tie her up and pull out a razor blade. We think they’re going to sacrifice Betriek. Nope. Betriek’s mother slices her own throat vertically.
Moloch finally makes an appearance, and he’s really something. Jonas finally arrives, and finds Betriek and her parents’ bodies. The two of them let Hannah out of the closet. Some time passes, and Jonas offers to let them live in his guest house. She decides to stay where they are, as she wants things to be stable… for Hannah. He _really _wants to help, but she totally shoots him down. “With these things, sometimes it’s best to just leave it be,” she says as she steals a pack of sugar, just like her mother. Later, we see her ghost standing outside, looking inside at a thing sitting inside with her daughter.
What’s gonna happen in thirty more years?
Commentary
This one is just foreign enough to be really interesting. It’s a local legend that we don’t know, and the whole story is the mystery behind it being exposed. The characters are all interesting and realistic, the situation is tense, and there’s lots of suspense all around. The setting, the foggy swamp in the Netherlands, is really cool.
This has gone on for centuries, so why didn’t the family move somewhere else in all that time? I guess the ending kind of explains this, but not satisfactorily. Apparently the women all just accept it as their destiny.
You don’t get much monster here, just some glimpses and one scene. Other than that, it’s a grim, foreboding, kind of film with lots of baked-in dread and angst. I really liked it.