Jacob, a journalist who has taken to time off work to write a book, is one day having his handicapped sister over, and gets to meet her future husband for the first time. Jacob, along with his mother and his wife, thinks that his sister Julie is moving a bit fast, but still can't deny her to get married to this stranger named Anker. Right after the wedding though, Julie commits suicide, and a devastated Anker moves away to Jylland, a Danish island. Soon after, Jacob finds some suspicious obituaries, and realizes that Anker had a handicapped wife before he met Julie, who also died. This makes Jacob go to Jylland to visit Anker, and to ask him about some things. But when he arrives there, Anker is about to marry yet another handicapped girl. Could this all just be one major coincidence? Jacob starts to investigate, and the deeper he digs, the closer he comes to the dark truth.
All of you who have been watching Asian horror flicks for some time, do you remember when you first started to get into Asian horror? How those first movies you watched had a totally different feel to them compared to standard horror, and that chances that they would be scary were pretty great? This was exactly how I felt when I started to watch Mørke, it had this great feel to it, and had a really strong storyline that just kept getting more and more eerie as the movie kept rolling on. Personally I consider Denmark to be one of those countries that makes the best movies in the world. There are many great countries that makes good flicks, but Denmark has a tendency to spit out movies that are just awesome, whatever genre they may be. Horror may not be their strongest export, but when it comes to action comedies, they pretty much know exactly how to pull it off. One reason for that is simply quality over quantity.
Mørke is a psychological thriller that has an eerie story about a man who marries handicapped and braindamaged girls, who later are found dead. This movie made me at first think about another Danish horror thriller called Nattevagten (Nightwatch) which I saw a very long time ago, and that was scary as hell when I saw it. Mørke didn't really come off as half as scary, but still had a really eerie feel to it all the way through. The movie offered 110% mystery, and little by little, things were revealed and sometimes it shed light over things, and other times it just became even more eerie. The only reason why I can't give this movie the highest rating is because it didn't really have any twist to it. You know who the killer is all the way through, but you don't know the reason why, and it's because of that it manages to deliver a helluva lot of mystery among other things.
 
The movie also has a lot of moment that makes you doubt what you think it's all about. You are quite certain what's what, but then, every now and then, there are moments when you're not so certain anymore, and I really liked that, the fact that due to some things that happened, it made you doubt what you first thought was right. There are really no scares per se, but Mørke sure has a great deal of tension to offer. The plot is extremely good and it's hard to take your eyes, or mind for that matter, off when watching it. It draws you in, delivers an eerie feel, some tension, a lot of mystery, and you can't wait for more clues to be revealed.
The acting is absolutely brilliant. So good that you at times forget that you're just watching another movie, and of course the plot has a lot to do with that as well. Nikolaj Lie Kaas really stands out playing Julie's journalist brother, who due to his sister's suicide starts an investigation which leads him into a great deal of trouble. The island of Jylland itself makes for a great and gloomy location, where most of the movie takes place in the small village of Mørke. Mørk means dark in Danish, and so mørke means 'the dark'. The movie looks slick with nice photography, a great location, and an overall eerie but yet sad feel to it. On the horror front, it doesn't have too much to offer, it's eerie enough, but never really becomes full-on scary. What makes it good though is some of the tension it delivers, plus the story itself is reason enough to watch it.
Mørke felt fresh and original enough, and was a nice break from 'standard horror'. It was not really scary, but it sure was a bit eerie, had some tension to offer, and best of all, provided an extremely interesting story which made the film pretty much captivating. Definitely recommended.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Mørke
MOVIE YEAR: 2005
DIRECTOR: Jannik Johansen
WRITING CREDITS: Anders Thomas Jensen, Jannik Johansen
GENRE: Thriller
CAST: Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Nicolas Bro, Lotte Bergstrøm
COUNTRY: Denmark
RUNTIME: 124 min
RATING: 8/10
Murk Website/IMDB Click here
Murk Trailer Click here
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