Sauna

2008 horror allegory

Rating: 11/20

Plot: A pair of Swedish brothers work alongside Russian soldiers to form the boundaries between their countries following a lengthy war. They get to a tiny village with a mysterious sauna. One of the brother's sins come back to haunt him.

It's lazy viewing on my part probably. I kind of lost interest in this one early on despite some good costumes, creepy settings, and a mysterious vibe. My brain, numbed, never recovered, and by the time the really strange final fifteen minutes rolled in, it was too late for me to figure out what the hell was going on. The characters aren't "people" enough to be real. Instead, they seem to work more as figures in an allegory. Likewise, the story feels incomplete. It starts in the middle, doesn't really go anywhere, and ends in a baffling flurry of nightmare imagery. We're in more weird than affecting territory here. Sauna does seem to have interesting ideas and some terrifying, maybe even memorable, imagery, but as a horror story or a fable, it feels unfinished. But like I said, that could be my fault. It's one of those types of movies I needed to watch with somebody smarter so that it could be explained to me.