Thale

           

 

   Title – Thale

             Language – Norwegian

             Genre – Supernatural, monster

Thale starts with Leo & Elvis cleaning up a dead body form a house (It’s their job) when they discover a hidden cellar.  It is obvious that some one use to live in the cellar as it is furnished. The pair soon discover a number of out of date tinned food, an old cassette player, a bath full of a creamy liquid and a sealed fridge all of which are coved in grime and don’t seem to have been used for a while.  As they explore, Leo & Elvis discover a naked woman who is, to begin with quite aggressive.  The woman never speaks but they learn from the old tapes that she is known as ‘Thale’.  As the cleaners wait for their friends to check out the basement it becomes obvious that there is more to Thale then meets the eye but can they find out what before what ever is in the woods outside gets in, maybe there is a clue inside the fridge.

Thale is a slow paced yet atmospheric ‘Cabin in the woods’ movie with a small but effective cast.  For most of the movie we only have the 3 main characters, Leo, Elvis & Thale.  As Thale never speaks most of the movie is made up of the other two characters trying to find out why she is in the cellar from the old tapes and this does lead to the film having quite a slow pace but it is never boring as the atmosphere inside the cabin is quite claustrophobic as, to begin with we never know what Thale is going to do.  Then, as the film progress’s the atmosphere becomes more oppressive as the creatures in the wood seem to be getting closer.

In some (small) way Thale reminds me of the original ‘Evil Dead’ with the atmospheric cabin and the mysterious tape player but, Thale never need’s the use of gore in the same way as ‘Evil Dead’ as it relies more on the mystery of Thales past and of not knowing what is outside.

There does seem to be a couple of unnecessary plot lines (without giving two much away Leo’s secret & Elvis’ secret) in Thale which I think were in to help build up the characters and (in once case) to show something of the true nature and power of Thale herself but I believe that, whist there was point to Leos secret the film would not have lost anything with out it and, although Elvis’ secret really didn’t have much bearing on the main plot of the film it felt a little bit of a lose end, it could either have been brought into the main story a bit more or left out.

I would highly recommend giving Thale a watch, it is very atmospheric film and the part of Thale is especially well portrayed by Silje Reinåmo who manages to develop the character with out saying a word or, for a lot of the movie wearing any clothes.