Old age and family trauma are the true horror in Mattias Johansson Skoglund’s eerie midnight movie
The title of Mattias Johansson Skoglund’s sophomore feature is both bitter irony and a painful truth. There’s hardly anything homely about the domestic life his slow-burning chiller explores. Neither the new living place of elderly Monika (Anki Lidén) nor her former family live emanate care and comfort. However, the neglect and abuse the sinister story unveils are all too common realities. In his – according to his own words, very loose – adaptation of co-writer Mats Strandberg’s novel, the Swedish director-writer interlinks these two different kinds of dread. The effect is equally differentiated and disturbing: a reminder that some horrors one cannot escape.
One of these horrors is the terrible memories Monika shares with her struggling son Joel (Philip Oros). With her health in rapid decline after a stroke, her moves her to the Ekskuggan care facility. This place is dismal and dingy, but in the drab Swedish provincial town apparently their only option. A glimmer of hope is Joel’s childhood best friend Nina (Gizem Erdogan). She works as a nurse at Ekskuggan where the patient’s behavior suddenly changes. Confused inmates experience moments of clarity in which they say cruel, terrifying things. The same happens to Monika who even resorts to terrible self-harm. She seems cause and victim of the uncanny events that started as she moved in.
Maybe she didn’t come alone. Monika’s sadistic and abusive husband Bengt (Peter Jankert) is with her. Never mind that he is long dead. His demonic presence is a clear but powerful metaphor for trauma and its lasting impact. This is a film about haunted minds. As they start to fall apart, they unleash their demons. Emotional wounds fester and repressed pain channels into substance abuse, dissociation and anger. Joel, a failed musician and recovering/relapsing alcoholic, has his own brutal memories of his father. These come to life in well-placed jump scares and bizarre hallucinations. Nightmare and reality begin to blur as the past manifests in the present.
The decaying care facility becomes the psychological plot’s main location. Dimly lit corridors and sickly fluorescent lights make it an ideal scenery for crouching terror. The camera prowls the narrow hallways and lurks around dark corners. Flashbacks reveal just enough of Joel’s abusive upbringing to know Monika was complicit. Underneath the discomforting atmosphere lies a surprisingly straightforward social critique. Skoglund’s disquieting genre piece deconstructs the supposedly ideal Scandinavian social care and idyllic family life. Institutional care and home life are equally bad in his disillusioned counter-draft. Cinematographer Malin Lindqvist Qvarfordt’s sparse images, using minimal, natural light, reinforce the feeling of being trapped.
Tight close-ups capture the mental instability of the two main characters. The muddy, cold color palette underscores the somber mood. A discordant, drowning soundtrack subtly emphasizes the oppressive tension. Anki Lidén’s strong lead performance and an overall capable cast make up for the characters’ lack of development. While the buildup feels overlong, the ending arrives rushed and boffers hardly any conclusion. Despite its strengths, the story can’t fully compete with similar works like The Rule of Jenny Penn or The Mansion. Still, its edges are part of the originality of this slow descent into memory hell.
- OT: Hemmet
- Director: Mattias Johansson Skoglund
- Year: 2025
