PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

SoftInloveRox Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

mars-94766 About a troubled woman's(Lina Sundén) desperate journey to find her daughter and the various unusual characters/situations she encounters along the way. Although the budget is low, the interesting script along with the strong, convincing performance of Lina Sundén keep the movie going quite well.. worth a watch!

Leofwine_draca FEED THE LIGHT is a very low budget Swedish indie horror flick which is heavily indebted to the excellent H.P. Lovecraft story THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE. This one's black and white and very artistic visually; it follows a female protagonist around as she hunts for her missing daughter and descends into a hellish netherworld with no escape. The subterranean industrial complex setting is very well realised here and there's a lot of style, albeit without much substance to go along with it. Imagine what the director could acheive with a real budget!

Woodyanders Young mother Sara (an excellent and affecting performance by Lina Sunden) gets a job as a cleaner at a mysterious sanitarium in order to find her daughter who's been abducted by her ex-husband who's a patient at said asylum. Sara soon finds herself in considerable jeopardy after she discovers a nightmarish netherworld populated by lethal otherworldly beings and duplicitous characters.Director Henrik Moller, who also co-wrote the offbeat and intriguing script with Martin Jirhamn, relates the absorbing story at a steady pace, ably crafts an eerie and unsettling atmosphere, vividly evokes the oppressively clammy and icky environment, and concludes things on an ambiguously "happy" note that proves to be quite haunting. Moreover, Sara's need to find her missing daughter gives this film additional poignancy and resonance. This movie further benefits from sound supporting contributions from Jirhamn as a helpful janitor, Jenny Lampa as the strict boss, and Patrik Karlson as the paranoid VHS. Moller's stark black and white cinematography makes adept and unnerving use of shadowy lighting. Testbild's shivery score hits the spine-tingling spot. Well worth a watch.

filmbizarro Henrik Möller is a name I've heard of for years due to his crude animation films - something I made a conscious decision not to watch. It wasn't out of spite or any ill-meaning, I simply never found myself interested in watching them. It's with something like this debut feature, "Lokalvårdaren" (or its English title, which speaks more about the movie but stands out less, "Feed the Light") that I really got curious. It's a low-budget horror from the Southern part of Sweden (made obvious by the accents, of course) that's akin to psychological/supernatural stories like "Session 9".Storywise it keeps itself somewhat familiar. The whole supernatural activities at a weird place/facility/whatever. Sara takes a job as a cleaner at a strange place where her daughter got lost after following her dad to work (he also works there). She comes to learn that the co-workers are far from the most bizarre things she's about to meet. She hears about "the light" - and a supposed other dimension. It strays away to some interesting places here and there, but mostly it remains easy to follow while still keeping us curious. That's possibly one of the main strengths here, that it's not always easy to predict what will happen next.My general distaste for modern Swedish cinema doesn't have much to do with the country or language itself. It's as simple as this: we're mostly horrible at making movies. We're unoriginal and unaware of it. When decent ideas come along, they're usually failing elsewhere. "Lokalvårdaren" stood out with its trailer and it gave me some hope for Swedish independent cinema, and I think it's a lot better than movies like "Mara", "Vittra", "Den som söker" and "Marianne" (all recent Swedish horror/thrillers). It shows a lot more talent and originality (despite feeling familiar in story) than the rest, that's for sure.But what is my overall feeling of the movie? Fact is that I still struggle to fully enjoy it. There are several things that distract me from being fully involved in it. Sometimes it's the characters, sometimes the actors, sometimes it's the few leaps it takes. There are great characters, like Sara herself is quite good, but I'm not entirely sold on the boss character (or the bizarre, nude gimp-like man she has in her office). Acting is also mostly decent, but I felt the dialogue came off as a bit stale or even comedic at times. As for the leaps... well, I'm not entirely sure why certain things happened (and maybe that's on purpose), but without spoiling the scenes I simply felt they brought out more sighs than curiosity.I'm glad the movie has an experimental approach, but at times it felt like means to add something more of interest to the movie, to give it a little unique touch, rather than fully using the style. Simple things like having blood and the daughter's coat in color when the rest isn't is just an old trick that needs some heavy thought behind it to actually mean something. At the same time though, I feel Henrik Möller certainly does best when the movie gets odd.I guess I have to take on the role as a grumpy man yet again, and I guarantee that it's not my intentions upon watching Swedish movies. I will be watching more of Henrik Möller if he comes out with more features, I think he has a few great ideas in him and he's a bigger hope for Swedish horror than most filmmakers right now. The cinematography also stands above most low-budget supernatural horrors that I review. "Lokalvårdaren" might not have won me over, but it has a lot that almost all other Swedish horror movies are missing. If you want a decent supernatural mystery then you should give this a shot though!More reviews at FilmBizarro.com