Kadaver (2020)
Kadaver is a Norwegian horror movie that came out in 2020.
Cadaver seems to be the US spelling but I am just going to refer to this movie in its original spelling since it's only a letter different (also there's other movies with the same name).
In the aftermath of a nuclear struck city lives a family struggling in practically every sense of the way. Buildings? Dilapidated. Food? Yeeted. Leonara, our main character, walks in on a suicide victim. Even while walking down the shattering streets there's literally dead bodies she has to walk over. Without a source for food, how the hell can she feed her family?
Leonara catches a salesman offering tickets to a dinner and a show. She pays presumably the last of her money to buy tickets for her family to attend.
It's a beautiful mansion with a fuck ton of food which dozens of families stuff their fat faces when all of a sudden the host takes stage and presents a series of plays for the enjoyment of the guests. The dude says that all guests have to wear these golden masks to differentiate between the actors and them. So they're all free to fuck off from the dining room and browse rooms spread throughout this mansion. Leonara, Jacob, her husband and Alice their young daughter set off to go be spectators. I suppose you can guess what is coming.
She then starts to have a hunch....uhhhhhh maybe this isn't such a good idea afterall.
Kadaver is just under 90 minutes worth of ehhhhh-ness. I'm a sucker for decent cinematography which seems to be one of the few saving graces. But like...I do think this suffers from plot holes and predictableness (is that a word? Bleh, just go with it.). Doesn't really add anything new in terms of layers. I would've preferred some form of prequel scenes to explain a thing or two about the "plays", character developments and the mansion which could had have some kind of inventive depth to the story. Plus one death scene didn't seem to make gravitational sense...like....did this take place on the moon???
Anyway, bottom like it's just OK. And that's OK. If you are looking for more depth? Then not OK.
I will say though!!! I low-key think this movie took inspiration from a certain Ray Bradbury story. I only watched the TV episode of this but I will need to track down and read the original story before I make a post about it. At the moment I plan on doing my first annual 31 Days of Halloween reviews starting October 1st and I just might include this Ray Bradbury story for one of my posts. Could be a coincidence at the similarities with Kadaver though but even if it wasn't, I don't think this would be a bad thing! There's a reason why there's plenty of influences when it comes to horror or any subject for that matter.
For a horror movie I didn't think there was much blood but a death scene or two kinda got gnarly. That being said, tame to no disclaimers. There is a brief sex scene, more like snippet but no nudity. There's no gross boundary crossings that I can say.
If this movie had a message, what would it be? Thee ol' classic: If it seems too good to be true then it probably is.
Age demographic? Hmm I'd say adults. Perhaps mature teen approved even.
That being said, what be the verdict here?
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