Cabin Fever, But Make It Swedish
There are films that pay homage to The Evil Dead. Then there’s Wither (2012), a movie that grabs Sam Raimi’s classic by the ankles, shakes out all its wit, horror, and personality, and replaces them with IKEA-grade acting and lighting that makes it look like the whole movie was filmed in a sauna.
Directed by Sonny Laguna and Tommy Wiklund, Wither wants to be Sweden’s answer to Raimi’s cult masterpiece. Instead, it’s more like Sweden’s apology letter to horror cinema.
This is a film where a bunch of attractive but aggressively uninteresting people decide to spend the weekend in a cabin in the woods — a cabin that, as it turns out, is haunted by a folklore creature called a Vittra. Which sounds cool, right? A Nordic myth about nature spirits and ancient curses? Except here, the Vittra looks like someone’s aunt who fell asleep in a tanning bed and woke up angry.
Opening Scene: Domestic Bliss, But With Cannibalism
The movie opens with Gunnar, a rugged old hunter, finding his wife chewing on their daughter like she’s a Swedish meatball. He shoots her twice in the head and doesn’t even flinch — probably because he’s read the script and knows he’s got two more hours of this nonsense.
We then get some sketches about the history of the Vittra, which look like they were drawn on a napkin at 3 a.m. by a production intern. This is our exposition. It’s not exactly Tolkien.
From there, we cut to our main cast: a group of young Swedes on their way to the countryside. They’re the usual horror-movie suspects — the nice couple, the angry brother, the goth friend, the one who dies first, and the guy who exists purely to hold the camera.
They’re heading to a cabin because nothing says “vacation” like a dilapidated death trap with no Wi-Fi.
The Cabin in the Woods, IKEA Edition
The group arrives at the cabin, which looks suspiciously like it was built by someone who lost the instruction manual halfway through. The door’s locked, the windows are broken, and yet everyone’s like, “Ja, let’s stay here!”
One of the girls, Marie, climbs in through a window — because that’s what survival instincts look like in this universe — and ends up in the basement, where she finds an axe and a Vittra watching her from the shadows. But instead of, you know, leaving, she just stands there like she’s waiting for subtitles to catch up.
It’s not long before things go downhill faster than a skier in the Alps. Marie gets sick, vomits blood, and starts attacking people. One might think this would be alarming, but the rest of the group reacts with the same level of urgency as if she’d sneezed at dinner.
Gunnar Returns, Armed with Wisdom (and a Knife)
Our favorite moose-slaying dad Gunnar shows up again, warns everyone about the Vittra, and tells them to kill their friend before she spreads the infection. The gang hesitates, because they’re young and beautiful and apparently immune to logic.
The Vittra, we learn, can “steal your soul by looking in your eyes.” Which sounds poetic until you realize it’s basically just another excuse for people to stand around making intense eye contact before gnawing on each other.
From this point on, Wither becomes a parade of blood, bad decisions, and scenes where people scream each other’s names until you start rooting for the Vittra just to make it stop.
The Infection Spreads, the Audience Nods Off
Tove gets bitten, Marcus gets infected, Simon gets angry, Ida cries, and Albin — our alleged protagonist — spends most of the movie looking like he just remembered he left his oven on.
By the time the second act rolls around, everyone’s either dead, undead, or incredibly Swedish about the situation. Gunnar decapitates someone, then immediately kills himself, which honestly feels like the most relatable decision in the film.
The undead victims shuffle around the cabin attacking survivors while the camera shakes like it’s being held by a caffeinated squirrel. There’s gore, sure — blood sprays, limbs fly — but it’s so repetitive that it starts feeling less like horror and more like a particularly violent detergent commercial.
The “Twist”: Everyone’s Dead, and So Is the Plot
Eventually, it’s revealed that the real monster isn’t the Vittra — it’s bad editing. But also, technically, it’s the Vittra.
Simon turns out to be some kind of super-ghoul, Albin’s girlfriend Ida turns undead but still remembers him (which the movie treats like a tragic love moment instead of a continuity error), and the final boss battle is between Albin and an ancient creature that looks like E.T. if he’d been living under a compost heap.
The climax involves Albin turning off the lights so the Vittra can’t see him (because she’s apparently solar-powered) and then dropping a fridge on her. Yes, you read that right — this film ends when our hero crushes an ancient mythological demon with a refrigerator.
Sam Raimi gave us chainsaws, shotgun mayhem, and demented comedy. Wither gives us a kitchen appliance.
The Horror of Being Generic
Every frame of Wither screams “We watched Evil Dead once.” It’s got all the same ingredients: isolated cabin, possession, gore, and a book of lore. But somehow, it manages to drain the life out of every element.
The scares are predictable, the characters are indistinguishable, and the camera moves like it’s constantly tripping over extension cords.
Where Raimi’s chaos felt alive and mischievous, Wither feels like a PowerPoint presentation about horror tropes. Every scare cue comes exactly three seconds after you expect it. Every death feels like a chore on a to-do list.
And the dialogue — good lord, the dialogue. Every conversation sounds like it was translated from English to Swedish and back again using Google Translate circa 2005.
The Vittra: Nature Spirit or Discount Zombie?
The film makes a big deal about how the Vittra is not a zombie but rather a folkloric creature from pre-Christian mythology. Great, except it behaves exactly like a zombie — bites people, spreads infection, drools blood. It’s like calling a vampire a “hematological enthusiast.”
The creature design could’ve been creepy, but it’s undone by lighting so dim you can barely tell what’s happening. It’s hard to be scared when you’re squinting and thinking, “Is that the Vittra or just a pile of moss?”
Acting: Dead Inside, by Design or Accident
The cast delivers performances that range from mildly sedated to full-on IKEA showroom mannequin. The standout is Johannes Brost as Gunnar, who looks like he wandered in from a much better movie and stayed because they were paying him in coffee and sandwiches.
The rest of the cast mostly scream, cry, and look confused — which, to be fair, is probably how they felt reading the script.
Final Thoughts: Vittra? I Hardly Knew Ya
By the end, Wither leaves you feeling exactly as its title suggests — emotionally withered. It’s the kind of horror movie that mistakes blood for fear, noise for tension, and mythology for story.
There’s a kernel of a good idea buried somewhere in here — a Scandinavian folk horror take on The Evil Dead could’ve been amazing. But instead, what we get is a reheated corpse of a concept, missing both the humor and the madness that made Raimi’s film legendary.
The only truly terrifying part of Wither is realizing you spent 95 minutes watching people die in the world’s least scary cabin, only for the monster to be defeated by a fridge.
Verdict: ★★☆☆☆
A film that proves not every legend deserves a movie — and not every cabin in the woods needs a sequel. Wither doesn’t so much scare you as slowly erode your will to live. If this is the first Swedish zombie movie to hit theaters, it’s easy to see why the undead stayed buried.
