Swedish writer/director Fredrik Hiller’s delayed Psalm 21 finally arrived on DVD here in the UK on 30 May, having been made in 2009. As its title suggests, it’s another spiritual horror that questions Man’s relationship with religion, and how it’s used/abused. What Hiller’s own views on religion as opposed to faith are remain unclear, but he seems to be asking us to judge man-made interpretations on the one hand while hammering home the message that to do so means you will be judged later. The film relies on a flicker of God-fearing belief of heaven and hell to be effective, as so many of these types of Christian vengeance-led horrors do, or it just comes across as fire-and-brimstone mumbo-jumbo.
The story follows popular Stockholm priest Henrik Horneus (Jonas Malmsjö) who has always preached the non-existence of hell – as renounced by the Swedish Church since 1983. But he’s plagued by dark dreams of his youth and experiences of some of his congregation, including one old lady who says she ‘sees spirits’. After learning of his father, priest Gabriel Horneus’s (Per Ragnar) death from drowning, Henrik travels to his village parish, but his car breaks down after a supernatural occurrence on route. Taken in by an odd family in the forest, he learns that his father’s death was mysterious. Henrik’s arrival sets dark forces into motion, opening the door to the other side where ghosts from the past begin to cross over into the real world. They want one thing – vengeance. As Henrik tries to find peace of mind, he begins to question his own faith.
Swedish actor Malmsjö has the strength and presence on screen to carry the film. His stage experience is evident in the part, without making Henrik into a holy-man caricature. As priests battling their own belief systems go, Henrik is not so unusual, but Malmsjö attempts to keep him grounded as a flawed individual with his own personal problems – like the fraught relationship with his young son. He also makes Henrik a credible, contemporary man of the cloth, full of humour, analysis, self-doubt and rising emotions that he suppresses to help others. It makes our journey with him all the more inviting.
Those who deny the existence of hell are supposedly denying the existence of the Devil, and it’s the appearance of demonic faces – whose inky, skull-like effects have been used to death in so many horror films – that serve to question Kenrik’s no-hell stance, and that are Psalm 21’s only chilling supernatural effect. As we see these ghoulish transformations very early on in the film, the creep-factor card is deal, and what’s left is finding out why they keep appearing by going along with Henrik on his faith-changing adventure. There’s very little demonic blood, guts and gore to be had; Hiller’s just on an offensive to put the fear of God in us while challenging the Church’s authority. It’s this contradiction that gives the film its own momentum.
The film-maker keeps the suspense brewing nicely, deploying a lot of soft-focus, disorientating shots in dream sequences to confuse and delay revealing any punch lines, while keeping his cinematographic palette limited to depict a growing, sinister forest environment, where the answers to Henrik’s nightmares are held. These woodland shots are beautifully shot slow-mo sequences set to an evoking soundtrack. In fact there’s a lot of biblical references and imagery to decipher and odd plot tangents that may go to confuse matters more, rather than make things any clearer. For starters, it’s still not clear exactly what happens to Henrik’s mother, although the reasons for her personal guilt become apparent in the latter part of the film, suggesting self-harm. And why did the old lady become ‘possessed’ in the first place?
The storyline relies heavily on emphasising the words of Psalm 21:
“Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies: thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee. Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger: the LORD shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them. Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men…” and so on. Without giving the game away, the plot suggests that our enemies are not always apparent, and if you have faith, the real ones will be revealed to you – as they do Henrik.
Indeed, the film’s ending is a highly controversial one, if not one of great interest and clarity that harks back to the difference between religion and faith, and the latter’s dominance over the masses by those in power. It does all come across as Hiller’s final sermon, had you not got an inclination earlier on in the story. Truth and love should prevail, but don’t always do so, even in the house of God. These messages serve as the film’s lasting foreboding message. Hence Psalm 21’s true ‘horror’ is in the age-old religious-atheist debate about the afterlife and the actions of some unscrupulous clergymen.
OVERALL SUMMARY
As a visual horror offering alone, Psalm 21 is limited in effects and supernatural spooks. But it makes up for this in its guarded pace, chilling ambiance, and faith-searching anxiety. Hiller’s spiritual summation demands a subjective, intellectual interpretation, rather than a piece-by-piece puzzle of haunting visual facts to make its impact.
