Jag Såg Min Bäste Vän Dö

Year: 2006 Directed by: Sonny Hellerstedt Cast: David Wallin Tommy Wiklund Sonny Hellerstedt

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 Five friends go on an annual camping trip together
to Pilsbo. But this year it's going to be different.
It doesn't take long before strange things start
to occur around them and before the night is over,
someone's going to see his best friend die. What's
really going on at this campground? And is there
any way to stop it?

Lately it seems as if Sweden has been puking out
cheap DTV horror flicks, some are good, most are
bad. And while it's exciting to see horror movies
from countries that usually don't produce these
kind of movies, I wish that they would approach the
genre in a more subtle way and try not to start out
with such high ambitions. "Jag såg min bäste vän
dö" is an experimental horror film which is way
too ambitious and tries too hard to be clever and
just ends up being a mess.

Since my plot description doesn't tell you a lot
about the movie, I'm going to try to go more into
detail without spoiling anything. Now, let me try
to get everything right as I was very confused for
most of the time while watching this movie, but
I think it revolved around five friends who go to
a remote camping place for their annual get-together.
Soon enough, the friends start turning up dead one
after the other, but here's the confusing part,
they're not really dead... well, yes they are... or
are they? Yeah, that's pretty much how the story
goes, and you might get the idea that this is a
slasher, but it's not, at all.

Now, this movie did have potential, I'll give it
that. Even though the budget is low, they are aware
of their restrictions and have made the best out
of the situation - and the end result actually looks
pretty good. Also, most the actors were surprisingly
good but you could tell which ones of them went in
full-heartedly and which didn't. Another positive
thing I have to say is that the end scene (well, one
of them) where two guys go berserk with chainsaws
was absolutely brilliant, but those five minutes
unfortunately couldn't make up for the rest of the movie.

Perhaps this could have been a good movie if they
had only stuck to simplicity and made it a pure
slasher-flick, but this was just way too experimental
for me. Hopefully they'll see their mistakes and
work on them for their next project because I'd
hardly recommend this one.

Some blood here and there, some fake brains, nothing
very brutal. This was messy in the wrong department.

For what its worth, the piano music was actually
pretty effective. It felt professional and sleek.

Not one of the better horror flicks to come out of
Sweden but this group does show some potential so
perhaps their next release will be one to see. Had
they only stuck to simplicity, I think this could
have been something decent. But this was just too
confusing and too experimental for my taste.

Review By: AnthroFred