For most of the countries in this feature, there haven’t been a great deal of options. It has typically been a case of finding one horror(ish) movie from there, and being grateful for that. For Latvia, however, Tubi managed to provide not one but two possible candidates, thereby posing a dilemma. The initial option was The Land of Blue Lakes, but on watching the trailer, it looked like a more or less shameless Blair Witch knock-off. A group of friends go into the woods, never to be seen again – except for their footage? Yeah. As we discussed recently, the appeal of doing this, is to try and get some local flavour, and learn something about their culture. Not watch a likely inferior copy of an over-rated American film.
However, on watching the backup choice, Squeal, it became clear that, while interesting in its own way, this was a fringe entry in the genre – in the way that Pluto is a fringe member of the solar system. So we have one film that’s definitely intended to be horror, but likely isn’t going to satisfy our needs, and is probably going to suck; and another that’s worth talking about, but barely qualifies for the genre portion of the assignment. The solution was obvious. Put them together and cover both. So, that’s what you’ll find below: two reviews, for today only. And Latvian horror-film makers, please get your shit together, so we do not have this problem next time. Thank you for your co-operation.
Squeal (2021)
Rating: C+
Dir: Aik Karapetian
Star: Kevin Janssens, Laura Silina, Aigars Vilims, Normunds Griestins
a.k.a. Samuel’s Travels
“I would not, in any way, consider that to be a horror movie,” stated Chris firmly, as the end credits rolled. Tubi disagreed, filing it in both the horror and comedy categories. The IMDb, on the other hand, opts for drama and comedy, so appears in agreement with Chris. Me? I was hard-pushed to find any humour in this, so am more inclined to take umbrage at the “comedy” label. But it’s not exactly traditional horror, so I can see her point. On the other hand, it has probably crossed the Latvian countryside off the list of potential holiday destinations. This would qualify it in the “rural nightmare” subgenre of horror, with its story of a man who is utterly unprepared for the local inhabitants and their savagery.
The victim here is Samuel, a foreigner who has travelled to Latvia in search of his birth father. While driving along a road, he ploughs into a piglet, injuring it. Unsure of what to do, he ends up digging a grave for it in the woods. Awkwardly, he is just burying the animal when its owner, Kirke (Silina), shows up. She’s surprisingly unfazed by this, and invites him back to her farmhouse for dinner and a bed for the night. [The pig, incidentally, makes a miraculous recovery] But the next day, Kirke, along with her father (Vilims) and her grumpy local suitor Jancuks (Griestins), chain Sam up in their pigsty, basically as a replacement piece of livestock.
From here… well, it doesn’t quite go in any expected direction. In what is one doozy of a case of Stockholm Syndrome, Sam ends up falling for Kirke, and also wins the affection of her dad. I will admit, our understanding of this may have been slightly affected by not realizing there were subtitles up until the half-way point. I initially thought the untranslated conversations in Latvian were deliberate, to put the audience in Sam’s uncomprehending shoes, with the narration standing in. What’s impressive is, the subs didn’t really help, on any more than a surface level of comprehension. I mean, the piglet ends up helping Samuel to regain his freedom, and is perhaps the most sympathetic character in the film. Subtitle goes: “Oink”.
It does teeter on the edge of torture porn for pigs, with the harsh reality of farm life not soft-pedalled, and a genuinely disturbing (hopefully CGI) scene of a running pig on fire (top). I take my bacon extra crispy, please. So maybe that’s the horror? But it’s more like a bizarre fairy-tale, one whose moral is almost entirely opaque. I can’t say I was bored, though I might not go so far as to say I was entertained. Bemused might be the best word, and the execution, in both picture and music, is good enough to make for an adequately worthwhile experience. It was, undeniably, different. No, make that Different. With a capital D. Horror? Well… The jury remains out there.
The Land of Blue Lakes (2021)
Rating: D-
Dir: Arturs Latkovskis
Star: Arturs Latkovskis, Veronika Rumjanceva, Alina Sedova, Vladislavs Filipovs
“Why are we watching this?” complained Chris loudly. Well, because you stated the other Latvian candidate, Squeal, was definitely not a horror movie. “But this is just a Blair Witch rip-off! Why are you making me sit through this shaky-cam?” So I ended up watching this entry by myself, and there’s no doubt about it: Chris got the better end of the deal. For it is just a Blair Witch rip-off, one of the worst it has been my misfortune to see, and makes little effort to hide it. For the film opens with this caption: “One year ago, five friends went on a trip and never returned. This edited video was found on one of the forums in Deep Web.” Oh, god…
Rather than investigating a local legend, this is a straightforward canoeing trip. For the first 27 minutes (and the film runs less than 72, end to end), that’s all you get: canoeing, camping, a momentary discussion of “bad spirits”, and a pyramid made of wood. It’s like watching somebody else’s interminable, crappy holiday video, and with absolutely no reason to care about anyone involved, you don’t. An unexpected Gordon Ramsay reference is about as interesting as it gets. Guess he’s a big deal in Latvia. It gets dark, and almost impossible to see anything – a situation not helped by certain footage literally being shot on somebody’s phone. Eventually, we discover that the area was settled by pagans in the pre-Christian era, and there’s a stone nearby where human sacrifices took place.
Weirdly, in the middle of the night, there’s a shot of a pagan hand burying a runestone outside a tend, and the next morning, the visitors find a doll nailed to a tree. But we then resume your regularly scheduled nothing happening, interrupted by low-energy canoeing. We cruise into the second half of the movie in a fundamentally not very interesting mode, where the biggest threat is a low branch. I was beginning to think that this was even less of a horror movie than Squeal. We are 49 minutes in, when we reach the sacrificial altar, and guess what? Nothing happens, except finding a boat with a rune on its prow. More canoeing and camping ensues.
Finally, we are past the hour mark – so, with barely ten minutes left – before creepy bell-ringing and sounds outside their tents are heard. Part of me is reluctant to spoiler the climax, being what little the film is going for it, but I have genuinely no fucks to give any more. Pagans show up and kill the entire party. Well, I guess they do, considering the camerawork is so execrable it’s impossible to be sure who is doing what, and to whom. I think my main takeaway from this whole dreadful ordeal is perhaps a new appreciation for the elements The Blair Witch Project got right. Because it’s clear on the basis of this, that the found-footage genre can be an awful lot worse.
These reviews are part of our October 2024 feature, 31 More Countries of Horror.