There’s Something In The Barn

Bill is an American who inherited a family farm in Norway, so he, his new wife Carol, and his children Nora and Lucas, decide to move there and open an B&B. Once there, Lucas discovers that a Nisse, a mischievous barn elf from ancient folklore, lives in the barn, and that the creature is already planning on getting rid of the American intruders, by any means necessary…

It’s well past Christmas, I know, but it’s never too late for some good old holiday cheer, I always say!

So, here we are with There’s Something In The Barn, a film by Norweigan director Magnus Martens. A veteran of mostly subpar American genre Television like Luke Cage, Longmire, Good Behavior, Agents of SHIELD, Fear the Walking Dead, The Walking Dead: The World Beyond, and 12 Monkeys (which was actually kind of good), Martens’ feature film sophomore effort premiered at Fantastic Fest this past year, and it centers not just on Christmas, and Norway, and Americans, and Americans in Norway for Christmas, but a jovial little guy called a Nisse.

A Nisse is a mythological creature from Nordic folklore typically associated with the winter solstice and the Christmas season.

They are described as having an appearance similar to that of a garden gnome… a short elderly-looking old man, with a long white beard, and wearing a conical cap. Despite their small size, it’s said that they are very strong and have eyes that reflect light in the dark, like a cat’s. In some tales they can shapeshift, can create illusions, or can make themselves invisible. The word Nisse is possibly derived from an Old Norse word niðsi, meaning "dear little relative.” Folklore claims they lives in farmhouses and barns, acting as their guardian. If treated well, they will protect the family, the farm, and the animals from evil, and may also help out with the chores.

However, they are known to be easily offended and short tempered, especially by carelessness, lack of proper respect, and lazy farmers, and also by peeing in the barn—which seems pretty reasonable, seeing as they do live there—and once insulted, they’ll usually start playing tricks, or stealing things, or they might hit you when you’re not looking, or maybe give you an angry bite, which is poisonous, and will kill you. They might even maim or kill the livestock.

A person living with a Nisse is expected to give it occasional gifts, like a bowl of porridge on Christmas Eve, which I have to wonder if the root of Santa’s milk and cookies isn’t rooted in there somewhere…

But back to the movie…

This is the story of a clueless and somewhat typically dysfunctional American family, who packs up and relocates to Norway, both to solve all their problems, and to open a bed and breakfast in the barn that is located on the old family farm that they recently inherited, a farm that… maybe has a reputation for being haunted. In reality, there’s a barn elf that lives there, and that barn elf does not like the idea of new people on its farm, especially when they’re loud Americans, and most especially when they plan on opening a Bed and Breakfast and bringing in even more loud Americans. Because of this, the barn elf is cooking up some mischievous/murderous barn elf plans.

But then the young son befriends the elf through the power of shared cookies, the international language of friendship, and things are looking up… until the kid’s Dad and his new wife ruin it with their loud and gaudy American B&B dreams.

Also, there’s a teenage daughter, and she’s generally kind of sullen and present throughout the events of the story.

There’s some back and forth for awhile, some insults, some slights, more than a few recriminations, as well as a ton of the kind of small town jokes that would be just as much at home in the small town upper midwest as they are in a small town Norway. There’s also some good running gags about our countries’ cultural differences too.

Eventually the barn elf has had all he can stands, and he can’t stands no more, so he sounds his barbaric yawp across the rooftop of the world, and Gimli, son of Gloin, and the rest of the boys show up to fuck some shit up.

But it turns out, nothing brings a fractured family together faster than promise of their own looming death at the hands of a bunch of angry barn elves. The Americans commiserate in a barricaded bedroom over their myriad shitty Christmases, all while the barn elves get sorority girl drunk downstairs while throwing a rager in the living room, and soon enough, the family is fighting back, and the tables they are a’turnin’.

So, while the smug and oh-so rational small town Norwegians may have briefly had their day in the sun during the events of this film, in the end, it was good ol’ fashioned big city American violence that wins the day.

So yeah, this is basically a movie about killer garden gnomes.

Which sounds great, right? Unfortunately, the whole thing is a little too timid all around, with too many early cut-aways to hide the splatter. So, while this means that my wife rated this film with her dreaded horror movie label of: “My kind of scary,” which means “not scary at all,” for the rest of us… well, you’re mostly left wanting a little bit more. My wife also commented after watching the film that it “would’ve been better if no one got murdered,” which is probably a fair thing to say, but if we’re being honest here, this is probably true of most things.

To be fair, this film was clearly only meant to be silly fun. On the horror scale, it’s really more of a lesser Gremlins (minus the Spielberg magic, of course), then it is something more like Barbarian, so that’s fine. I understand that, and I’m not trying to ding it for not being a gore-streaked splatterfest when that’s clearly not what it set out to be, but still… I feel like it would’ve benefited from a little bit more of a happy middle ground.

Overall, the film is not as good, or as bad, as you’d want. In general, it’s neither funny enough, nor scary enough. Despite this, there’s some good kills and a few good laughs, so it’s better than average, just not by much.

Merry Christmas!