I don't think one needs to have seen a lot of like-minded cinema to recognize that this is very upfront about where it's going to go, even within about the first twenty minutes. By the time we're one-third in the dialogue has been so plain that one begins to fear the feature will be weirdly heavy-handed and straightforward despite how restrained and subdued it is. Those feelings are not necessarily aided by the score; rich and flavorful as Jussi Huhtala's themes are, sometimes they seem a tad too varied (conventional horror vibes one moment, folk instrumentation the next, then back again), and are commonly too forward in the audio mix. Emphasizing the issue, over the end credits we're given a heavy rock song a la Evanescence. And as the story progresses, well, we see very familiar strains in turn: seeming straight horror-thriller, tinges of supernatural horror, predominant folk horror, and what proves to the overarching undercurrent of the "backwoods bumpkins" trope cloaked in the latter. And those fears of the first third turn out to be all too justified, for the best ideas 'Kyrsyä - Tuftland' would offer are subsumed among an overall narrative thrust and storytelling ethos that are at best forthright and at worst sorrily common. I don't think this is outright bad. But it's not great.
In this, accordingly the debut of filmmaker Roope Olenius - director, writer, co-producer - an outsider from the modern world visits a small, insular, self-sufficient village (more of a commune, really) and learns that the idyllic community is not all that it seems to be. We've seen this film before, but that's no problem in and of itself; some exceptional films have been made by revisiting prior ideas with a slightly different take, and that's what Olenius aimed to do here. Yet in general terms there are two types of horror, the blunt and bare-faced and the underhanded and subtle. When we're speaking in terms of discrete external antagonistic forces, the question becomes whether the material is approached with a mind for "in your face" brutal violence and visceral thrills, for the creeping chills of Something Wrong and nightmarish visions, or what is often more satisfying still, the manipulation or seduction of twisting an ordinary person into another representative of that external antagonistic force. Despite the primarily low-key tone of ''Kyrsyä - Tuftland,' the simple fact of the matter is Olenius chose to be in our faces. There were obvious opportunities for the picture to be sly and sinister, and at every opportunity Olenius instead chose the most plainspoken and dull path forward. It rather comes across as a standard horror-thriller masquerading as folk horror.
It's so unfortunate, because I really see what this could have been. All the right pieces are here. The filming locations are gorgeous; the sets are fantastic. The costume design, hair, and makeup are lovely, and the effects, special makeup, and stunts are great. Composer Huhtala needed only to have stuck to one style or the other, instead of employing both, for his music to have been terrific and effective. The cast show admirable, committed acting, with Veera W. Vilo clearly standing out most as protagonist Irina. Irina is relatable and sympathetic, and the other characters are built to carry the necessary duality we see in the chief setting; the dialogue is bent toward laying the groundwork for the turn. The community of Kyrsyä is painted in the most gentle and charming of proverbial colors, harmonious among its people and with nature, before the dark center reveals itself. And yet that dialogue gawkily tells all before one-third of the runtime has elapsed, and there is no nuance to be found in it or the scene writing. Perhaps it's a detail that gets tripped up in translation for subtitles, but it's worth observing touches of homophobia and considerable ableism in the dialogue, on top of the misogyny that's part and parcel of the tale on hand. The dark center of Kyrsyä is indeed abhorrent, spoiling the image of the perfect remote hamlet with regressive values and practices that any thinking person should find appalling and condemn - yet, again, the unadulterated horror-thriller core pierces through the thin folk horror shell to turn the plot into an inelegant, unwieldy grab for the low-hanging fruit of "It's This, and it's Us Vs. Them."
I see the hard work that everyone put into this title, and I want to like it more than I do. I can't bring myself to actually like it more, however, on account of how splendid ideas are made to be tiresomely ordinary. To this add at least one instance of distinctly questionable writing, for at the very end our protagonist makes a choice that flies in the face of how the course of events had been penned up to that point. I wish nothing but the best for all involved; I want to find more of Vilo's credits, and I look forward to seeing what Olenius will give us in the future as he develops his skills as a storyteller. The sad fact remains that ''Kyrsyä - Tuftland' inspires doubt early on before doubt just turns to disappointment. I'm glad for those who get more out of it than I do, yet I'm of the mind that it squanders its potential and becomes uninteresting or even frustrating in the process. Alas. Better luck next time.
