For a relatively obscure slasher made over 20 years ago Heini Grünbaum's spleen-churningly visceral 'Flaenset' still has a remarkably contemporary aesthetic, no mere tawdry teen-screamer, director Grünbaum's spare, brutalist horror film has a glacial, almost surgical quality, all vestiges of human decency are stripped away to expose the fulminating violence within. With no character detail, no tiresome first act frivolities, we are pitilessly plunged into the murderously maniacal maelstrom of the apocalyptically vengeful Jens (Thomas Bo Larsen) who returns home to find his exquisitely beautiful wife Konen (Tusnelda Frellesvig) in the noisily carnal throes of extra marital ecstasy, the deranging shock being so emotionally devastating his rabid jealousy rapidly escalates into a graphically grisly, disturbingly animalistic display of retribution wherein the wholly deranged, insensate cannibal killer Jens proceeds to enact his sickening revenge in an especially unfiltered manner some viewers may find unpalatable. Director Grünbaum moves the camera well, capturing the blood-spattered depravity with assurance, and the performances are all excellent, with gravel-voiced Thomas Bo Larsen expressing Jen's merciless bestiality with a terrifying verisimilitude. For me, the film's main strength resides in its brevity, and unvarnished simplicity, as there is a viciously condensed quality to the ensuing 'Video nasty' carnage, and not unlike Bruce Lee's infamous once-inch punch, 'Flaenset' delivers quite a bellicose B-Movie body blow, distilling all the more lurid slasher movie tropes into its succinctly savage 1 hour and 18 minutes running time. Along with the quality acting, the technical merits are laudably high, and composer Gert Sylvest's eerie score adds some welcome depth to this blunt force Danish drama.
