User reviews

This Icelandic drama is set in and around Vik, a small town in the shadow of Katla, a volcano that has been erupting for about a year, threatening the town. Most of the inhabitants have evacuated but a few remain, this includes those scientists investigating the volcano. One day something strange happens; a woman is found. She is naked but black from head to toe with ash. After the ash is cleaned off she gives her name and it matches that of a Swedish woman who was in Vik twenty years previously. It can't be her though as she is alive and well in Sweden... she does look like a younger version of that woman and appears to have her memories. She isn't the last person to be found in such a state; each of them appear to be a copy of somebody; some alive others dead. The people of Vik will have to come to terms with the arrivals and establish whether they are a danger or not.

I really enjoyed this series. It had a great setting; the black, ash covered landscape made an interesting change to the usual white snow or green landscapes of Icelandic dramas. We are quickly introduced to key characters before the first ash-coated person turns up. There is a great sense of mystery about just who and what they really are with suggestions of sci-fi and folkloric origins. The make-up for these people is very impressive. At only eight episodes in length the series neither drags nor feels rushed. The cast does a fine job bringing the various characters to life. When the series reaches its conclusion there are still questions to be answered; perhaps we will get another season but to be honest I enjoyed the ambiguous end and don't think more is needed, of course I'd watch if there is more. There is some violence, one case in particular is quite shocking. Overall an impressive drama that I'd certainly recommend.

These comments are based on watching the series in Icelandic with English subtitles; a dubbed version is also available.

Katla is a chilling new eight-part Netflix series that has recently dropped on the streaming platform.

In Iceland, after the subglacial volcano Katla has been erupting constantly for a whole year, Gríma is still looking for her missing sister who disappeared the day the eruption started. As her hope of ever finding her body is fading, the residents of the surrounding area start to have visits from unexpected guests. There might be something hidden under the glacier no one could ever have foreseen. One year after the violent eruption of the subglacial volcano Katla, the peace and tranquility in the small town of Vik is dramatically disturbed.

The intensity in this series is high as it slowly builds a haunting mystery against this beautiful landscape. One of the better Netflix shows quite disturbing in the end . The film score is first class with some excellent haunting cello orchestration.

I finished this series up and the Dolby Vision cinematography is pretty incredible highlighting the different shades of gray in the in the Smoke of volcanic ash from the seismic disturbance . The visuals of the landscape is worth the price of admission. Katla is some really gorgeous TV Cinema.

The storyline moved at a snails pace but was utterly captivating. The premise was unique and the conclusion was poetic. The cinematography and special effects are magnificent throughout the series. Overall, a well made and well acted sci-fi/drama.

Although the plot is quite slow and drawn out far longer than required, I really enjoyed this show. I wish they'd done more with the root cause of everything (trying not to give spoilers) but I suppose not doing so gives them a ton of room to further develop and grow this idea in season 2 and beyond.

The portrait of daily life in a small Icelandic community affected by a volcanic eruption looks mesmerizing to the foreign (non-Icelandic) viewer. It's like life on another planet.

The scenery, the harsh environment, the feeling of imminent danger, they all contribute to an immersive experience into a totally different reality.

The result is a balanced mix of real life events that look otherworldly with otherworldly events that look real and almost possible in that quasi alternate reality.

Served with solid writing, performances and astonishing landscapes well captured in a beautiful cinematography.

I'm amused by the amount of people saying this show is "too slow" and "could be wrapped up in 3 episodes". Have you ever heard about the genre "Nordic noir"? It IS supposed to be slow, depressing and leaving unanswered questions.

Otherwise it's like watching a Marvel movie and asking why there are so many mutants and superheroes with ridiculous abilities. That's the point of the genre. Superhero movies have their rules, Hallmark production its own, and Nordic noir its own.

Now, for those who know what they are going to watch, this show hits all the right spots, and yet remains refreshingly engaging. Someone in the earlier comments compared it to Australian Glitch - the similarity is indeed there, but Glitch, in my opinion, was an entangled mess of loose ends, and I was never able to finish it, but Katla just went in one go.

There are indeed a few awkward plothole moments when just a couple of questions could, ugh, "speed up the pace", but it's not really about speedying anything up. Everyone is soaked up in their own past, and the surrounding reality is often hard to distinguish from sticky, dim anguish of memories. In this setting, with raging ash storms and blended borders between black sand beaches, northern sea and heavy sky, would you really be surprised to see someone looking a tad bit older than expected?

I really hope there will be no season 2, at least with the current characters. Their stories are wrapped up - time for the new ones.

I don't really get some of these lower ratings as I just finished the finale a few minutes ago and was throughly engaged throughout all 8 episodes. For what it was I will give it a very high rating because while the mystery was certainly very interesting, the show makes its real mark in its characters and their internal conflicts and relationships. I really can't wait for a 2nd season and hope it gets renewed!

Really, the show is like nobody gives a fu** about what's happening.

Seens to me the kind of show that will drag story by dumb questions and actions, not for the mistery itself.

What an intriguing show! People, give it a chance and please watch it with the original sound and English subtitles. What a pleasant surprise this show is! Full of mystery!

20 plus years ago I had the honor of meeting show runner Balthasar Kormakur here in the states and then later in Iceland. The Icelandic government was trying to pitch him as the new Bergman. He certainly wasn't that but his work had it's own qualities that were great. So it was a surprise to see his name on this series after not hearing anything about him for so long.

The show is really engaging and certainly unusual due to the setting of a nearly abandoned town slowly getting covered in volcanic ash. Some parts of Iceland look like another planet in normal times but the addition of an active volcano really pushes the unreality to another level. I wonder how much of this is taking advantage of circumstance and how much has been created by a special effects team.

While the pacing might be slow to some people, it's not out of line with other Scandinavian series or movies. The characters are all interesting and lead me to wonder how I would fare if presented with this same situation.

I have called this an Icelandic Solaris. If you are not familiar with the Tarkovsky film or the book it came from, I will not get into spoilers trying to explain that. For those who are familiar with those works, you'll see what I'm talking about but that will not diminish your enjoyment of this series. One fair warning; the series ends not where you would expect it if this were made in the United States and might be upsetting to some.

I generally like icelandic and norwegian productions. They have that unique feel to them and this one is no exception. The scenery sets the tone, the characters have that certain weight to them, no hysteria, there are plenty small details and consistency between scenes is always good. They also try to end up with some closure at the end too as a rule of thumb so you are not left hanging at credits.

KATLA covers all the good things and doesn't have many bad ones. It will be easier to list what i did not like.

The folklore part was shifted midway with no logic or explanation. The series broke the rules it set for itself about how the whole event works. They did that because they wanted to do something and they did pull it off (i don't want to spoil it) but by doing that they opened up that big unknown of what happens now... It has to do with the rules of appearance and they adjusted those as they went along. As the series ends, you are shown something that to me was just too forced for the sake of closing on a tensile note. It is almost as if they ended the series at the start of a zombie apocalypse. When you get to the final wall scene you will exactly what i mean.

The hotel owner/inn keeper. She was such a great character and they could have done so much more with her, instead she just had a small historian role and was sidelined. She was by far the most interesting person there and felt like they set her up for a lot but ran out of time and cancelled her out. Very unfortunate as there so much there to work with.

This is a series you can watch at face value or you can dive deeper into how people process and deal with grief and loss. It covers both and each character has a particular angle to show you. Makes you think how would you react if something like this happens to you, and they do examine that through several angles by using the various characters. I like that approach, it really works well and it all ties together with the main theme.

Good series, wish it was longer and had more targeted engine. 7/10.

If you liked "The Returned" ("Les Revenants"), "Glitch", "Us", or even "Pet Sematery", you'll have much to like in the Icelandic series "Katla". Eerie, dark, forbidding (often literally so, as the nearly deserted town of Vik, Iceland, has been showered with ash from the Katla volcano for a year), and gripping, the plot moves somewhat slowly but is always engaging.

The story and setting are so grounded in a harsh, otherworldly, and unforgiving environment that the impossible becomes strangely believable. That the characters are tough, realistic, unfanciful sorts adds to the credibility of the supernatural events that befall them.

As each episode ends with a cliffhanger, it's very hard to stop watching. Just one more episode!

First of all, billing this show as science fiction is inaccurate: there's nothing scientific about the mystifying events. If anything, it's a fable that takes place in a modern setting.

With that said, the underlying theme is intriguing, but the eerie atmosphere and the plot twists are not enough to make this a must-see show. The main problem are the characters: none of them behaves in a credible way. I get that Icelanders can be a bit quirky, but here they are all simply unconvincing. None of them freaks out seeing their own doppelgangers, or people who haven't aged a day in 20 years. They take every inexplicable event in stride and barely show any emotion, episode after episode. And that behavior gets old really fast.

But you keep watching. It's gripping and doomy and beautiful, but also really unpleasant to watch, no redeeming characters, nothing about it is fun. I don't mind a slow burn, especially a Scandinavian one. I just couldn't love this one.

Some scenes are pretty upsetting and the series could use a few more trigger warnings.