RESET
2015 · 16m · Sweden
Directed by Kryler Åkerström
Tones: dark, melancholic, tense
Sophie is a young girl living isolated on a remote farm with her mother, who harbors a dark and devastating secret. The film excavates what happens to a child's sense of safety when the unthinkable becomes real.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Swedish countryside, one girl, one terrible secret her mother is keeping. This is what happens when Scandinavian minimalism turns inward on the safest relationship a child is supposed to have. No jump scares, just dread with roots.
Åkerström locates horror in the specific terror of parental loss rather than the supernatural — childhood fear unaccompanied by comfort. Sixteen minutes of restraint that I'd want to verify lives up to its premise.
Sixteen minutes locating horror in parental absence rather than the supernatural — a child's terror that the security was always an illusion. Quiet, hard premise; whether it earns the runtime is the open question.