Kraken

Disaster-themed actioners have been all the rage in Norway in recent years, each one bigger than the one before. What began with a tsunami hitting a fjord in 2015’s The Wave led to the whole city of Oslo getting rattled about in The Quake (2018), so that by 2021, The Burning Sea could find no other course but to threaten a recurrence of the Storegga slide. Having addressed a disaster which reshaped both Norway and the British Isles, where does one go next? Norse folklore suggests only one option. The ultimate in coastal catastrophes would be the awakening of the kraken.

You won’t need to be an expert in kraken lore to enjoy this film, but the screenwriters clearly do know their stuff, so the more you know in advance, the more you’ll get out of it. The essential thing to understand is that Clash Of The Titans lied to you. The kraken is not just another Godzilla-style monster, but something very specific. According to legend, it would lie stretched out on the sea floor, perhaps miles across, for decades or even centuries, all the while releasing nutrients to attract fish (and potentially fishermen). Then, with very little warning, it would snap shut around its prey, devouring everything inside. It is, as such, more akin to a natural disaster than to a conventional monster.

These days, humans might not think much about the kraken, but they do keep careful track of marine areas particularly rich in nutrients. Might not a fjord like that be a fantastic place to put a fish farm? Johanne (Sara Khorami) doesn’t like fish farms, apparently having grown disillusioned with the industry when working there. She finds herself visiting one again in the context of her new role as an inspector, and catching up with one of its workers, Erik (Mikkel Bratt Silset), who seems to be an old flame. Like many environmentalists, she’s worried that concentrating salmon in those numbers creates a breeding ground for lice, but Erik’s company has a new system which uses sonic waves to deter the parasites. If properly controlled, it could work well for all concerned. But of course, as every monster movie fan knows, where big money is involved, there’s a tendency to cut corners; and stray signals in the fjord might be equally irritating to something else.

This being a Norwegian film, it’s much more scientifically informed than the average US blockbuster, and its interweaving of the scientific and the folkloric is well handled. This means that there’s plenty going on during the build-up beyond just introducing characters, and that in turn gives director Pål Øie (of The Tunnel fame) room to slip in a lot of little visual clues about the creature lurking down in the depths, building it up gradually and thereby giving it a much more impressive presence. It is indirectly established as part of the natural environment and as a detectable presence in the visual landscape of the film long before we see anything directly.

The characterisation is the weakest part of the film. Though Jon Erik Myre does a lot with a little as Erik’s colleague Georg, most of the supporting characters are not very memorable, so it’s hard to care much about their fate. Jenny Evensen is particularly irritating as a teenager whose early potential gives way to whimpering and persistently needing to be rescued as soon as the plot picks up pace. There is plenty to distract from this, however, as the special effects work really delivers. A combination of small supporting monsters and scenes in which single kraken tentacles snake around the fish farm in search of prey brings the colossal down to a relatable size. Traditional tentacle monster tropes are given fresh life as they are stripped of their reassuring archaism or comic book context and made to look brutally real.

There are inevitably sexual connotations to tentacle attacks, especially in a facility designed for reproduction. The effects team don’t shy away from certain resemblances, but there is no intentional titillation to distract from the horror. It helps that by the time we reach this stage, it has already been established that the kraken dispatches its victims abruptly and carelessly, ripping them in half or dragging them down into the depths. Nothing about its actions feels personal – at least, not up until the very last moment, when it is far too late for it to make a difference. The alienness of the warring parties in one another’s eyes adds to the sense that this is an existential conflict, and hints, as older kraken stories do, at humanity’s ultimate helplessness against the vast and unknowable forces of the universe.

Ultimately, the small cast and small immediate scope of the film may limit its impact on viewers less familiar with its wider connotations, but still it might be understood that any peace to be gained is merely temporary. However you look at it, this is a satisfying eco-horror with much more monster action than most. It manages to deliver on scares and squirms whilst preserving an element of mystery, and that’s no small feat.

Reviewed on: 30 May 2026