Episode 014: Rift
“Months after they broke up, Gunnar receives a strange phone call from his ex-boyfriend, Einar. He sounds distraught, like he's about to do something terrible to himself. Gunnar drives up to the secluded cabin where Einar is holed up and soon discovers that there's more going on than he imagined. As the two men come to terms with their broken relationship, some other person seems to be lurking outside the cabin, wanting to get in.”
It was released in 2017 and was apparently filmed within just 15 days in Iceland.
This week we are going to be reviewing Rift, a 2017 Icelandic horror film about two men in a secluded cabin, haunted by their dead relationship. I believe this will be the first time we have something horror related on the podcast, so I am extra lucky getting to review my two favourite things: queer media and the horror genre!
You can either listen to the podcast above, or you can read below for a majority of the transcript of the podcast! Now as always, our discussion will begin with a brief summary of the film followed by spoiler free thoughts and feelings. This will be followed by an in-depth discussion of some of the key plot points that occurred and we will then finish off with my overall rating of the film and a heads up about what we are looking at next time. If you have not had a chance to watch Rift and don’t want to hear any spoilers, then please feel free to skip the detailed section and listen to it afterwards if you so wish.
Right off the bat I have to say this is a very beautiful and atmospheric film! Having been filmed in Iceland, it has these beautiful location shots of the beach, the rifts in the landscape, and even the northern lights, all of which act as a great tourist advertisement for going over to Iceland! Throughout the film, these beautiful empty landscapes really do add to the sense of isolation that the characters are facing, from the isolated family home on the outskirts of a remote village to the sprawling fields, empty beaches, and abandoned houses in the middle of nowhere. It really is quite a beautifully shot film.
At almost two hours, it is a long film but I think that does work on really allowing us to experience the slow burn going on between the two key characters. The timing allows us to feel the oppressive environment that characters are living through. For all the tenseness, there are also moments where we are allowed to catch our breath, whether it’s immaturity of one of our characters making a dick made out of cheerios or Einar jumping out to scare Gunnar before getting a quick kiss. These little moments of humour do feel necessary to balance out the gloom and oppressive atmosphere of the rest of the film.
The acting between our two key characters is great, which is probably an essential thing to get right in a film with only 4 or 5 other people in it. As the two characters have such good chemistry, if I didn’t know better I might have assumed there had been some relationship between these two at some point in the past. And although neither character is perfect as we go through this film, it does help that our two focuses for this story are fairly likeable.
In terms of representation, It was great that the focus of the film isn’t about the novelty of its characters being gay but instead is focused on the aftermath of a breakup between two characters that just happen to both be men. This is the kind of representation that I really appreciate since it takes things that happen to all of us and provides us a different lens to see the situation through.
The only key criticism I had, other than the length of time the film maybe took, was the fact that it seems every gay in Iceland is a twink based on this film. I mean, I thought maybe we would have had other types considering it can be a cold country, but no, Iceland is home of the brooding twinks clearly! Well, either this or we have the one rural gay person that we never say is gay but all the neighbours make the insinuations that he always seems to have boys that come to his but never stay for long. Classic rural representation I suppose where the village doesn’t dare mention sexuality out loud.
The final thing to touch on in this section of the show would be a slight mention of the ending, which does feel quite mixed. There is a part of it that does feel highly predictable (at least if you are used to these kind of psychological horror films) and at the same point there is an element of the ending that comes out of nowhere and leaves it wide open for interpretation as to what happens in the final scenes.
Final Feelings and Recommendation
If you’re looking for an emotional slow-burn between two characters with some tension sprinkled in then this would be for you, but if you are looking for your classic horror full of blood and scares then I would say give this a miss. The film is more a look at two people who have each had traumatic events in their past and how they are dealing with the end of their relationship than it is a story of them being haunted and tormented by an external force.
Overall, I would say that this film is eight out of ten Northern lights across the barren Icelandic landscape for its skilfully crafted tense atmosphere and for the great acting from the two main characters. But for the plot, I am afraid it is four out of ten missed drunk phone calls, as at times the crossing of different genres created a bit of a stop start feeling on certain issues the film presented. So to split the difference, it comes out at 6.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Now, just a reminder that at this point, I will be going into a more detailed analysis of the film which means there will be spoilers! If you haven’t managed to watch Rift yet and you don’t want anything spoiled, then this is your last chance to avoid the discussion. Or you can go ahead and close the page, go watch the film and then come back afterwards to finish reading. I promise we won’t mind. Still here? Well then, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Now I think it is clear to clarify that at the start of the film, when Einar makes that call he isn’t actually asking for Gunnar to come save him or anything. He is making some drunken call to an ex, maybe speaking in slightly weird and ominous tones, but he isn’t saying please come help me now. This is something that Einar even calls out later on in the film with Gunnar. It’s a reminder that sometimes, we aren’t being asked to play the hero and that maybe it’s not our job to rush after every single person at the expense of our own personal lives.
That said it is humanising that Gunnar is still willing to go and check on his recent ex to make sure he is safe after he has had an odd call. We don’t really know how much they have spoken since the break-up, please Gunnar would know best on what is alarming behaviour for Einar. Just because people are no longer our responsibility, it does not mean we can’t show compassion. It’s just a shame that Gunnar acts like he is supposed to be thanked for coming along rather than treating it as a totally selfish act.
Now although it is a horror film, a lot of this is based on the atmosphere more than anything else. However we do get some genuine spooky moments such as when Gunnar righty so is like fuck all this, and is reversing out the drive and see’s some random legs in the darkness and then foolishly chases them into the dark for a bit! Or when Gunnar is Later watching the camera footage and see’s a hand under the bed and is slowly approaching to check out if someone is still there and then BANG: Gyda shows the fuck up with an axe!
I don't know if I need to say this, but if you are in spooky situations maybe it's not a great idea to get out the car and chase some random stalker in the dark or go near the bed where someone may be lurking without some form of defence!
Throughout the film we move at a good pace to get straight into the interpersonal drama between the two characters of Einar and Gunnar. We briefly see what the end of their relationship was at a party, before the late night call that summons Gunnar to the remote house. The film is then mostly based around the interactions of these two people who used to be boyfriends, but both made mistakes within the relationship and eventually drifted apart from one another. It’s an interesting thing as we go through the story where it's subtly exposed that maybe both of our characters are untrustworthy narrators due to how they perceive past events.
During the film we hear a very familiar app noise from Einar’s phone. Unfortunately Gunnar has never heard of invasions of privacy as he decides to look on his ex’s phone and calls him out on the messages about meeting up with random people. Einar even claps back with how he has been sensible and has gone ahead of time and if the person who turns up isn’t who they said they were, he would just leave, which is such a sensible thing to do. So from this we can see trust and faith in others has never been Gunnar’s strong point.
Yet Einar also has flaws as we see during the incident when they are having an argument about the fact Gunnar has already moved on, Einar has unconsciously picked up the pan of boiling water, almost ready to throw it in his face. Even if there is a bit of an ick factor at the fact Gunnar has chosen to sleep with one of his students who he originally met when the couple were still together, nothing warrants physically attacking an ex just because they have moved on from the relationship at a different pace from you. It's a tense moment to be sure, but there are no winners in these debates.
And also for tense moments, fucking Lemoy the invisible friend story! That sounds like such a traumatic childhood experience to have gone through that no wonder this has left an imprint on Einar for the rest of his life. The scene in the film is very quiet and sombre, and feels really unsettling and leaves me questioning if Lemoy was a real entity or not with the way the story feels so real.
Gunner’s story of his first sexual encounter when he was 17 was very heart-breaking to listen to. Him talking about the fact he was raped by three 30+ men was hard to sit through without getting emotional as it is something you know has definitely happened to young queer people both in the past and likely still in the present as well. When you feel isolated and it's hard to actually connect with anyone else who is like you, it is a potential thing that can happen if you're chatting to people online to find out they were maybe not who they presented themselves as. It’s one of the key reasons why we should always take everything we experience online with a pinch of salt.
It is especially painful when people feel something is wrong with the situation they are in but instead of acting on this, they stay because “they came a long way”, or “it would be rude”, or other things we usually tell ourselves to try and minimise our own feeling of discomfort for the sake of keeping the peace. Everyone should have the space to freely call out when things don’t feel right and have the chance to leave situations they aren’t comfortable with.
I also have a mixture of rage and revulsion at the idea of these three older men deciding to ply this teenager with vodka and not stopping when he asks them to stop kissing him. If someone is saying no and is uncomfortable, or if they have then had substances which call into question their ability to consent, people should know better than to take advantage of someone! The whole situation is wrong and it is no wonder that has traumatised Einar for the rest of his life!
After this painful revelation, our characters spend the night in the bed together in a tasteful way, with this more being about comfort and contact rather than physical desire. Yet from here Einar goes missing, Gunnar is creeped out by mysterious videos and people appearing in the dark, and is almost ready to say fuck the whole thing I can keep putting up with this twink disappearing every 5 minutes.
Yet eventually Gunnar works things out and gets to the abandoned house while searching for Einar, yet notices he is being followed and so does find a space to hide in the building. We get a really tense situation where the old man who has been following him tries to break into the room and then mentions how he thought Einar would come back. It all feels a little odd but once he is gone we then get Leemoy calling out for help, just adding to the oddness, where Gunnar foolishly goes exploring and ends up being frightened and falling over.
It is here he has a vision of Einar making the call from the beginning of the film, before he follows him out to the field nearby and finds his body in one of the many rifts. He goes down to be sure and we are left with a very sad moment as Gunnar finds the body of his ex-boyfriend, before we then uncover a bloody rock next to him. At this point we have the old man reappear with a switchblade, attacking Gunnar before randomly choosing to just walk away. Yet just as we catch our breath he returns and bashes Gunnar in the head with a rock and leaves him for dead.
The ending itself felt like what I had predicted at the start of the film when we had first got to the house with Einar sitting out alone being very vague on how he even got there and how far away his car was. And throughout the film it also felt like it was maybe over showing its hand such as Gyda's shock that Einar was back and she hadn't seen anyone the night before at the house. So early on for me the mystery about whether Einar was alive was lost and became more of a how did he die and trying to piece that together rather than wondering what is haunting the pair in the house.
The one potential plot hole I have though on the whole Einar being dead from the beginning though is the question of who was recording the videos of Gunnar in the bed after he slept with Einar? Is it just the cause that Gunnar is hallucinating himself into the videos, imagining the videos all together, or has someone else been recording him? It’s never specifically addressed once that set piece has served to creep us out earlier on.
Anyway, after all this we have now looped back to the sights at the start of the film, of Gunnar bloody headed at the field. After Gunnar has phoned in the body, we watch him driving and spotting a hitchhiker and deciding to stop and waiting for them to get to the car, before we fade to credits. Now if it was me with a head wound and several knife cuts, I would probably be prioritising getting to hospital rather than waiting for any strangers, especially since the last one randomly attacked me!
Due to the very open ended nature of the film, you are left with several ways to read the finale. The most likely ways to read this could be that the old man has been murdering people around this part for years and so Leemoy was a real person whose ghost tired to reach out to Einar to find his own body in the Disappearance fields, similair to how this is then echoed with Einar calling out to Gunnar. Or another way to read it is that EInar had originally called Gunnar to try and work through their unfinished business before being murdered by a hook-up or even potentially before committing suicide.
Although I appreciate at times when films give us the option of thinking around which ending it could be and really letting our own lenses change the final position of the story, for this film I was actually slightly annoyed at that approach, as I really did want a conclusive sort of end to it. Personally I am left wondering around whether the ghosts are really luring those people to try and find them, and that Einar who has never really worked through the end of their relationship is the mysterious hitchhiker at the end, still determined to haunt Gunnar forever more. But alas, I shall never have a definite answer.