The Damned
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Thordur Palsson
Screenplay by	Jamie Hannigan
Story by	Thordur Palsson
Produced by	Emilie Jouffroy Kamilla Hodol John Keville Conor Barry Tim Headington Theresa Steele Page Nate Kamiya
Starring	Odessa Young Joe Cole Siobhan Finneran Rory McCann Turlough Convery Lewis Gribben Francis Magee Mícheál Óg Lane
Cinematography	Eli Arenson
Edited by	Tony Cranstoun Nathan Nugent
Music by	Stephen McKeon
Production companies	Elation Pictures Netop Films Wild Atlantic Pictures Ley Line Entertainment
Distributed by	Vertical
Release dates	June 6, 2024 (2024-06-06) (Tribeca) January 3, 2025 (2025-01-03) (United States)
Running time	89 minutes
Countries	United Kingdom Iceland Ireland Belgium United States
Language	English
Box office	$1.3 million[1]

The Damned is a 2024 internationally co-produced folk horror^[2] film directed by Thordur Palsson. Written by Jamie Hannigan from a story by Palsson, it stars Joe Cole and Odessa Young.

Eva, a young widow in the 19th century, operates a winter fishing outpost inherited from her late husband. The fishing outpost is isolated in an Arctic bay, with the 3 day mountain journey to the nearest village snowed shut for the winter, and the inlet of the bay made treacherous with jagged rocks called "the Teeth," which claimed the life of her husband, Magnus, the previous winter. Eva hosts a crew of fishermen, led by helmsman Ragnar, braving the harsh winter conditions. Unlike previous years, this year's catch has been so lean that by winter solstice the outpost has nearly run out of supplies and resorted to eating their bait.

As the crew readies to row their longboat out one morning, they witness a large sailing ship wreck upon the Teeth. While Jonas, a Christian, prays for their souls, Daníel wants to row out to offer rescue, but Ragnar orders them not to as they lack the resources to support any survivors. The decision is left up to Eva, who reluctantly agrees with Ragnar, but decides they will not fish that day out of respect for the dying they can hear from the shore as they watch the ship sink under the waves.

Eva comes across a barrel of salt pork from the now-lost ship washes up on the shore. Ragnar states due to the topography and currents surrounding the Teeth, it was a miracle this barrel washed to shore, and that any other cargo will remain near the ship for the near future before being washed out to sea. Eva has the crew row out to the Teeth in the dark to search before the tide turns. After finding a small crate in the water, the crew sees the survivors from from the foreign ship clinging to the rocks. As the survivors desperately plead for help, Ragnar frantically orders the crew to row away, as taking so many extra people will capzise the small boat, and the two groups cannot communicate with each other. The survivors jump into the freezing water and begin to swarm the small boat as the crew fends them off. As the event turns increasingly violent, Ragnar, along with his lantern, is pulled into the water and does not resurface. Just as Eva manages to light hers, one of the survivors in the water grabs onto her, and Daníel hits him in the face with a weapon. He slowly sinks into the dark icy water. The crate they got in exchange for his life contains 3 bottles of lamp oil and some brandy, leaving the crew dejected and hopeless.

The next day, bodies wash up on the beach. Eva sees Aron take a gold pocket watch from one of the bodies, and he states it appears to be broken. She orders him to put it back, which he does so reluctantly. The dead man's stomach protrudes and moves, Aron leaps back in horror, screaming that the man is alive. Daníel cuts open the (still dead) man's stomach, revealing live eels swimming around his intestines. The bodies are placed in crude wooden boxes until the ground is soft enough to dig for burial. The superstitious Helga, the outpost's Nordic charwoman, cautions that the bodies might come back as draugr, evil revenant creatures fueled by pure hatred and rage who can manipulate people's minds with terrifying dreams. The crew discusses a way to keep them from returning by putting nails through their feet. Eva selects Daníel as the new helmsman.

Eva begins having visions and dreams of a dark, drenched figure pursuing her, and awakes one night to hear Aron muttering a rhyme about draugr in his sleep. Helga places charms and hexes to ward the draugr off but realizes they aren't working as Eva's visions continue. She tells Eva the draugr will not stop and the only way to be rid of it is to burn it. Daníel and Eva grow closer and he shows her how to use a rifle.

The crew catch a bumper crop of fish and it appears their luck has turned, and they celebrate. However, the next morning the larder hut is found empty with no explanation, and Eva realizes Helga is missing. The crew search for her, following a trail of fish remains to the burial site. They discover one of the coffins is empty, and Eva orders Harkón to nail the feet of the rest of the bodies. That night, a paranoid and delusional Harkón attacks Daníel, almost choking him to death until Aron bludgeons him in the head. Jonas refuses to join the men fishing the next morning and insists they must pray to the Christian God for mercy. Aron and Skuli return with an unconscious and bloody Daníel, who slipped and hit his dead on ice when a thick mist surrounded the fishing crew. Eva patches him up and with the remaining 3 men tries to hunt the draugr before he can do more harm. Heading toward the burial site, the crew is surrounded by fog and Eva is separated from the men. She finally spots Skuli just as he throws himself off the cliff. She runs down only to find him dead, and aims her rifle at a figure that looks to be the draugr but turns out to be Helga, frozen to death. Back at the cabin, a possessed Daníel attacks Jonas and turns on Eva when she runs in to help. Resisting the urge to attack Eva, he slits his own throat.

At night, Eva enters the cabin and hears the draugr above in the bedroom. She hides under the table, slicing her hand on a shard of broken porcelain. She makes a move to grab her knife but is dragged out by the creature. She is able to grab her rifle and aims at him. His deformed and grotesque face is fully revealed to the audience as Eva shoots the wailing creature, and douses the cabin with lamp oil and sets it on fire. She runs out to Aron and Jonas, telling them in relief what she has done to the draugr as the cabin burns down.

A flashback reveals the draugr was in fact a normal human man, who apologizes for taking their food out of desperation and begs for his life as Eva aims the rifle at him. However, he speaks in Basque and Eva keeps yelling she can't understand him. He offers her the gold pocket watch, which she takes before shooting him and burning him alive.

• Odessa Young as Eva
• Joe Cole as Daníel
• Rory McCann as Ragnar
• Siobhan Finneran as Helga
• Francis Magee as Skuli
• Turlough Convery as Hakón
• Mícheál Óg Lane as Aron
• Lewis Gribben as Jonas
• Andrean Sigurgeirsson as a survivor and corpse
• Guillermo Uria as a survivor and a draugr

Thordur Palsson wrote the story and directs, while Jamie Hannigan wrote the screenplay. Emilie Jouffroy and Kamilla Hodol produced for Elation Pictures alongside John Keville and Conor Barry of Wild Atlantic Pictures and Netop Films. ish.^[3] Producers also include Tim Headington, Theresa Steele Page and Nate Kamiya producing for Ley Line Entertainment.^[4]

Odessa Young was cast as Eva in 2021.^[3][5] By April 2023 the cast also included Joe Cole, Lewis Gribben, Siobhan Finneran, Francis Magee, Rory McCann, Turlough Convery, Mícheál Óg Lane and Andrean Sigurgeirsson.^[6]

Filming took place in Iceland in 2023 and the project entered post-production in spring 2023.^[7]

It had its world premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival on June 6, 2024.^[8] Prior to, Vertical acquired North American distribution rights to the film, planning to release it later in 2024.^[9] The film was released in theaters on January 3, 2025.^[10]

In the United States, the film made $769,721 from 732 theaters in its opening weekend.^[11]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 91% of 64 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "Heavy on mood and existential terror, The Damned's patient approach to horror pays off with cerebral chills."^[12] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 64 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favourable" reviews.

• The Damned at IMDb