When I was growing up, I was fascinated by Iceland.

I didn’t really know much about Iceland, other than it was a sparsely-populated island that was known for its volcanic eruptions.  I think the main source of my fascination was the name.  Iceland made me imagine a country that was totally and completely covered in ice.  Of course, I’ve since learned that wasn’t true at all.  Just as Greenland is not entirely green, Iceland is not made of ice.  There’s a legend that the original settlers of the island picked the name “Iceland” as a way to keep other people from coming.  The legend probably isn’t true but still, that’s the type of attitude that I can respect.

The main reason that I watched the 2021 film, It Hatched, was because it’s an Icelandic film.  Iceland actually has a very busy film industry but sadly, few Icelandic films seem to make it over to the United States and, whenever we do get a good one, it’s promptly remade as a Liam Neeson revenge flick.  When I saw that It Hatched was not only an Icelandic film but that it was streaming for free on Tubi, there was no way I could resist watching.

The film tells the story of Petur (Gunnar Kristinsson) and Mira (Vivian Ólafsdóttir), a married couple who are living abroad when we first meet them.  Mira is German while Petur is Icelandic.  Petur has convinced Mira to return with him to Iceland, where he hopes to open a bed-and-breakfast.  Mira is not happy when she discovers that the house is sitting in middle of nowhere and that the nearest store is several miles away.  Petur is convinced that the location will bring a lot of bird watchers who will need a place to stay.  Mira is not sure and, as soon as she looks around the cluttered and messy house that Petur has purchased, you can see her mentally trying to figure out the quickest way to return to Germany.

Mira is not happy when Petur casually mentions that he had found a hole in the basement floor and he’s going to have to call someone to check it out.  Of course, by the time that Petur tells Mira this, she is suffering from morning sickness despite Petur having earlier been told that, with his low sperm count, it was doubtful he would ever get Mira pregnant.  Soon, Mira is giving birth to an egg and that egg is hatching to reveal a baby.  Petur has visions of a naked demon that lives in the hole and starts to lose his mind….

On the plus side, the demon in the hole is truly frightening and the film does a good job of capturing the feeling of being isolated from the rest of the world.  I found it somewhat interesting that, while Petur and Mira spoke to each other in English, all of the demons spoke Icelandic.  On the negative side, the film’s action moved a bit too slowly for its own good and Petur was an amazingly unsympathetic character.  Even before the character started to lose his grip on reality, I was already sick of Petur wandering around with the same dumbass expression on his face.  Towards the end of the film, Petur goes crazy and that would have been effective if not for the fact that Gunnar Kristinsson both looks and sounds like Charlie Day.  As a result, this film felt like a strange episode of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia.

Yeah, something like that.

It’s a shame.  It was not a bad premise but the execution was lacking.  (For the record, I am aware that the film is listed as being a “horror-comedy.”  There were definitely some laughs in the film but none of them seemed to be intentional.)  That said, I look forward to watching more Icelandic films in the future.