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Review

An apartment building elevator ride turns into an irresistible invitation for John (Kristoffer Joner), whose icy good looks hint at something disturbed beneath the surface. His girlfriend Ingrid (Anna Bache-Wiig) has just left him, and now he suddenly finds himself in the cluttered apartment of his neighbors: two coquettish women who claim to have heard everything that went down in his next-door bedroom. Strange, since he’d never met Anne (Cecilie Mosli) or Kim (Julia Schacht) before. Stranger still, Kim regales him with a sordid sexual tale and then, in a perverse seduction, plants some right hooks on his kisser. Perhaps this bizarre erotic encounter jars something loose in John, as he begins to have flashbacks that gradually reveal what really happened between him and Ingrid. The beautiful widescreen images ooze with sexuality and dread, a seductively creepy combination that echoes the best work of Polanski and Hitchcock. Director Pål Sletaune (Junk Mail), even while covering his protagonist in carnal blood, brings a decidedly adult sophistication to the proceedings –- perhaps too adult for some sensibilities, as the film was the first release in Norway to receive an “age 18 and over only” rating in seventeen years. The crisp pace provides numerous chills, while the psychological twists leave plenty to discuss in the lobby afterwards. (Norwegian with English subtitles)

 -- David Gorgos