Kasper Kalle’s No Rest for the Wicked is, on the face of it, dark and grim; apt, for a vampire horror with Gothic sensibilities. The film, written by Kalle, Rasmus Birch, and Heinreich Ulrichs, takes place on the Faroe Islands in the mid-1800s. A small community of primarily fishermen and their wives live in a village perched as if on the edge of a cliff: an overcast, jagged stretch of land often besieged by the thick fog rolling in off the angry Atlantic Ocean. It’s a damp, dangerous, and relentless place, moody as a daub of ink. There are no trees, but all hope isn’t lost. There are sometimes sunny days when the waters are calm, and it is in this bright light that it becomes apparent that, despite the loss and heartbrokenness, this film is a love story.
Egor Venned plays Baldur, a young man living in a small house with his mother Ásla (Sofia Nolsøe). The patriarch passed away some time ago, lost, it is suggested, to the hazards of being a fisherman on such treacherous waters. Ásla and Baldur are incredibly close; they are, after all, each other’s only family. They live a peaceable life, with Baldur working as a fisherman and Ásla keeping the home in order. But a rift begins forming between the two with the appearance of Helge (Pilou Asbæk), a whaler temporarily staying in the town while awaiting work.
Baldur and Helge are drawn to each other from the start. A passionate romance blooms between the shy Baldur and the worldly Helge, but it is short-lived, for a tragedy rips Helge away from Baldur and the living realm. Heartbroken, Baldur searches for Helge amongst the fog-covered crags of the shore; when he does finally find him, he doesn’t let go, for better or for worse.
No Rest for the Wicked‘s first half is pure period drama. It’s as pensive and patient as Portrait of a Lady on Fire, a meticulous study of how passion and desire build in the pregnant spaces between common conversation and surreptitious looks. The second half, meanwhile, turns dark and bloody, drenched with the fast-moving, grasping waters of a blind sort of love, and a community’s fears for one of its members.
But the film never feels disjointed or bifurcated when the tonal shift, from drama to horror, does arrive, as Kalle and co. do an excellent job of fomenting a halting suspense from the start; when the horrors begin, it feels inevitable. From the outset, Kalle imbues the film, through the thick fog and severity of the landscape — the community, somberly Christian and inured to the often cruel whims of the rough terrain and climate, is of necessity on edge, even if calmly, from the moment we meet them, poised for action — with a nagging sense of doom, which is only ratcheted up by the growing din of the roar of waves that wash Helge onto the shores of the story. This place is an easy home to the terrifying; something bad is going to happen, a voice keeps whispering in the back of your mind.
The film’s genius lies is placing Venned’s Baldur at the center of its doom. His sweet face — warm, shy eyes and curious yet forlorn mouth — anchors the story within a distinct perspective. Baldur is a young man who has not known much warmth other than his mother’s, and though his community is kind, it is not intimate, not warm enough. When Helge appears and holds Baldur in warmth and passion, the story’s sense of doom stokes a heartbreaking apprehension, an impossible to ignore care for Baldur, in us, kin to the apprehension Baldur’s community has been feeling, leaving one viscerally entangled within the tale, deeply and irrevocably involved as sweet drama turns to tinny horror.
Venned turns in an unforgettable performance as Baldur, carrying the film’s story within a sure sense of the infinitude of pure and true love. Though No Rest for the Wicked’s terrain is rough and dark, and though it conveys a bloodthirsty horror, it still remains, through Venned’s presence and a masterfully written and painted story, a hopeful film, ultimately a love story that refuses to disbelieve in the arrival of goodness, light, and — indeed — rest.
Published as part of Fantasia Fest 2026 — Dispatch 2.
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