Kratt (Fantasia) review – Merivoo’s delightfully bonkers and bold fantasy horror is very nearly brilliant

Deep in the pages of Estonian legend, you will find a creature named Kratt, a mythical beast subservient to the person who creates it out of household items and three drops of blood. The ungodly creation seeks nothing but work, demanding its master’s attention as it comes to life. However, once the work dries up, the Kratt has no option but to seek its own entertainment, kill its master, and find another.

But what is more deadly than a Kratt brought to life by a wicked adult? The answer is a Kratt being brought to life by two children (Nora and Harri Merivoo) who are bored during their summer vacation. But even worse, the Kratt in question is housed in the body of the children’s sweet and innocent grandmother (Mari Lill) after an accident, reciting the spell. And so begins Rasmus Merivoo’s delightfully bonkers and bold fantasy horror.

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Merivoo mixes classic B-movie horror with a fascinating, if slightly bonkers, discussion of artificial intelligence and social media in a horror-fantasy bathed in creativity. Here, his story of subservience, modern tech, and community politics is wrapped in dark comedy as fairytales, horror, and fantasy collide. Kratt’s Monty Python-esque comedy ranges from a local priest who uses drones to track the elderly to a politician slowly falling into insanity as he attempts to compete with Facebook for attention.

Kratt’s satire is not only bonkers but very nearly brilliant in construction. It is, therefore, a pity that Kratt’s core messages on tech and AI never quite find their voice in the chaos that ensues. Merivoo attempts to link the mythology of the Kratt with our current social debates on artificial intelligence – the horror of the Kratt, a metaphor for the thinking machines in our pockets. However, apart from some genuinely brilliant and creative glimpses, the overarching dissection of our tech-driven world often feels lost in an ocean of competing ideas. However, for those looking for something different, innovative, and bold, Kratt is a stroke of genius and a cult horror in the making that is so very nearly brilliant.