Immersive, evocative and beautiful, No Rest for the Wicked is not only one of the best queer horrors of the year, but it’s also one of the most unique and atmospheric gothic horrors I have seen since The Vourdalak.
Some love stories can last an eternity if they are allowed to. One such love story lies at the heart of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs’ 1885 short story Manor. Ulrichs was born in the Kingdom of Hanover, north-west Germany, and would later attend the University of Göttingen and the University of Berlin. He was a lawyer, journalist, writer and what we would now label a gay rights activist; in fact, it has long been argued that the modern gay rights movement began with Ulrichs at a time when countries sought to strengthen laws against gay people. For example, in the same year Manor was published, the United Kingdom strengthened anti-gay laws by passing the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 and the Labouchère Amendment.
Part of his Sailor Stories collection, Manor was groundbreaking, as were Ulrichs’ other works, including Vindex and The Riddle of “Man-Manly” Love. Yet neither they nor he are hardly mentioned when discussing queer literature, and Sailor Stories has rarely received attention in the world of film, TV or audio drama. That is, until now, as first-time feature director Kasper Kalle brings Ulrichs’ Manor to the big screen in the windswept, atmospheric, beautiful, and haunting No Rest for the Wicked, premiering at the Fantasia Film Festival.
The year is 1862, and the place is the towering cliffs, rough Atlantic seas, and misty green rolling pastures of the majestic Faroe Islands. There, in an isolated fishing community where everyone knows each other, and where claustrophobia, tough living, and religion form a set of community values and rules, we meet a young fisherman, Baldur (played by newcomer Egor Venned, who himself hails from the islands).
Baldur has never set foot off the islands, following in his late father’s footsteps by fishing the rough waters surrounding him to support his mother Ásla (Sofia Nolsøe). But as Baldur ventures out to sea in his small boat, a thick mist and a distant voice seeking help are about to change the trajectory of his young life. As he rows his boat toward the voice, it scrapes against the rocks beneath it before the voice slowly takes the form of a man stranded amid the jagged, protruding shoreline. That man is a rugged whaler and traveller named Helge (Pilou Asbæk), and destiny has brought them together in the mist and murk of the Faroe’s deadly coastal waters.
As Baldur invites Helge into the small cottage he shares with his mother, a bond grows between the men, one that Baldur finds intriguing and alluring as the ‘outsider’ offers him a window to the world beyond the islands. Helge is exciting, enthusiastic and open, unlike many of the island men Baldur encounters daily, but there’s something more too. As feelings Baldur has kept hidden all his life begin to surface, it’s clear that Helge also has those feelings, and their bond soon becomes sexual, physical and emotional.
However, life on the island is tough, and the seas can soon become furious and unforgiving, as Helge is about to discover when tragedy strikes. But, as Dylan Thomas famously wrote: “Though lovers be lost love shall not; and death shall have no dominion.” Helge and Baldur’s eternal life has just begun, and no islander or belief system is going to stop their beautiful, bloody and windswept union.
Straddling both classic gothic and folk horror, No Rest for the Wicked isn’t just a sublime vampiric story of eternal love among the sea-spray and cliffs of a remote island; it’s a cutting commentary on the isolation many gay men grow up experiencing in small communities, villages and towns that fear difference. While Baldur’s journey sits firmly in the mid-19th Century, its core message is as urgent today as when Ulrichs put pen to paper. Performances beautifully capture this sense of isolation and difference, especially model and screen newcomer Venned, who captivates through silence and body language as much as through words. Couple his performance with the more assured emotions and confidence of Pilou Asbæk’s Helge, and a fragile, tender yet transformational beauty emanates from every scene, sweeping you up in a gothic love story that leaves any similar Hollywood features stranded on the rocks.
Like its outstanding central performances, Kasper Kalle’s direction is comfortable in embracing moments of silence, revelling in atmosphere as much as in words. His mastery of the period atmosphere is nothing short of stunning in its execution, but so is his understanding of the importance of Ulrichs’ short story in the history of queer writing. Kalle honours Ulrichs’ work, avoiding wild dramatic diversions that would only dilute the power and importance of the original story. In Ulrichs gothic world, the vampire is born from love and a desire to spend eternity with the person they know in their heart is ‘the one.’ No villager, loved one, or religion is about to stand in the way, as Baldur’s grieving mother soon discovers. It’s a narrative hook that feels fresh and new, even though Manor was published in 1894, and one Kalle brings to life with the utmost beauty.
Kasper Kalle’s film is a welcome return to many of the lesser-known gothic short stories and novels that continue to be bypassed in favour of re-hashed versions of works from Stoker, Shelley and Poe. But more than that, it’s a reminder that the roots of queer horror lie in the groundbreaking work of brave and bold queer writers like Ulrichs, whose work continues to reflect our shared LGBTQ+ experiences 141 years after its publication. Immersive, evocative and beautiful, No Rest for the Wicked is not only one of the best queer horrors of the year, but it’s also one of the most unique and atmospheric gothic horrors I have seen since The Vourdalak.
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