All horror tales involve some kind of threat to that which is safe and familiar, a threat of upsetting an ostensibly natural, or at least preferable, order. This looming destruction and transformation has the potential to bring about a figurative or even literal end to the world as the main characters know it, taking audiences on a journey into the unknown and beyond. Inherently, such tales are about either transgression or transcendence: whether they portray the attacks on innocent victims by a masked killer, or the discovery of spirit realms and supernatural powers, horror tales are fundamentally about exceeding limits and crossing borders. Indeed, all drama ultimately carries with it the threat of downfall, the possibility of passing a point of no return, a chance that the world will change forever. The horror genre simply amplifies this aspect of dramatic fiction.

In recent years, the wave of cinematic horror in Norway has subsided somewhat, in the sense that publicly funded mainstream horror productions have given way to an increase in the number of low-budget features that now achieve broad cinema distribution with digital ease. At the same time, the disaster film has emerged as a new (and clearly horror-related) Norwegian genre of destruction and transformation, gaining huge audience popularity. In a time when several Norwegian horror directors have found work and success in Hollywood, the Norwegian apocalypse, taking shape in either the horror or disaster genres, is as terrifyingly tantalising as it ever was.

The end of the world, Norwegian-style

As discussed at the end of Chapter 6, there are real existential threats to the social-democratic ideal, a true dark side to the Nordic utopian dream. The image of Norway as a beacon of equality and progress is fading with the increasing inequality of its citizens, the rich getting steadily richer and the less well-off enjoying ever less opportunity to climb social and professional ladders, particularly in terms of the wealth accumulation of the rich set against the debt accretion of the middle and lower classes. Norway is practically running to catch up with Sweden, once known as the world’s most equitable country, where ‘the social-democratic era has been erased’ in the flurry of privatisation, commercialisation and wealth concentration that has taken place since the height of social-democratic Swedish politics in the early 1980s (Bredeveien 2019).