Five young biologists stumble across what looks like the remains of an alien creature while conducting soil research in a burned Swedish forest.The members of the group start to act strange one by one..."The Unknown" by Michael Hjorth is obviously inspired by "The Blair Witch Project" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".The acting of unknown cast is convincing and the atmosphere of paranoia is well-captured.The film was shot with hand-held cameras.We can't even see 'the creature' properly."The Unknown" relies more on the power of suggestion than cheap shocks and gore.If you enjoyed "Dark Woods" or "The Blair Witch Project" give this one a chance.The burned forest is truly eerie.7 out of 10.

What's the worst thing that could happen to a director? I imagine it would be getting accused of shamelessly ripping off an original movie idea, even though it never was the intention and everything's just a matter of bad timing. When "The Unknown" came out, not too many people were interested in seeing it because most press reviews stated it wasn't much more than a lame imitation of "The Blair Witch Project". But in reality, this modest Swedish low-budget film was as good as finished when "BWP" played in the theaters and, even if it did influence Michael Hjorth in some way, it must have only been during the post-production phase. In all honesty, "The Unknown" is also a much better film than the annoying and way overrated "Blair Witch Project", which – by the way – is nothing more than a hypocrite imitation of "Cannibal Holocaust". That being said, the script for "The Unknown" obviously found most of its inspiration in the classic Sci-Fi concept of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". The use of hand-held cameras, with shaky movements and extreme close-ups of the inside of people's nostrils, might be reminiscent of "Blair Witch", but the premise of something unearthly and evil prowling a remote area and gradually taking humans is purely old-fashioned horror greatness. The plot centers on five friends and amateur environmentalists driving up north to research the effects on the fauna & flora after an immensely destructive forest fire. On the first day already, the quintet stumbles upon some type of unidentifiable and rotting carcass and decide to perform a pathological examination. Meanwhile, one of the girls falls ill and inexplicably runs into the woods at night. Ingar behaves increasingly freakish, as if she's no longer herself and taken over by someone – or something – different. Hjorth clearly couldn't rely on a large budget, so don't expect any gory Alien-esquire situations or even detailed glimpses at the "thing", for that matter. "The Unknown" purely thrives on an atmosphere that is constant and sheer ominous from start to finish. For some reason I cannot quite formulate, the Swedish woods appear to be far more menacing than the American ones and the characters are at least amiable and "normal". Sadly enough, the story and style characteristics are far from perfect. The unstable camera gives the impression there's a sixth group member tagging along and the sets are underexposed. But the giant holes and severe elements of indistinctness in the script are what truly bothered me. The actual link between the forest fire and the alien substance is never made clear. Did he cause the fire or did he specifically select the dead region because it's the best biotope? The finale is predictable and clichéd, but endings like this will always remain at least a bit unsettling nevertheless, so no harsh complaints there. Interesting and worthwhile film, as long as you're not too demanding and/or expecting something groundbreaking and new.

Dogma-esque horror flick. Five biologists camped out to examine the site of burned down forest discover early an odd, unidentifiable but immediately and mysteriously disgusting "thing." Though the ending's too pat, as if somebody's seen too many b/w "Outer Limits," color video, real actors, lots of daylight, and just enough relationship horror expertly mixed with the horror film horror make this much scarier than "Blair Witch." Note also that, though all the action takes place in the open, in the somewhat desert-like burned out forest, the story's claustrophobic. No journeys, no premature attempts to trek out. It's all pretty much right there where it starts. You end up knowing the place, and dreading it, nearly as well as the characters do. Didn't hit me until just now, but Hirokazu Kore-eda's "Distance" has a structure similar to both this film and the much inferior "Blair Witch." "The Unknown" and "Distance" both resemble the surreally claustrophobic "The Exterminating Angel.

Five young biologists are sent to the northern regions of Sweden to investigate a forest fire. They will live in a caravan and tents out in the woods for some weeks, while they perform some tests. But something does not smell right... Soon they find a peculiar and burned carcass, which kind of look like an animal, only not. But this is just the beginning. Pretty soon, the biologists start behaving strange, one by one. Against their will, they have walked into the unknown...At first, "Det Okända", or "The Unknown" in English, was accused of being a Blair Witch-rip off, but those were actually the words of the people who had seen the trailer and not the film itself. The trailer looks pretty much like The Blair Witch Project, but the movie is very different. It might have been a bad idea to market the movie in this way, which might be one of the reasons that the movie didn´t do that well at the Swedish theaters. No, "Det Okända" is more like the masterpiece "The Thing", by John Carpenter, in which you never really knew who you could trust. The only things that reminds of BWP are the location and the shaky hand cameras. In fact, "Det Okända" is better than BWP in all ways. Better acting (all the actors are great), it´s much scarier and the script is more interesting and suggestive. It feels like a classic B-movie, really. It´s not just the best Swedish horror movie I´ve ever seen, it´s actually one of the best Swedish films ever!Camping will never be the same. * * * * out of * * * * *