- What makes us human... in times like these? What separates us from the animals? Love... Loss, hope, anguish. Expectation? One thing is certain. Survival is not enough. We need to feel. And on that note... ladies and gentlemen... welcome to the theatre. This show isn't set on a stage. There's no auditorium, no rows of seats... No intermission. The hotel is our stage. Behind these doors, I encourage you to pursue whatever piques your interest. Finally... ladies and gentleman... let me remind you that everything that takes place tonight is staged. Everything is a show. Everything. Masks will be handed out to all of you. Do not take them off. They are the only distinction between you and the actors. If you see a mask, it's an audience member. If you see a face, it's an actor. Friends... Forget about the outside world. Tonight, I present to you an experience unlike any other.The Host
Cadaver (original title: Kadaver) is a Norwegian Thriller Horror Movie by Jarand Herdal.
In a war torn city, a family of three, Leonora (Gitte Witt), her husband Jacob (Thomas Gullestad), and their daughter Alice (Tuva Olivia Remman) are struggling to survive in a world with no immediately available food, and their home being a ruined building. One night, a cart pulls into town, inviting all who can hear it, including the family, to the hotel of a man named Mathias (Thorbjørn Harr) for a meal and a show. Not having anything else, the family decide to go, where they enjoy a hearty meal and meet many others, including a woman named Katherine (Maria Grazia Di Meo), her husband Lars (Kingsford Siayor), and their daughter Susanne.
Soon, the host welcomes them to the hotel theatre and tells the people that the show is interspersed throughout the hotel. They can follow any character they want and watch their story, but they must wear masks to differentiate themselves from the actors. The family dons their mask and proceed to follow the character of Rakel (Trine Wiggen). However, there's more to the show than the audience knows.
The movie was released on Netflix on October 22nd, 2020.
Cadaver contains examples of:
- Catapult Nightmare: Leonora suffers from one early in the movie, which has her sit up gasping from a nightmare of her losing her daughter in the house they're living in.
- Chekhov's Gun: Jacob confirms the blood on the doll he and Leonora find on the floor to be fake by tasting it, and discovering it tastes sweet. Leonora later tastes the blood she finds on Alice's dress, and it seems to be confirmed as fake as well. This gives her hope that her daughter is still alive. Thankfully, she is.
- Desk Sweep of Rage: Leonora and Jacob walk in on Hans while he's ranting about something, during which he sweeps all the items off his vanity.
- Driven to Suicide: Hans kills himself in front of Leonora and Jacob by cutting his throat open in front of them. Except he was just acting. He shows up later, still wearing the fake skin with the blood tube sticking out of the side.
- Empathy Doll Shot: While Leonora and Jacob are looking for Alice, they see a bunny doll on the floor in front of some double doors. They pick it up, and discover some blood on it. Thankfully it's stage blood.
- Fake Food: When Leonore and Jacob return to the kitchen while looking for Alice, they knock some of the meat off the hooks it was hanging from. When they hit the ground, they make a hollow bumping sound, revealing that they're made of plastic. What's more, the stacks of vegetables are all pictures, as revealed when they look at them from below.
- Faking the Dead: Hans' suicide is revealed to be an act later, when we see him alive and well, still with the fake skin on his neck, and the tube for the fake blood sticking out.
- Forced Perspective: While looking for Alice, Leonora and Jacob crawl through the kitchen, and see all the vegetables on the tables were flat images, as revealed by their different perspective.
- Foreshadowing: There's a couple of painting of lambs on serving trays scattered throughout the hotel. This is to symbolize how all the guests are just lambs to the slaughter.
- Hell Hotel: The hotel is staffed by actors who lure the guests into specific locations so they can be dropped into catacombs beneath the rooms. From there, the guests are taken to the kitchen by a bunch of men in white body suits who kill them and process their bodies into meat.
- Hostage Situation: Hans holds a guest hostage at one point in the movie, grabbing them and holding a knife to their throat.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Leonora kills Lars by shoving him backward onto one of the large hooks in the meat locker.
- The Mole: Lars was actually one of the actors, rather than a guest as previously assumed.
- Neck Snap: While Leonora is struggling with an actor, she puts her mask on his face, causing the big man in white behind her to mistake him for one of the guests. He then proceeds to kill him by snapping his neck.
- One-Word Title: Cadaver, naturally.
- Portrait Painting Peephole: In one scene, when Leonora looks closely at one of the lamb portraits, the eye blinks. She later discovers, down in the catacombs, that this is because there are indeed small covered holes where the portrait's eye should be.
- Slashed Throat: Hans does this to himself right in front of Leonora and Jacob, apparently having had enough of luring guests into death traps and eating their corpses. However, he was just acting, as shown when Leonora sees him later, with the hose for the fake blood sticking out of his throat.
- The Secret of Long Pork Pies: This is Mathias' ultimate plan to survive. He lures in tons of people each night, then has his actors put on a dinner show that lures them to secluded areas where they're dropped into catacombs full of large men in white clothes. The men bring the guests to the kitchen, where they proceed to process the guests into food for his friends to eat. Some of the actors, like Hans and Lars, are in on it as well. Most of them are apparently unaware, and do not react well upon finding out.
- Stock Scream: The "ah-AH-ah!" scream can be heard as Leonora walks through the hotel in the movie's climax.
- Trap Door: There are some in the floors of the hotels, which Leonora discovers when she pushes a button on a painting. They lead to catacombs where the guests are taken to the kitchen to be made into food.
- Unwilling Suspension: After being knocked out by Lars, Leonora comes to in a meat locker, hanging upside-down.
- Urban Ruins: The world outside the hotel is a dark, ruined city where people are struggling to get by.
