Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

GoregirlsDungeon The films opening scene explains that aliens know only war. Their goal is to learn about and understand the human emotion of love. In attempt to do just that, they send a sphere that lands on a deserted chicken farm. They take over the body of a farmers wife who reports to work as a grade six school teacher. Paprika Steen who plays the teacher is fantastic. She plays the wickedly nasty teacher with over the top enthusiasm and absolutely nails it. It is one of the most amusing and entertaining characters I have seen in a horror film in some time. The kids figure out almost immediately that there is something not quite right about their new teacher. She taunts and humiliates the children with insults and appears to have the answer to every question. The more they learn about their new teacher the more horrified they become. The first half of this film is rock solid. A real masterpiece. Unfortunately the films conclusion is a complete and utter crap-out. The ending seemed hurried and the finale was anti-climatic to say the least. It is intended to be more amusing than horrifying but it would have been appropriate to add a little more suspense, particularly for the final scene. There is no gore in this film and no scares at all. There are only a few isolated moments of suspense. This being said this film is still extremely watchable and I think that people who aren't generally fans of the horror genre will also enjoy it. More "PG" than our regular fair but some really good clean fun!

kosmasp ... they're all the same ... well actually this one isn't really quite as the others (as you might have read in the synopsis and/or seen in the movie).The main actress is also the main selling point of this movie. She is really great and it shows that she has fun with her role and the overall story.The kids and the parents are good too, the story has some neat twists (although most of them are pretty easy to spot), but it never achieves a status of greatness as I would call it. Something is still missing, to make this movie great. It might also be the fact, that once you've seen a few movies, like this one, it doesn't affect you as much. Soild Film then, with which you shouldn't be disappointed ... but expect to get to excited about it either!

Michael O'Keefe The Ghost House Underground presents an entry from Denmark with not a lot of special effects, but it sustains suspense and anxiety. A small-town sixth-grade class gets a substitute teacher. She is blond, long, lean and lanky with all the finesse of a Nazi interrogator. She treats the children rudely and sadistically taunts each and every one as she indulges in mind control. The children try to alert their clueless parents, but Miss Ulla(Paprika Steen)finds it too easy to manipulate them. Carl(Jonas Wandschneider)and Phillip(Nikolaj Falkenberg-Klok)convinces the class to take matters into their own hands. Upon some snooping they find reason enough to believe the substitute is from another planet.

demonictaco When I first saw the trailer for this film, I knew it was something I had to watch. I can't remember any Danish sci-fi movies off the top of my head, and I knew that a director like Bornedal would never just tack on such a genre for no reason. It also seemed wonderfully crazy, and Danish black humour does work very well on film. When you actually go see the film, you realise that the fantastic elements of the story are only cosmetic, and that the film isn't about aliens with strange powers, but rather about what our society is changing into.The film's acting is spot on; the kids have been cast very well, their characters seeming genuine. The main character, Carl, is particularly well portrayed, and his emotions all seem perfectly sincere and authentic. You can't put a finger on the acting of any of the supporting roles either; Ulrich Thomsen does a very effective father, and Ulf Pilgaard seems delightfully mechanical in his portrayal of the "education minister". But in the end, with all due respect to all the other actors, Paprika Steen really outshines everyone else. She is frighteningly effective in her role as Ulla Harms, the Substitute. Constantly condescending towards the students in an effort to turn them into the best children possible, so they can compete in Paris with other students from various parts of Europe, Ulla Harms is a fantastic villain. The way she doesn't show any remorse at all towards the students she insults, the way she'll stop at nothing in her quest to discover what love is (which she, of course, tries to do in totally psychopathic manner).One of the few flaws the movie has is that it doesn't really flesh out certain characters who, while not actually very important to the plot, still get a lot of screen time and thus should be made more clear than they were. This makes some of the characters seem a bit shallow. The important characters are dealt with as they should, though, so it's not a very big problem.Another thing I can complain about is the ending. The final scene starts out very calmly, with a bit of narration from what I think is Ole Bornedal himself, and then suddenly explodes into a loud and very energetic series of credits. It didn't really fit in, and it seemed fairly pointless.All in all, the Substitute is a very entertaining movie; part social commentary, part black comedy, part horror. With stunning performances by virtually all the actors and a very effective script, the Substitute delivered everything I thought it would and much, much more. I can recommend it to all fans of Danish film-making.