Red Dot is a Swedish film released on Netflix US on February 11, 2021. Directed by Alain Darborg and written by Darborg and Per Dickson, Red Dot is a hybrid of survival horror, backwoods horror, and folk horror – more specifically, it’s part of a subgenre I call survival folk horror. Other examples include Deliverance (John Boorman, 1972), Eden Lake (James Watkins, 2008), and Calibre (Matt Palmer, 2018).
The film follows Stockholm couple Nadja (Nanna Blondell) and David (Anastasios Soulis), along with their dog Boris, as they decide to head north to isolated Bear Valley to ski, camp, and see the Northern Lights. On the way there, as they stop to get gas, they encounter two hunters who suggestively mock David as a “pretty boy” and eye Nadja, who is Black with a kind of contemptuous sexual aggression. Both David and Nadja are unnerved by this encounter, especially after David sees a gun and a severed reindeer head in the back of their truck. Pulling away from the gas pump, he bumps their truck, leaving a small dent. They drive away nonetheless.
