Dagr (2024) - Horror Film Review

Dagr (Welsh for 'Dagger') is a British found footage horror film that is set in Wales, directed and co-written by Matthew Butler-Hart. It describes itself as a comedy horror film, but I think that is being a bit down on itself, and would state this is just horror. Being quarter Welsh myself I always like seeing films set in that part of the world. It had been a while since I had last watched a found footage, and while this does fall into some of the issues the genre is known for, when this finally gets going it wasn't bad at all.

Louise (Riz Moritz - stunt work on The Witcher) and Thea (Ellie Duckles) are two social media personalities who have fame of a kind from their many videos which I guess they would dub 'social experiments', but in fact is just them doing anti-social behaviour, low level crimes, and thievery. For their latest video they are pretending to be catering staff for the cast and crew of an advert being shot at a remote Welsh mansion. The aim is to steal as much as they can, while also getting plenty of footage of them being around the cast and crew. When they finally arrive late to the mansion there is no one else to be found there. Discovering some discarded camera equipment they decide to watch the day's footage and they are surprised by the haunting events they discover. Thea is convinced it is all part of a prank being played on them, but Louise becomes increasingly convinced that all is not right.

With forty minutes of runtime before the horror begins, this fell into an all too familiar trap of the genre. I understand that we need to get to know the protagonists, but having them spend almost two thirds of the movie not really doing anything other than driving around and making silly videos wasn't the best use of the time here. It is a shame as the film really picks up quite rapidly once they eventually arrive at the mansion. To counter this at least was the cool idea of having a second found footage story also going on. There is the usual blurb at the film's start stating that the footage being presented has been edited together by the police, maybe a bit too professionally edited, but it made for some nice pacing. Louise and Thea were terrible people, so obsessed with social media that they don't really care about the crimes they commit. They state it is to poke holes at the rich, yet they themselves hardly look poor themselves.

For around twenty minutes Dagr is at its peak, sublime and wonderful to watch. Then it goes slightly too far the other way, with the final ten minutes or so containing more confused shaky camera work out in the darkness.

The second story follows the cast and crew at the mansion as they go about filming their advert. These scenes are mixed in with those of Louise and Thea and appear to be running concurrently. Once at the mansion this subplot then becomes something the protagonists start to watch alongside the viewer, with both of us shown the much more horror based events at the same time. The idea of the characters arriving at a place where true horror has only recently taken place was such a cool thing. Having them stood around in the same rooms where this horror has occurred helped build up the tension. I thought the way the plot and the subplot intersected was nicely done. The use of other characters discovering found footage was interesting, we even get a third found footage moment where an old videotape from the late 90's starts playing.
The horror is supernatural, with it revolving around a cult. There are the usual camera glitches to indicate something is not right, with doors opening and closing on their own, and split second images of robed figures appearing on the footage. I absolutely loved how the cultists were shown, they seemed to be at a different frame to the rest of the footage, leading to jerky, vaguely stop motion movement from them. Their constant chanting however, I could never really decide if it fell on the cheesy side of things, or if it was a bit creepy.

When it finally gets going, Dagr was a lot of fun. I enjoyed how the two separate found footage films mixed together, and how it played slightly with the version of events being presented to the viewer. It was a heck of a slow build up to this, I can't but help this first part was a bit self indulgent and slow in places. I get that is all the process of trying to make it like like the footage is real, to make the more strange events all the more freaky, but I did get a bit bored in that large first part. When it comes together there was a lot to enjoy here, it helped I was in the mood for a found footage. Dagr is set for release on digital platforms on April 8th from Studio Dome (formally Entertainment Squad).

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