Solo Review: Vikaren (The Substitute) (2008)

Sub-Genre- Evil Teacher/Aliens
Cast Members of Note- Paprika Steen, and a bunch of Dutch people whose names are just too hard to comprehend.

A swirling black hole opens in the sky, and spits out a little Phantasm Sphere, which hits a chicken and makes it explode; thus begins Vikaren.

Man, that was foul!

Out of the Phantasm Sphere comes a little alien, who takes over the body of a substitute teacher, and heads off to Middle School! She infiltrates a class, makes fun of and abuses the kids, and bites the head off of a chicken. The school board in Denmark really needs to improve their screening process...
  
Despite the children telling their parents that their new teacher an Alien, they allow her to take them on a "field trip" to Paris, which is really her way of saying "were all going to drink the poison Kool-Aid and go up Heaven's Chimney together!" I won't ruin the ending here, but suffice it to say that like the children, the chickens are all screwed!

2 chickens, 1 coop? Let's click on that...

Vikaren is to me a combination of The Monster Squad, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and let's say... The Faculty, maybe? It's a more mature kids movie about kids facing off against their evil Alien teacher, and it has the whole "no one believes us, we'll have to face her ourselves" thing going for it... and it all works pretty damn well. The movie actually had some genuine creepy moments, mostly involving the kids being in danger, and did an admirable job of holding our attention throughout. This movie makes me wonder once again why it is that foreign-made Horror movies tend to get so many things right that Hollywood can't seem to.

"Shut up or die!"

Some of the CGI was pretty poor; a scene involving a tentacle "attack" being the main offender. Not the biggest deal int he world, but had they tightened the visuals up a bit, it would have been far less distracting.

What in the hell is with all of the chickens in this movie? Exploding chickens, rooms full of chickens, people biting the heads off of chickens... WTF?!?

It's like chicken genocide!

Chicken head biting... but that's about all we get. Blood & gore are not the selling point of this movie.

No you perv, this is a movie full of kids... not naked stuff!

This is the love scene that was cut from the movie. Look for it on the Unrated DVD.

The best lines were spoken backwards in Danish; don't ask me to even attempt to type them here, but it was some eerily good stuff. Also, one of the kids berated his parents and finishes the tirade with "You are the weakest link. Goodbye." I laughed my ass off.

Teachers are natural liars and they excel at killing. Also, Aliens exist, and they really have a thing for chickens.

Maybe if they all rushed her at once...

Vikaren is definitely a cool flick. Although I hesitate to call it a "kids" Horror movie, because that would give the wrong impression, it really sorta is. Either way, it's fun, creepy at times, and pretty well made. Rent it if you get a chance, though a blind buy won't leave you feeling cheated either.

B

Vikaren is available now on DVD.

Sarah Lund from Forbrydelsen (The Killing) is int his.