Koko-di Koko-da (2019) User Reviews

What If You Could Go Back, And Do Just One Thing Differently...

[meddlecore · 5/10 · 29 October 2021]

What if you could go back and do just one thing differently...would it be enough to change the outcome? To shift the path of your destiny?

That's the sort of question this bizarre Swedish fantasy-horror-mystery film confronts.

3 years after losing their child to a freak food poisoning accident...a young couple goes on a roadtrip to honour her memory.

Though fraught with arguments from the get-go, there hasn't been any real hitch in their plans...until he decides to pull off to camp along a secluded private road.

This throws them into some sort of twisted cyclical time loop...in which they both die a vicious death at the end.

However, at the end of each scenario they find themselves in...they always reawake to find themselves in the tent, moments before the interaction with their killers is about to take place.

And each time this happens, they are endowed with a little more knowledge...about what not to do...in the situation.

Though nothing seems to ever go their way.

Considering the structure of the plot, the film has a very odd chronology.

So it takes some attention to follow.

But it's not overly complex.

One might describe it as Groundhog Day in Hell.

A Hell somewhere between Deliverance and Wolf Creek.

They really do do a good job of inducing anxiety and frustration...as you want to see the beleaguered couple free themselves from this vicious loop of violent death.

But you can't help but wish that a little more happened...especially considering a good portion of the film is animated filler that really has no other purpose than to inflate the runtime a little.

That aside...it's a nice twist on the whole Deliverance thing.

The backwoods family was genuinely creepy.

And there were a few moments to make you jump.

It's certainly not as extreme as something like Wolf Creek- the level of ultraviolence is mild in comparison.

But it wins some points with the whole sci fi angle.

In the end...it's one of those see it...or don't...kind of films.

It's worth the time if you think it sounds interesting...but you aren't missing a masterpiece if you decide to skip it.

5 out of 10.

An Acquired Taste

[dqfkxykd · 7/10 · 23 May 2022]

At its core Koko-Di Koko-Da (2019) is a story of a man and his wife, lost in maze-like wilderness in and around the dense forests of Sweden, whilst being terrorized by a small band of eccentric characters. It's also a surreal, low budget horror film about grief and unrelenting sadness.

The directing is insisting and noteworthy, and the performances are all great. Dismissing it merely as artsy, would just undermine its intention. Koko-Di Koko-Da definitely has a purpose, and an clear vision. But it is unconventional.

Gore is on a scale 2/10 Movie is 6.5/10

I'm glad I watched it.

If You Go Down to the Woods Today...

[Xstal · 7/10 · 4 December 2020]

... and you're still overwhelmed from the loss of a child a few years earlier, then be prepared for some surreal, dark and psychedelic like goings on from a trio of weird wood wanderers. Extremely bizarre and fantastical, an imaginative way to emphasise the challenge of overcoming loss and the torment that loss can infuse in the minds of the emotionally tortured.

WARNING: More art than horror, approach accordingly

[youngcollind · 7/10 · 10 September 2021]

If you're expecting jump scares or gore, you'll be sorely disappointed, this is an art first head trip through and through. In short, it uses a time-loop slasher as a metaphor for a failing relationship. How well this metaphor works is a little iffy, but points for the bold creativity and sturdy execution. There are also these extended sequences that pair crude shadow play animation with a foreboding string score that could be read as pretentious, but I felt added nicely to the mood of the film. It may not be perfect, but it's certainly an interesting experience if this kind of film is up your alley. If it's not, stop watching these movies and giving them an undeserved low score.

Do not pee in the swedish woods

[Horror_Flick_Fanatic · 6/10 · 6 February 2021]

This is an odd-ball film. I am not sure if the moral is to not let your wife pee alone in the woods or f__k the b___h and save your own hide.

But strangely i did enjoy the watch. Perhaps the film is too brainy for me and I should search out a film analysis on Youtube.

Great performances, but frustrating overall

[cliftonsierralk · 4/10 · 27 January 2019]

Koko-di Kiki-da had great performances, but it was just absolutely frustrating to watch. I could hear fellow members of the audience at Sundance audibally sighing after maybe the third or fourth ground hog day. The music box nursery rhyme was a cool premise for a ground hog day scenario, but they shouldnt have played out each scenario in full each time it happened. The first couple times were hardly different enough to warrant all that screen time. If the point was to frustrate us with paranoia as much as the characters were in the moment then he sure succeeded in that. I loved the first portion of the film and the last couple escapes were fun to watch but I would never put myself through this whole movie again.

Well made but nah

[kimbaface-560-60714 · 7/10 · 1 April 2021]

I lasted about 50 minutes into this movie 35 of which I was on my exercise bike and couldn't reach the remote. I'm giving it a seven only because it is well shot well acted. But I just couldn't get into the story. Yes it's metaphor. Yes it's obvious what's happening. But it didn't engage me. I was bored watching the same scene play out, as other reviewers have said, with minimal variation. Not for me.

Not a horror... not a thriller... not a comedy

[Howling_at_the_Moon_Reviews · 4/10 · 29 December 2021]

However... I liked it. I thought it started out strong. I liked where the story was going and thought the acting was great. The story didn't stay as engaging as I wanted it to though. It was repetitive (obviously) but not with enough variation.

There are so many different ways it could have gone each time. Some quick, some slow. Some more creepy, some more funny. Some with more hope and some with more despair. And with each of those variations we could have observed a new window into a different facet of each characters emotions and how they would manifest in said scenario. Instead we got almost identical emotions each time, panic and confusion, so we really only saw one side of each character. Missed opportunity for me there.

And listen, I'm here for a long shot. Especially if it's beautiful and/or really trying to drive a point home or stir an emotion or feeling. There were many long shots in this that it almost felt like they ran out of ideas and wanted to fill 85 minutes. You could've taken all of those superfluously long shots, cut each one of them in half, still gotten the point across just as effectively and had another whole rewind to do something cool with.

Now that that's out of the way, I really did actually enjoy this movie. It was not perfect, but it was cool and creepy with (what seemed like to me as an English speaker) really good and authentic acting. If they had pushed it just a little harder I think they could have had something really special and erie on their hands. Also, I feel as if they had driven home the point/moral at the end a bit more... i'm not asking you to spoonfeed it, but with the overall atmosphere of the movie, if the ending had been a little bit more poignant I feel like it would've really given it that parable feel like I was already getting from the piece.

Would recommend, just not to everybody.

No variation on Clockwork Orange or Funny Games that I suspected beforehand. Some interesting parts but the overall result failed on me

[JvH48 · 5/10 · 25 February 2019]

Saw this at the Rotterdam film festival 2019, where it was part of the official Tiger Competition. It is not a variation on A Clockwork Orange (Kubrick 1971) or Funny Games (Haneke 1997) that I deduced from the synopsis, but very different. It kept us awake and let us suffer along with the candidate vicitims. I was glad that the recurrent encounters with the evil threesome were very different each time, luckily leaving out redundant repeats from previous instances, like the discussion in the car about B&B versus tent. The role of the white cat is not clear to me, maybe just a gimmick letting us wonder whether its recurrent appearances were intended to mean something.

There is no morale or message embedded in the story, other than Tobias and Elin stopping their previous mutual nitpicking in the final scene and visually were connected again. What still puzzles me is that only Tobias seems to remember the previous encounters with the evil threesome, albeit only part of it and only knowing that some awful things are about to happen again, contrary to Elin who has no reminescenses at all. On the other hand, we see Elin following the white cat in a nightly quest of her own. Another mystery is why the evil threesome pops up at places far away from the camping spot where the couple fled from, after a fruitless attempt to evade unhappy encounters like the previous.

All in all, a lot of things are not understood but may mean something. The movie does not make me long for a real explanation, however. The only morale or message that I could deduce from this movie was that the couple may have been at a breaking point in their relationship when the story started, but were visibly together again near the end after the dire events they went through.

Therapeutic nightmare

[largu · 8/10 · 24 February 2019]

Koko-di Koko-da is about a young couple, a man and a woman with a deep trauma that is slowly tearing them apart. They have reached an endpoint in their relationship and something is about to give. The first thing to breaks is their reality.

On a dull camping-trip the couple encounter a troupe of three menacing and allegorical figures that suddenly emerges from the woods. Things quickly turns nightmarish. The man keeps reliving the violent encounter time after time while the woman remembers nothing of it. She in her turn experience her own nightmare, less violent but cold and lonely.

Johannes Nyholm is a very visual artist with some quirky and frankly stunningly beautiful pictures. While Koko-di Koko-da is dense and dark, it is not hopeless and I left the theater feeling quite elate. So, it's not for everyone but give it a go. All in all it's a beautiful experience.

Art gets in the way of the story.

[devynalexanderskyeharris · 3/10 · 26 May 2021]

Liked: Fun creepy song, good acting, creepy antagonists.

Disliked: Ending sucked, too vague, felt artsy for the sake of artsy.

I really felt they had something here until the final act, zero conflict resolution for me. I'm all for symbolism and artsy metaphors, but here I just felt like I was trying to make connections as to why or how this was happening much too often with little success.

Hated this

[matzernstmatzernst · 3/10 · 26 May 2021]

This movie tries hard to be artsy, it is super depressing, not a horror movie, it's a heavy psychological drama which some people may like, but I found it the worst movie I have seen in a long time. Depressing, not entertaining, absolute crapp. Don't watch this if you like a movie at least to be entertain ing. This is what is wrong with so many modern films and why the Oscar's have become a bad joke.

Babadook meets Groundhog Day in a bad way

[YRLY59E · 3/10 · 1 February 2021]

The film is well shot but drags because it's repetitive. This is what happens when you try and force a film to "have" what it doesn't. No steady build. The depth is shallow. Since there isn't a build or depth it's kinda boring, the repetitive sequences , while different, are similar enough to feel more repetitious than they are. If you want to shoot a limited budget movie without a lot of depth and still get a spooky atmosphere Dead End is a far better example of how to achieve it than this. Really only watchable for the cinematography so pass unless you're bored.

Empty shell

[quenty94 · 2/10 · 7 June 2020]

Takes more than red curtains and a little man singing to be Lynch. Very disappointed.

Brilliant

[colinlomasox · 9/10 · 10 November 2020]

If you like deep cerebral metaphorical horrors then this will blow you away, and live in your mind for ages. It's beautiful and heartbreaking. If you want quick thrills and scares you'll hate it. Your call.

Very overrated.

[repojack · 2/10 · 9 January 2021]

This is what David Lynch's nightmares must be like -- a groundhog day of despair and depravity.

There is one scene -- only one freaking scene -- that is absolutely gripping and terrifying to anybody that has had a child.

And the rest is just art-for-for art's sake with little effort to connect the dots.

Dull. Lifeless. Boring. Coma Inducing. Annoying. Waste of time.

[reeeeecey-10-505169 · 1/10 · 21 October 2020]

I woke up after a long nights sleep, put this on.... by the end of it, I was so numbed by the chore of sitting through it that I had to go back to sleep. It sucked the life out of me. Do not waste your time. AVOID.

What???

[travyb-39982 · 1/10 · 17 April 2021]

What?? Horrible. First movie I have ever rated a one.

Boooooooooooooring..... zzzzzzzzz

[v_haritha_in · 1/10 · 29 October 2020]

Okay, so a couple are grieving the loss of their young daughter. They go on a camping trip and while there they are killed by an incongruous carnival troupe. And then they wake up in the same tent. Rinse, repeat, with very minor variation. Rinse, repeat multiple times. Each cycle is the same length of time. Variation is minimal AND they do the pretentious thing of lingering on a shot more for longer than necessary. Avoid at all costs unless you are looking for a cure for insomnia. Ignore the positive reviews and go watch Groundhog Day or Happy Death Day or any other movie.

Trauma, PTSD and Horror - Great!

[PedroPires90 · 8/10 · 1 May 2021]

It's a metaphor and a groundhog day style that won't appeal to everyone. My brother called it "weird", my girlfriend said she "didn't get it, but I knew you would love it" and yes, I loved it.

It's a fantastic concept and a good way to show the difficulties dealing with trauma, mourning and ptsd. Take it how you want it, is this a real horror movie? It's just a dream? Are they really stucked there? Is something real here? Well, the trauma and a couple relationship going down is definitely there and following that cat is necessary to understand how to overcome and to learn how to move on.

Good atmosphere, creepy and tense. You need a little patience, but I think It's one of the most original ideas in the genre in the last years.

Just bad

[markkaz-15904 · 2/10 · 20 March 2021]

No real plot. Boring.......I mean BORING! Watched it on Shudder. They must have paid $20 for the rights to steam it. Trying to be an art film, but fails. I wasted an hour and a half of my life. Just trying to save you your time. Find something else.

Unusual weird but in a weird way lol

[vassiliskounelis · 4/10 · 4 November 2020]

At the beginning I was thinking that something I did wrong and I was just forword the movie back again and again... It's weird the movie has a story that when it ands it star again but in a different way and different acts from the actors I don't know what to say it was interesting but I don't know if I really liked it. The performances were great though I hate that the movie explaine nothing and it's sad because the movie it's really weird and it's needs an explanation to exist for me unless this movie it's Unnecessarily!

Truly bizarre, heavy, wierd, unique and unusual psychological thriller.

[alexanderliljefors · 5/10 · 23 October 2023]

A extremely wierd, bizarre, unusual and unique Swedish psychological horror/time-loop thriller!

I can truly say that this is one of the wierd lest films ive ever seen!

Somehow is manages to capture a haunting, mysterious and scary atmosphere all the way through the film. That ambience you want from a psychological horror!

It turns out it gets better and better the longer you get into it. It gets really intriguing by the viewer to try and solve this wierd psychological puzzle.

THIS IS what i seek out from a genuine horrifying and wierd psychological horror that explores the unknown.

Cinematography is amazing!! A artsy film.

Manuscript fails sometimes, but remember its a movie made to be wierd.

Its a very deep film made to make you think.

But in the end, it just gets too confusing without any sort of explanation.

It makes you, when you've finished watching, think about what you've actually seen. Leaving you ver confused. But i like the open-ending.

Its a movie that gives you a wierd feeling, that stays for a while with you.

A very good try!

I cant say i can recommend this unique pice! But its watchable cause it makes you think what it means and finding your own explanations.

A piece of art

[sokoke · 9/10 · 12 April 2020]

This visual masterpiece is not as simple as it might seem at first sight. Let the genres not be misleading - comedy and horror, this film is a real work of art at the junction of different genres and styles, right up to absolutely beautiful animation, looking at which your eyes become wet. The plot is much deeper than what is written in the description, but the message is easy to count, if you think about it and tune in to the fact that this is not just another cheap horror junk, but a smart and sensual movie. This movie is about the loss, about emotional experiences, about the difference between a man and a woman when a tragedy comes. At the same time, the movie does not try to be a pretentious and complex art house, it just took its own league next to Babadook. Give it a chance. I watched it at the Moscow International Film Festival on the big screen and it was an unforgettable and really creepy experience, in a good way.

Ignore the haters!

[frankie101 · 9/10 · 21 September 2020]

I was initially hesitant to check this out, from the very mixed reviews. However, I enjoyed this quite a bit!

If you can get past having to read subtitles and some shots that are repeated/long, there is a weird and interesting concept underneath.

I didn't understand the whole film, but I think that is part of the fun - the mystery! If you like odd films, why not check it out?