Tick Fever bites into breakup anxiety with parasitic horror
A tick that feeds on anxiety sits at the centre of Tick Fever, the new horror project from director Sebastian Granskog.
Described as an absurd body horror — horror built around unsettling physical change — about bloodsucking ticks, growing anxiety and a relationship way past its due date, the film was presented for the very first time at the Finnish Film Affair, according to Variety. The Finnish Film Affair is the industry section linked to Helsinki's film festival, where new Nordic projects are shown to financiers, sales agents and programmers.
Elias Salonen plays Victor. Anna Böhm plays Stella. The two are a codependent couple who cannot live together but also cannot break up, Variety reported.
Fear takes physical form in their story. Victor's worry and dread manifest as a tick that latches onto him and refuses to let go. That single image drives both the scares and the domestic tension, with the parasite growing as the relationship frays.
Mia Palmgren is producing for Character House, alongside producer Laura Laaksonen. Granskog also wrote the script, according to the company's film page. Character House, based in Finland, is steering the project through development toward a shoot.
Palmgren previously worked with Granskog on the horror short The Locker Room. Tick Fever will be their first feature film together, a step up that matters in the industry because shorts are often used to test a tone and a partnership before backers commit to a full-length film.
The project is currently being set up as a co-production, a structure in which funding, talent and shooting duties are shared across more than one country, between the U.K. and the Nordics. Its Finnish title is Puutiaiskuume, as listed by the Finnish Film Affair. That earlier listing billed it as a horror comedy with social satire, a slightly lighter label than the absurd body horror description unveiled this week.
What makes this stand out is the blend of the intimate and the itchy. The cast is tight, with two leads carrying the relationship. The creature is small and familiar, which keeps the horror close to the skin rather than far away in space or fantasy.
No release date has been announced. For now the film remains a market project looking for partners, with its next steps likely to depend on financing and casting around its central pair.
