Where to Watch “Elves”: Netlix There’s probably never a world where “Elves” wasn’t going to use a moody cover of a Christmas song over its opening credits. Sure enough, within a few minutes of the show starting, there’s a version of “Carol of the Bells” that’s even more ominous than its natural, Hallmark Channel resting state. Embedded within the idea of calling a show “Elves” (or, its original Danish title “Nisser”) is a sly smile. “You thought you were clicking on a cute holiday rom-com with a Disney Channel alum,” it’s saying to any Netflix user giving the show a spin. If those credits didn’t clinch the idea that this is decidedly not the case, the ritualistic sacrifice of a cow that comes right before it is a big hint.
Instead, “Elves” follows the not-so-cozy holiday of a family looking for a Christmas getaway on the fictional island of Aarmandsø, off the Danish mainland. (They commit the cardinal horror story sin of opting to spend extended amounts of time in a place that, by their own admission, they haven’t heard all that much about.) On the drive to their not-quite-as-advertised cabin (which, incidentally, doesn’t look all that different from the site of some brutal deaths in another recent Danish Netflix series), the family car runs over what dad Mads (Peder Thomas Pedersen) assumes is a pothole. Only the daughter Josefine (Sonja Steen) suspects that the dark sludge on the front bumper might be a sign that they may have hurt something.
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Sure enough, back in the barn at their temporary island hideaway, Jose stumbles on something rustling. Caring for it with a strip of bacon rather than some Reese’s Pieces, it isn’t long before her secret leads to some big problems for everyone on the island.
“Elves” isn’t without a tad bit of “Gremlins” vibes, too. It’s just that, in this version, someone’s been pumping a steady firehose of water onto the heads of the local wildlife for a while now. Given that the title is listed as a multiple, and that what Jose finds in the barn isn’t exactly a stray capybara, it’s not much of a spoiler to say that the family’s little bit of vehicular misadventure is not looked on kindly by inhabitants of the wood.
One of the other sly inversions in “Elves” is that this isn’t an easy, simple locals vs. outsiders dynamic at play (even though, yes, there is one obvious exchange of crushes at the center). Local matriarch Karen (Ann Eleonora Jørgensen) becomes a foreboding presence, but her instincts aren’t completely off. And this isn’t a story where good intentions are enough to stave off some consequences for the human side of this man vs. nature ledger.
There are certainly points when “Elves” teases a kind of show that it doesn’t ultimately deliver. The island’s inhabitants don’t take kindly to tourists — one particular community meeting has shades of another story about visitors who got far more from an extended Scandinavian stay than they bargained for. One “Elves” episode definitely gives the impression that we’re destined for a “Jurassic Park”-level eruption. There are slasher, zombie, and general B-movie sprinklings throughout the six episodes, but the show manages to stay on the road that passes right through the eye all of those. That, coupled with the fact that the combined runtime is just north of a standard feature, it’s hard not to see this as more of the holiday counterprogramming nature of the show. But it definitely works on that level, even if it may be a little wispy at points. There’s even a kind of “no good deed goes unpunished” underpinning to the whole thing, too. If you’re looking for a new Christmas-adjacent bit of entertainment that’s not quite merry and bright, this is a decent place to start. Missed any other outputs from Recommendation Machine? You can read every past version here. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
