Smell-o-vision is making a come back, thanks to Dead Snow director Tommy Wirkola

In his new mockumentary, Kurt Wagle and the Legend of the Fjord Witch, which is launched domestically today (5 March) by Euforia Film, Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola re-introduces odorama – the scratch-and-sniff card US director John Waters developed for his 1981 feature, Polyester.

”In the theatre your sense of smell is usually reserved for your neighbour’s pop corn; we want to use it for the  ’complete cinema experience’,” explained Wirkola, who learned about smell-o-vision from a documentary about Waters. ”Most of the scents are nice and cozy, like wood and moor – others are less pleasant: one will remind you of, eh, bodily waste.”

In the horror comedy described as Blair-Witch-Project-Meets-Spinal-Tap, Kurt Wagle – a fisherman on early retirement – leaves for the woods to find his homosexual son, Tordenskjold, who he is convinced has been abducted by the fjord witch.

Wirkola’s feature debut, Kill Buljo–The Movie, which started as a joke – ”wouldn’t it be fun to make a spoof of Tarantino’s Kill Bill?” – sold over 26 territories including the US, the UK and Australia, after it was screened at the AFM in 2007 by Imagination Worldwide LLC. Locally it exceeded 90,000 admissions.

With a world première at Sundance in 2009, his feelgood-Nazi-zombie-splatter comedy, Dead Snow, was licensed to more than 50 territories by Elle Driver. Nominated for four American Scream Awards, it picked up three audience prizes on the international festival circuit; local audiences reached 140,000.

”In this case it will make or break – I don’t think there is a cross between,” concluded producer Terje Strømstad, of Yellow Bastard Productions. The cast for the film includes local stars Stig Frode Henriksen, Kristoffer Joner, Bjørn Sundquist, Cecilie Mosli and Julia Schacht.

 

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