The Chestnut Man On Netflix, A Scandi Noir Series About A Serial Murderer That Leaves Tiny Men Made Of Chestnuts

There’s nothing creepier than a mysterious killer that leaves little collectible figurines behind when she or he does their murdering. Within the new Danish sequence The Chestnut Man, the killer leaves behind little males constructed from the nuts which are often roasting on an open hearth at Christmastime. Creeped out but? Learn on for extra.

Opening Shot: An overhead shot of an ’80s-era Volvo driving by means of a wooded space. It’s a police automotive on the Island of Møn, in 1987.

The Gist: In 1987, the native sheriff will get a name {that a} farmer has let his cows escape, however when he reveals up on the farmer’s home, he finds three folks brutally murdered, and a fourth severely injured. He ventures into the basement and meets his personal demise, however not earlier than he sees a bit of woman hiding beneath a workbench that’s full of little collectible figurines constructed from chestnuts.

Minimize to Copenhagen, current day. Police detective Naia Thulin (Danica Curcic) is having intercourse together with her boyfriend, however since she doesn’t need her daughter Le (Liva Forsberg) to find out about him, she shuffles him out the door earlier than she wakes up. When she goes into work, she tries to speak her boss into giving her a reference for her pending switch to the IT division. However he’s reluctant, given how good of an investigator she is. He’s sending her off to have a look at a brand new case, pairing her up with Mark Hess (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard), a Europol agent who’s reluctantly assigned to assist the native cops.

The home the place the sufferer lived is comparatively undisturbed, however at a playground within the woods, the place the physique is handcuffed to a put up, she learns that her left hand was amputated. Whereas Hess appears extra concerned with promoting his condominium than the case at hand, he does discover one piece of proof: A tiny man manufactured from chestnuts.

Within the meantime, Denmark’s social minister, Rosa Hartung (Iben Dorner), returns to Parliament for the primary time since her daughter Kristine (Celine Mortensen) was kidnapped and killed 12 months prior. Her husband Steen (Esben Dalgaard Andersen) does his greatest to verify the routine for her and their son Gustav (Louis Næss-Schmidt) is as regular as attainable. However he’s being affected by her loss of life greater than he’s letting on, judging by the fifth of vodka he retains in his automotive and the daydreams he has about discovering Kristine.

When Rosa will get to work, she learns {that a} menace has are available in to her e-mail account; it comprises footage of Kristine, taken from an Instagram account that was shut down after she was kidnapped.

There aren’t a ton of leads on the homicide case; Thulin questions the victims’ boyfriend, however Hess wonders why proof reveals that the locks had been modified the day previous to the girl’s loss of life, one thing the boyfriend knew nothing about. Then forensics comes again with an fascinating discover: A fingerprint on the chestnut man is Kristine’s. Regardless that Thulin’s boss doesn’t need her to speak to the Hartungs, she does anyway. That results in a attainable clarification, however each Thulin and Hess notice there’s extra to each the Hartung case and the present one, particularly after they discuss to the present sufferer’s son.

What Exhibits Will It Remind You Of? The Chestnut Man positively has the slow-burn vibe of a present like The Killing, together with the mismatched companions who find yourself working effectively collectively on the season-long case.

Our Take: There have been instances through the first episode of The Chestnut Man, based on the novel by Søren Sveistrup, that issues are too gradual of a burn. There’s an excessive amount of speaking and never sufficient plot momentum to get the place issues are going. However that’s really feel purposeful on the a part of Sveistrup and his co-creators Dorte Høgh,  David Sandreuter and Mikkel Serup. They wish to give the viewer the sense that the present-day case isn’t going wherever. However then the fingerprint of Kristine Hartung reveals up, and it sends the present in a route the place the viewer’s curiosity is piqued.

By now, we’ve seen so many reveals like this, the place “everybody has a secret,” that we began questioning the place The Chestnut Man may stand out. One of many issues that provides it an additional creep issue is the chestnut collectible figurines themselves. Undecided if this can be a Danish factor, however making little collectible figurines out of chestnuts simply appears to be a wierd factor for little children to do, so seeing that certainly one of these will likely be left at each crime scene Thulin and Hess examine provides us a specific type of the icks.

However there’s additionally the linkage again to what we noticed within the chilly open, that case manner again in 1987. We’re fairly certain it’ll come into play someplace, we’re simply unsure the place. It’s that lack of predictability that we all know retains folks tuning into Scandi noir sequence like these. Curcic and Følsgaard work effectively collectively, even when it looks like Hess is disinterested within the case and Thulin needs to be wherever however in a automotive with this man.

Because the thriller deepens, it’ll be fascinating to see how their working relationship adjustments, and we are able to additionally strive to determine why Hess continues to be in Copenhagen when his companion is elsewhere, and Thulin is so reluctant to introduce her booty name to her household.

Intercourse and Pores and skin: Nothing moreover that first scene described above.

Parting Shot: After Hess and Thulin disagree about the way to proceed with the case, a chestnut in its prickly shell falls on the roof of Thulin’s automotive. She takes it off and will get inside, however the ominous music signifies that it was greater than only a coincidence.

Sleeper Star: Anders Hove performs Askel, Thulin’s father-in-law and a former cop. Will he assist her with tidbits of recommendation or will his curiosity about her case hinder her efforts?

Most Pilot-y Line: We’re a bit confused about what occurred to Kristine Hartung. It looks like her physique was by no means discovered, however items had been. So why was she declared useless?

Our Name: STREAM IT. The Chestnut Man has an intriguing thriller and powerful lead characters. It’s a chief instance of why Scandi noir is such a preferred style.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about meals, leisure, parenting and tech, however he doesn’t child himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared within the New York Instances, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Quick Firm and elsewhere.

Stream The Chestnut Man On Netflix