My uncle and his nuclear family are almost all borderline professional scuba divers. They have been doing it for years, and they’ve gotten various levels of certifications and… I dunno… degrees? What do you get for being really good at scuba? Medals?

Regardless, whatever it is, they have it. They have dived all around the world. It’s… not for me. Were you aware that you can’t breathe underwater? It’s dangerous stuff! Also, it’s very dark, and there is extremely high pressure bearing down on you. None of this sounds like any fun to me. But we all get our kicks different ways, so if they are into diving, that’s great for them. I’ll stay on the beach.

(I actually don’t like the beach, either, but not because I’m scared of it, at least)

Now, a lot of other people are anxious about the sea and diving and what-have-you because of the animals that live below the waves. Jellyfish and eels and sharks, and, like, orcas and stuff. That’s why they don’t go in the water. And that’s reasonable. Who knows what else is down there, too!

Today’s movie, Kraken (2026, because there was another Kraken that came out in 2025) postulates that we as a species have only explored 5% of the world’s oceans for a reason! There is stuff down there we certainly don’t want to mess with! This Norwegian picture tells the tale of a salmon farm that gets in over its head with such a beast.

This company has created and is using sonic emitters to rid their fish of lice so they are healthier for consumption. Right as a huge deal is about to go down with Japanese investors, people near the local fjords notice strange goings-on with the water. Fish and crabs are throwing themselves on shore, as if to escape something.

An ecology minded scientist, Johanne, is brought in to investigate if the emitters are causing the problem with the local sealife. What she finds is far more dangerous–and far bigger–than she ever could have guessed!

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ For a pretty scant budget of what is reportedly less than 6 million Euros, Kraken 2026 looks pretty good. Of course there is a lot of hiding the creature and showing small amounts in smaller doses, but what we see–minus one climactic scene at the end–all translates pretty well to the screen. The creators were confident they could do this on their budget, and they succeeded. 

Now, I do want to be transparent here: in the Letterboxd reviews for this picture, there are some murmurings that the creators used AI in the creation of it, which I absolutely do not support. But a quick and rudimentary Internet search turned up no actual proof that AI was used in its production, and Wikipedia reports, per sources, that “The film was shot in Lohja, Finland. Principal photography took place in Norwegian fjords, utilizing a mix of aerial, underwater, and practical effects to depict the creature”. So while I’m willing to give the creators the full benefit of the doubt, I also think it’s fair to cover that there is at least speculation in this realm.

+ Anything involving water is immediately extra scary to me because you have to deal with whatever the threat is, PLUS the notion of just… plain, old drowning. Water by itself is deadly; a kraken just makes things worse! Add into that that Kraken 2026 also casually tosses in the danger of the giant parasites attached to the sea beast, and you’ve got death on three possible fronts with which our protagonists have to contend!

The parasites actually seem, in the second act, like they might be the biggest peril of the flick until the kraken creature makes more havoc in the third. But the former are horrendous little creatures with terrible sucking mouths full of teeth… it makes me shudder to think of them! The production team did a good job imagining them and bringing them to life to challenge our heroes.

– Kraken 2026 has a fair amount of characters and actually does a solid job weaving them in and out of the tale as needed. It doesn’t really leave you hanging or forgetting some exist. The problem is that there are two secondary characters–the corporate business fisherman father and his ecology-conscious daughter; I would have preferred they were the primary characters and the movie was about their relationship. But the daughter openly blows the whistle on her father’s practices, and he is jovial and loving with her. I’d rather have seen some conflict and building up of their dynamic!

Could we have had an even more engaging story if it was about a father and daughter on the verge of becoming estranged? What caused the rift between them where she resents what he does for a living? Will they come together in the face of the mighty monster ravaging their world? I can see really getting into this! But it was not to be.

– There are a few edits and scene transitions that feel harsh and sudden, and they jarred me as a viewer. While the rest of the movie looks pretty polished and well-made and decently shot, these cuts felt a bit more like the folks behind the camera not having enough shine to make their scenes feel completed before moving onto something else. These don’t carry throughout the movie and stop in the second act for the most part, but I still found them distracting when they happened.

OVERALL

Kraken 2026 might have had a better relationship-based story at its fingertips with Maria and her father’s dynamic, but the movie is still exciting and enjoyable. I will throw a mild complaint out there that my only two viewing options for this advanced screener were Norwegian with no subtitles or English dubbed voices; I would have preferred a subtitle option. But that’s just picking at this point.