‘Ormur’ Is A Raw, Rough, And Utterly Blunt Depiction Of Never-Ending Cycles Of Violence

Einar Baldvin’s hand-drawn horror Ormur will have you thinking — and perhaps even crawling under the bedsheets.

If you’re looking for an escape from the daily, psychopathy-driven chaos around us, you might want to look elsewhere. Ormur is a raw, rough, and utterly blunt depiction of never-ending cycles of violence. Set in a forest littered with skulls and human remains, the film follows a man who attempts to kill another for food, only to eventually meet his own end.

With echoes of the unbridled rage found in Phil Mulloy’s work, Baldvin has created a brief but ferocious commentary on the fragility, volatility, and desperation of existence — and on how violence can subtly creep through us like an infection.

Baldvin explains:

Ormur is a film about an endless cycle of revenge. I wanted to elevate that concept to a mythical level, showing how violence will take a monstrous, unpredictable, and ever-changing form of its own. Ormur in Icelandic means ‘worm’ but also ‘wyrm’ — a legless dragon.

An independent animation director originally from Iceland, Baldvin’s films have been showcased at festivals around the world, including Slamdance, Clermont-Ferrand, Annecy, Ottawa, and the Zagreb International Animation Festival. He is also an adjunct professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where he teaches in the Expanded Animation program.