Netflix Series, Elves (or Nisser in Danish) follows a family who arrives on a sacred Armand island for Christmas Vacation. However, the celebration soon becomes a nightmare as the family witnesses some ancient wild creatures lurking in the woods.
Directed by Roni Ezra and written by Stefan Jaworski, Elves Season 1 contains six short episodes of approximately 25 minutes each. It’s a horror-thriller series where the family runs from the menacing creature and tries to escape the island for their survival.
‘Elves’ Plot Summary
Josefine “Jose” Svane, a young teenage girl, arrives on the coastal Årmandsø Island with her father, Mads, mother Charlotte, and elder brother, Kasper. Mads’ colleague, Jespersen, has a small farmhouse which he lends to the Svane family for a Christmas vacation.
On their way to the house, Mads takes a private road and accidentally hits something with the car. When the family checks the bumper, they find a sticky tar-like liquid with a few scratches. An animal lover, Jose, walks towards the woods when suddenly a local hunter, Moller, spots them and asks them to take the coastal road. Moller even warns them to avoid private lands for their own safety.
As the family gets settled in Jespersen’s house, Jose wanders in the woods and finds an old barn house near the house. Jose roams around and spots a claw trap and similar sticky tar-like liquid in the woods. She tells her mother that probably their car hit an innocent animal and she needs to find it, but Charlotte orders Jose not to wander around.
Jose sneaks out of the window at night and finds a yowling creature near a Jurassic Park-like electric fence. She brings the creature with her and hides it in the barn. The following morning, when Jose visits the barn to look at the creature, she witnesses a wild woodland elf youngling wrapped inside her jacket. Jose starts looking after the animal and hides it from her family and the local community until the herd of wild elves comes looking for the youngling.
Major Spoilers Ahead
Who were these Strange Creatures?
Liv, a local girl, told Jose’s brother, Kasper, that these creatures belonged to the island’s nature preserve and were part of its wilderness long before humans existed or arrived. According to Liv, these meat-eating creatures were called Woodland Elves, who moved in herds and lived in isolation in the woods.
According to Liv’s grandmother, Karen, the woodland elves, and the local community lived in harmony for years until some foreigners arrived on the island and decided to profit from nature. About 15 years ago, they built a sawmill in the woods and disturbed the balance of nature. Liv’s parents used to work in the sawmill and were attacked by these elves, along with other workers. The surviving community decided to fence off the woods to keep the creatures out of their lands.
To protect the community, Karen and Moller started sacrificing cattle to these elves. It satisfied their hunger and restored the balance in nature. However, when Jose and her family arrived on the island, a youngling came out of the fence, probably due to the faulty electric generator. Jose found the young elf and took it with her while its mother and father looked out for it from the other side of the fence. These elves began hunting humans believing that they had killed their child.
Why did Elves start hunting humans?
Moller took the young elf, Kee-ko, from Jose and tossed him over the fence. But, with Kee-ko, Jose crossed the fence too. She went deep into the woods to find Kee-ko and came across the closed sawmill where an elf attacked Jose. To protect herself, Jose accidentally started a chainsaw and killed the elf.
In the meantime, Mads and Charlotte entered into an argument with Moller and forced him to open the fence door. Moller pointed a gun at the family to scare them off. To save his daughter, Mads tried to snatch the weapon from Moller, and in a rush, they accidentally shot the generator. It disrupted the power supply to the fences. Even after Charlotte rescued Jose from the other side of the fence, the wild elves crossed the insecure boundary and killed all the humans they encountered.
Karen confronted Jose and asked her why elves were hunting after her. Jose revealed that she accidentally killed one in the woods. Karen blamed Jose for the chaos and decided to sacrifice her to save the entire community and restore the balance.
‘Elves’ Ending, Explained
Karen took Jose to the sacrifice site and chained her to a hook to offer her to the elves. However, before any tragedy could strike, Moller, Live, and Kasper arrived at the site and saved Jose. Karen pointed a gun at them when Kee-ko, and its herd attacked Karen.
The four humans ran out of the woods while Mads and Charlotte connected a backup generator to the fences and secured the border.
After a threatening and thrilling adventure, Moller used the flare gun to call the boat to take the family off the land. Moller and Liv decided to stay back to repair the damage and restore the balance. Jose wanted to take Kee-ko with her, but Moller convinced Jose that these creatures shouldn’t leave the sacred island.
As the boat left the island, Liv suddenly jumped onto the platform. She always desired to leave the coastal island but didn’t dare to because of Karen. With Karen and her family dead, Liv didn’t have anything to hold her back. She decided to embark on a new future in Copenhagen with the Svane family.
The ending shot of the Elves depicted Kee-ko hiding under the car. Hence, against all odds, it left the island along with Jose. If there would be a Season 2, then Jose would try to domesticate the creature and hide it from her family. However, Kee-ko was a youngling, and its wild instincts would grow with time. It may attack other humans or prey upon them like its species. Season 2 of Elves would translate better.
Elves is a 2021 Danish Horror Thriller series written by Stefan Jaworski and directed by Roni Ezra. Season 1 is streaming on Netflix.
