When your title character isn't really a character, it creates some friction between audience and filmmaker. On top of that, you have a tone that seems to straddle a couple of different genres (horror and black comedy),and the film ends up asking a lot of that audience. I think I've figured it out, though.

The title character is not human, he's a spirit. When we first see him he's living in some underground bunker when three men (including a priest fresh off of saying mass) root him out. He escapes and wakes up two others sleeping in small holes in the ground. All three run off. He then goes from house to house, asking for a bath. Most people, obviously, slam the door on him. He simply walks off to the next house. He does eventually come to a house where the husband beats Borgman for implying an acquaintance with his wife. The wife, out of pity after the husband leaves, then invites the hobo looking vagrant in for a bath, a meal, and a place to sleep.

Borgman than takes over. He entrances the couple's children with stories of a child in the clouds. One of his fellow sprites seduces the au pair living in the house (but doesn't actually have sex with her). And Borgman invests the wife's dreams with visions of violence from her husband, whom she immediately attacks after waking up. There's something interesting about the seduction as well. Borgman's effects on the wife induces some kind of lust for him within her, but he's completely uninterested in sex, just like his fellow sprite. When the wife first comes to him, begging for him to touch her, he nonchalantly says, "I'm watching TV." There's a complete disinterest in sex from these sprites.

This is really where the odd tone comes into play. Am I supposed to be laughing at this? Scared of it? I wasn't scared, so I chose the laughter, and rolled with it. The movie became a black comedy in my eyes, and I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the twisted path.

In the end, after wife has killed husband and wife has met her own end, Borgman and his associates collect the children and au pair and disappear into the woods. There's no lesson to learn. Borgman was malicious, and the only way to make him turn his sights on you is to invite you into his home. He doesn't go after the people who slam the doors on his face. He doesn't just set his sights on the husband who beat him, but he tears apart the wife with the same cool focus.

It's almost like there is a lesson, and that there is evil in the world that can't be accommodated. Invite the evil in, treat it kindly, and it will still have no objective other than to destroy you. The only thing to do is to prevent evil from coming into your house.

It's a fascinating movie that requires some unpacking from the audience, but that's part of the fun. It's not great (maybe I'll change my mind on that over time, though),but the effort that the audience puts to take in what the movie has to offer ends up being worthwhile.

Weird and unnerving are a couple words which accurately describe the experience that is watching this film. What the film means is anyone's guess, and nothing is really spelled out or explained. This actually is a good thing, though, because the viewer can take away from it what they want. The story is about a vagrant named Borgman who insinuates himself into this affluent family's home and slowly makes life a living hell for them. The overall tone of the film is one of unease, mystery and black humor, peppered with a shock every now and then. There are several scenes which may stick with you long after finishing it, and there are a few that are still with me now. Comparing this to anything else is futile, except that if you like weird, disturbing movies (like I do),then you will probably love this. From a quality standpoint, everything is well-shot and all of the actors, including the children, give good performances as far as I can tell (Dutch isn't a language I speak). The tone of the film is also set very well by the score, which is off-kilter and dissonant. Since it is best to go into this film with as little information as possible, I'll end here. Suffice it to say, if you're brave enough to give this a try, you might end up liking it as I did.

What the heck did I just watch? I've never been teased by a movie for so long in my life. I've seen movies tease an audience, but never the entire movie, and never with every facet of the movie. Was this based upon some Dutch fable that Americans aren't aware of? Was this a big Dutch inside joke? There was no exposition, no climax, no resolution, and worst of all, no explanation. They didn't explain a THING!

The movie starts with a man named Camiel Borgman (Jan Bijvoet) waking up in an underground hideout and scurrying away from three men who look like they have bad intentions. Among the three malicious looking men in the woods was a priest. I was thinking, "Is this one of those crazy small village movies where everyone is psycho, even the clergy?" Regardless, it was intriguing. I mean right away there was action and suspense, even if I didn't know why. Surely, I'd get an explanation eventually?

Nope. An explanation never came.

Next, our main character went to a house in a well-to-do neighborhood and asked the occupant if he could come in and take a bath. The lady rebuffed him and he moved on.

The next house he went to, which was a large modern spread, he made the same request of the man of the house, Richard van Schendel (Jeroen Perceval). Richard also denied Camiel a bath, but this time Camiel didn't just walk away. He provoked Richard by claiming that he knew his wife, and that his wife tended to him in the hospital and even laid with him. Understandably, Richard lashed out and tuned up ol' Camiel pretty good. Richard's wife, Marina (Hadewych Minis),wasn't too pleased with Richard's behavior.

Again, I'm confused. Why is Camiel doing this?

Camiel never left the property. He stuck around and was found by Marina. I don't know how people operate in Europe, but in America, if some disheveled homeless guy was hiding on our property he'd be lucky if all that happened to him was the police hauled him off. In "Borgman" Marina played nurse to Camiel, feeling sorry for him because her husband beat on him. For a few days she surreptitiously nursed him back to health. In that time the nanny saw him as did the children, and no one said a thing to Marina's husband Richard. Then, inexplicably, when Camiel was leaving Marina begged him to stay.

Again, I'm confused. Why was Marina so hung up on Camiel all of a sudden?

Camiel stayed after he killed her gardener with the help of his assistants, Brenda (Annet Malherbe) and Ilonka (Eva van de Wijdeven).

Getting stranger now.

As a side story, Marina's youngest daughter, Isolde (Elve Lijbaart),bashed a man's head in with a concrete stepping stone.

Getting really weird now.

Marina started having weird dreams in which her husband was harming her in some fashion. While she was having these dreams Camiel would be perched over her body bare-ass naked. She would then wake up furious with her husband as though it really happened, and she would have a burning desire to be with Camiel.

This is bat-bleep bizarre now.

Another side mission had two male accomplices doing some strange stuff with Marina's three kids.

Now my head is hurting as I try to understand the plot with the pitifully small amount of clues I've been given.

The movie wraps up with Camiel poisoning Richard and Marina, then walking away with the kids and the nanny in tow. When it was all said and done, he and his accomplices killed six people, did surgery on the kids and walked off with them. I was totally clueless from beginning to end.

Maybe this movie was a sequel to something else. Whatever it was, it was very unfulfilling. I felt extremely cheated and I believe I deserve an explanation. An explanation would've gone a long way. They already had me hooked. So many weird things had happened that I only stuck around to find out the reason for it all. I kept looking at the remaining run time to see if they had enough time to sneak in a clarification. A simple explanation would've made it all worth it. Then I got end credits which may as well had been a middle finger because that's how I felt. Writer/director Alex van Warmerdam totally screwed me from beginning to end. Well, my only modicum of revenge is this scathing review. So take that Alex.

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