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A red barn with teal doors stands in deep snow beside a farmhouse with colourful lights. A bowl of porridge and tools sit by the step, with dark mountains beyond.

A small red paper barn sits half buried in snow beneath dark mountains, with amber side windows, fir trees and a partly hidden moon.

Essential Christmas · 2023

There's Something in the Barn

Name: There's Something in the Barn
Released: 2023-09-23
Duration: 100 min
Cast: Martin Starr, Amrita Acharia, Kiran Shah

56/100Festive FactorWhy it scores 56 ↓

UK certificate 15100 min
Comedy · Fantasy

An American family inherit a farm in the Norwegian mountains and ignore the old rules about the little elf…

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The CineClaus Christmas score

Festive Factor

Christmas in good measure.

Two paper elves examine a snowy barn model with a bowl on its step, surrounded by fir trees, mountains and a farmhouse with colourful lights. — A little magic in the making.

Five ingredients make the Festive Factor.
Open an ingredient to find out more.

Christmas in the storyChristmas drives it, but another occasion could stand in.20/30

What we ask: Take Christmas out. Does the plot survive? Worth up to 30 of the 100 points.

A world dressed for ChristmasVisibly Christmas for most of it.15/20

What we ask: How much of the running time is visibly Christmas? Worth up to 20 of the 100 points.

The little seasonal details5 of the 10 kinds of Christmas icon we count turn up on screen.8/15

What we ask: How many kinds of Christmas icon turn up on screen: trees, lights, snow, carols and the rest? Worth up to 15 of the 100 points.

A Christmas heartHow far the ending rests on goodwill, family and belief: partly.10/20

What we ask: Does the ending depend on what Christmas means: goodwill, family, redemption, belief? Worth up to 20 of the 100 points.

A returning traditionNiche at Christmas (under 25,000).3/15

What we ask: Is it actually watched at Christmas in the UK? Worth up to 15 of the 100 points.

52/100

Cosiness Rating Rating

Mixed in tone. Strong threat. A content ending.

How we score →

What do these scores mean?

Festive Factor measures how Christmassy a film is. Five ingredients add up to 100: story (30), setting (20), seasonal details (15), emotional heart (20) and returning tradition (15).

Cosiness is a separate score for warmth of tone, sense of safety, visual comfort, a reassuring ending and how easily you can settle into it.

How the Festive Factor works →

Your next film night

Where to watch

United KingdomChecked 19 Oct 2026

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The story

About There's Something in the Barn

An American family inherits a remote farm in the mountains of Norway and moves in for Christmas, not realising the barn already has a resident: a small, ancient barn elf from Norwegian folklore who lives by strict rules. Their noisy Christmas party, with loud music and bright festive lights, breaks every one of them, and by Christmas Eve the family is fighting off a whole band of furious elves. A gory comedy-horror, made mostly in English.

The CineClaus verdict

An American family inherit a farm in the Norwegian mountains and ignore the old rules about the little elf who lives in the barn. A loud Christmas party and a lot of bright lights later, they are at war with a whole band of them.

It is a gory folk-horror comedy, mostly in English, and its best joke is how seriously it takes the folklore. It is no Gremlins, and the final battle drags, but for grown-ups on Christmas Eve it is bloody good fun.

The family desk

Can the kids watch?

Our take: rated 15 by the BBFC for strong bloody violence, language and threat. Not one for children: people are killed in gory, cartoonish ways and the swearing is frequent.

Content advice & accessibility

Our age guidance: Editorial, separate from the official 15 certificate, and never looser than it.

The people behind the film

Cast and crew

The faces in front of the camera, and the people who brought the story to life.

Main cast

In billing order

Close portrait of a long-haired, bearded man in a tan jacket and blue shirt speaking at a panel microphone.

Martin Starras Bill Nordheim

Close photograph of a smiling woman with dark fringed hair and red lipstick against a beige wall.

Amrita Achariaas Carol Nordheim

Head and shoulders photograph of Kiran Shah, a bald man in a black top with leather sleeves, seated with his hands clasped and a slight smile.

Kiran Shahas The main elf

Behind the camera

Directed by

Magnus Martens

Original score

Lasse Enersen

Writing & production credits

Writer: Aleksander Kirkwood Brown

Step into the story

Filming locations

The real places behind There's Something in the Barn. Choose one to explore.

Find it on the mapRingebu

Map shows the selected place. Drag to explore; use + and − to zoom.

A tall dark-timber stave church with a red spire and grey shingle roofs stands in a green churchyard of headstones under a bright blue sky.

Location photograph
Christian David (Wikimedia Commons, opens in a new tab) · CC BY-SA 4.0 (opens in a new tab)

Filming location

Ringebu

Mountain village in Innlandet where the Norwegian exteriors, including the inherited farm estate, were filmed.

Open in OpenStreetMap ↗ (opens in a new tab)Scene source ↗ (screenrant.com, opens in a new tab)

Choose your next scene

Photographs of the real places

There’s more behind the film.
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Photo credits & location sources

These are photographs of the places, not film stills. Dates vary; photographs do not show current conditions or guarantee access.

Ringebu · Christian David · Source image (opens in a new tab) · CC BY-SA 4.0 (opens in a new tab) · screenrant.com (opens in a new tab)

Tretten · Orland · Source image (opens in a new tab) · CC BY-SA 3.0 (opens in a new tab) · en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)

Map pins mark the place, not a camera position or a route. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), including any pin positions read from OpenStreetMap.

A little more There's Something in the Barn

Film facts &
behind the scenes

For the fans who stay after the credits.

Movie magic

Almost all the monster work was practical

Martin Starr says the film leaned on practical effects, with digital work kept to a small part of one chase sequence.

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Source: screenrant.com ↗ (opens in a new tab)

On set

The snow arrived by lorry

There was no natural snow in late November, so the crew trucked it in to get the wintry look the story needed.

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Source: screenrant.com ↗ (opens in a new tab)

On set

Half the shoot was on Lithuanian stages

The Norwegian mountain estate was real, but about half the film was shot on sound stages in Lithuania.

Read the story

Source: screenrant.com ↗ (opens in a new tab)

And at a glance

The Christmas in it: Snow on screen. Snowbound mountain setting during the Christmas season; the snow on set was trucked in.
Releases and certificates: 23 Sept 2023: Premiere (US). World premiere at Fantastic Fest in Austin.
10 Nov 2023: In cinemas (NO). Home release in Norway.
1 Dec 2023: In cinemas. UK cinema release through Vertigo Films.
At the UK box office: £4,198, as of 3 Dec 2023.