Director: Nini Bull Robsahm
Writer: Nini Bull Robsahm (Screenplay)
Starring: Patrick Walshe McBride, Ulric von der Esch, Iben Akerlie, Elias Munk, Jonathan Harboe, Sophie Lie
Plot: Lillan and some friends travel back to the remote cabin by the little lake, where her twin brother died last year, and soon after arriving strange things starts happening. Inspired by the 1958 classic horror film.
Runtime: 1 Hour 34 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Cabin in the Norwegian Woods
Story: Lake of Death starts one year after Bjorn (McBride) disappears in the Norwegian forest that him and his sister Lillian (Akerlie) were raised around, she has returned with her friends Kai (Esch), Harald (Munk, Gabriel (Harboe), Sonja (Lie) and Bernhard (Andersen) for a weekend away and to do up the house ready to sell it.
When the friends start experiencing strange events around the house, they try to figure out the logical answers before learning they are against a force they can’t handle, one that has been waiting for victims to arrive.
Thoughts on Lake of Death
Characters – Lillian was raised around the lake with her brother, while the two are about to go separate ways, her brother goes missing under strange circumstances and now she has returned to the cabin for the first time since leaving him, she starts to see the strange events around the cabin and lake, getting worried about her friends, trying to figure out what is causing the events to happen. When we look at the rest of the characters we get the friends, they do fill the generic roles we would expect to see in horror films, only a lot more restrained from going over the top with them.
Performances – Iben Akerlie takes the leading role on the film, filling the role of the scream queen in the film, she is the one that goes through the most horror, has the most pain about her character. The rest of the cast do well through the film, with the joker always looking out of place with the friends, and the rest holding onto what makes them unique to the genre.
Story – The story here follows a group of friends that return to a family lake house after one of the brother’s vanished a year ago, they soon find strange things happening around the house and need to get to the bottom of it before it is too late. We know the cabin in the woods has almost become a genre all on its own, here we get another dive into that genre with the traditional friends in the remote location and strange things happening, while the nightmare sequences do seem different, first with odd visions, which do offer something fresh and will make everything a lot more interesting, only when the rest of the friends start experiencing events, it just falls into something we have seen before, even if some of the scares are created well.
Horror/Mystery – The horror comes from the mysterious events around the house, most of the visions that Lillian go through are filled with the most horrific moments too, where the mystery comes, is on how the friends will make it out of the situation, can the solve the strange events.
Settings – The film keeps the whole in film in and around in the lake house, we get to see how it is treated like the holiday home, with mystery around it, including the basement, which only asks more questions.
Scene of the Movie – Couple going swimming.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The aftermath decision.
Final Thoughts – This is a strong cabin the woods style of movie, it has good scares, a creative idea behind them, even if it ends up following the path of many others in the genre.
Overall: Cabin in the Woods 101.
