TerribleKatherine
So, Finnish horror movies are rare. A good Finnish horror movie is next to impossible. This movie is faaaar from good.
I do know the Lake Bodom story. I have heard about it since I was a little kid, just like every other Finn born after the mysterious mass killing. Why was this movie even referring to Bodom, because the way it forced the Bodom story into it was weak. I am not a fan of Mikael Gabriel, he's a shitty Finnish rapper, but his acting was decent. So was the rest of the cast. But the plot just didn't work. I was hoping for that "oh my god, this is too horrible!""-moment in the movie and that never came. Thank god I didn't spend any movie seeing this on the big screen.
spencergrande6
Some modern teens set out to recreate the circumstances surrounding the real life Lake Bodom murders down to every last detail and once and for all figure out exactly how this happened in the first place. Motivations are scattershot - they aren't so much character motivated as plot (the two main guys are apparently not friends, though why they're on a trip together doesn't come up) and the one guy's "vision" for the weekend no one seems to want to go along with.Suffice it to say that killings happen and teens are stalked. There are a fair amount of twists and turns, movies within movies, that make for an engaging experience. Too much exposition and plot mechanics? Probably. But this is fun and solid horror filmmaking.
derekjager
So I guess I just didn't "get" LAKE BODOM. Why was it a good idea to go to the isolated site where a group of campers were massacred in the 1960s? To "recreate it"? And if there was an active psycho back then, he'd be in his 70s now...or early 80s? This film just seemed to lurch from one "surprise" to another and instead of show don't tell, the characters sat in the car and explained at great length why they did what they did. I thought the acting was fine, but the character's motivations seemed wildly out of sync with what they were reacting to. And no fault of the filmmakers, but the subtitles (yes, it's subtitled) are pretty bad. What's also interesting is that while the critics love it at RT, with a current score of 100% from 6 critics, audiences only give it a 38%. I'm one of those who is fine with "movie logic" but if you're going to have your psycho appear at the end, he needs some kind of explanation or we're to believe that for no reason whatsoever he hangs out in the woods for 50+ years...just hanging out?
adventure7
I guess if there is a tragic accidents or murders, we'll have movies about them. This isn't exactly what happened in Lake Bodom in 1960 and the action in the movie takes place in modern days. This is another attempt at the horror genre to make film with the same plot as almost every other slasher. I was kind of excited to see non-American film from this genre and i was hoping for a cool foreign movie outside of the Hollywood norms and tropes, which i got with movies like "The Martyrs", "High Tension", "Vertigo", "Rec", "Train to Busan" etc, but this is just the Finnish version of "Friday the 13th", just call it "Crystal Lake" and get over with it. If you want to watch new good horror watch "Split" or "Get Out", not this.My "hopes" were crushed when i got to the plot, which is totally overused and boring. Guess what was the first jump scare! Yeah... their friend popping out of nowhere. Guess what was the second jump scare! Yeah… a tree branch falling. Cliché after cliché after cliché. And don't get me wrong... i don't mind a good old jump scare that much if it's done right, look at movies like "The Conjuring", "Insidious" etc, they're making it the right way. And they put personal drama in one of the characters, which is totally misplaced. The tone is often off and on, at one time we have "suspense" moment, of course the background sounds, should tell you that, because you can't feel a real tension and then we cut back with this stupid backstory, because I guess, we have to give a motive for the group of people being in the woods.And don't even let me start with the characters... emotionless and flat. If you are making them that way, make them at least a little bit different... but hey, why should we have characters that are not trivial? Jerk - check, slut - check, harassed shy girl - check, dumb decisions made by them - check! Of course the bad acting did not contributed. If you are lost in the forest, one of your friends was brutally murdered and there is probably a serial killer, which is after you... maybe you should panic a little bit, not just walking around, talking for normal day drama. What were the director and the writer thinking? "Hey, we have a twist. Well that makes the movie a whole lot better, right?" Twist, which is very dumb, because in order to try something new, they fail and which is explained 20 minutes. "Why the twist should be shocking and interesting when it can be stupid and not well executed?".So… the script was poor, the acting sucked, as well as the idea, because it's overused. At least make it over the top fun. I wanted the movie to end after the 20th minute, but i watched it to the end anyway. Boring, lifeless and doll movie that is cliché to it's core. If something distinguishes it from the other indie-slashers is the camera work, which isn't great but it wasn't that bad and this is the best this movie has to offer. If you are bored out of your mind even before the half run time of the movie hasn't passed, something isn't right. 2/10
