Lake of the Dead – Film Review

A group of friends travel to a cabin in the Norwegian forest. It’s a rumor that at night a crazy man can be heard screaming at a lake nearby the cabin.

Kåre Bergstrøm‘s Lake of the Dead is one of the strangest and most mysterious films I think I’ve ever watched. It’s a black-and-white descent into a creepy forest that harbors some seriously dark secrets and when things go down, these moments are truly impressive. Sadly, the film spends an excruciating amount of time setting up the moment where our lead group of characters actually head into this spooky forest to the point where it tarnishes the overall enjoyment factor of the film.

Perhaps if this film was about twenty-five to thirty minutes longer, the filmmakers could have added more scenes with the characters exploring the forest, but because the film spends about thirty minutes of its one-hour and sixteen minute running time exposition dumping, it culminates in a film that is essentially the very embodiment of too little, too late.

By the time the film finally gets to be even remotely entertaining, it dawns on you that the enjoyment is going to evaporate extremely quickly because the film is almost over. Can the film come across as cheesy and outdated at times? Absolutely. But then again, this film was made in 1958 and so, as viewers, we have to understand that filmmaking still hadn’t really been perfected yet. Comparing this film to today’s horror flicks would be a mistake because of course today’s horror flicks aren’t as corny.

Surprisingly enough, the best aspect in Lake of the Dead is the lead performances from the entire cast. André Bjerke, Henny Moan, and Henki Kolstad are all terrific in the roles of Gabriel, Liljan, and Bernhard, respectively. They all feel totally real in this film. It’s always such a delight to watch any film and feel as if you’re watching actual, living breathing people instead of actors. Gratefully, everyone here feels like a real person.

And even though this film is admittedly quite boring for the majority of the running time, I will say that the atmosphere that director Kåre Bergstrøm set up is genuinely great. The film has an incredibly uneasy feeling to it the entire way through, and even though it doesn’t necessarily get the payoff it deserves, that doesn’t mean that Bergstrøm’s film isn’t loaded with tension because it is.

Lake of the Dead is an admirable effort filled with great performances, but when you whittle it down, nothing really happens in it.