Lake Of Death: Review

21st July 2020

One year after her brother Bjørn (Patrick Walshe McBride) went missing, Lillian (Iben Akerlie) and her friends, Kai (Ulric von der Esche), Harald (Elias Munk), Gabriel (Jonathan Harboe) and Sonja (Sophia Lie) all go back to the same cabin by the lake in which Bjorn drowned. Haunted by her brother’s death, Lillian is plagued with hallucinations and dreams that put her on edge the entire time.

Her friends are determined to have a good time though so Lillian tries her very best to put it out of her head. However, as Lillian’s hallucinations get stronger and she starts sleepwalking, things get stranger and stranger and the group of friends find themselves in danger.

Lake of Death is a Norwegian horror movie exclusive to Shudder, inspired by the original 1958 Norwegian horror movie De dødes tjern (Lake of The Dead). Unfortunately, whereas the original movie may have felt inspired, atmospheric and ahead of its time, Lake of Death is quite the opposite.

Having the misfortune of having the same kind of setup as movies such as Evil Dead and Cabin Fever (both of which are mentioned in the script even though the latter was partly inspired by the former) doesn’t help, serving only to remind the audience of much better movies that they could be watching instead.

Even worse, Lake of Death doesn’t even try to be original as its entire cast is made up of two-dimensional characters that the audience won’t even care about because they do stupid things just for dramatic effect. It’s not because their actions are meant to entice the audience into enjoying their deaths however, their behaviour at certain points just doesn’t make any sense.

The whole movie has been done before in much better ways and it just goes to show that if the movie has a weak premise and there’s no attempt to entertain an audience and put a fresh spin on a classic format then they’ll soon stop caring.

Finally, if you haven’t guessed the ending from the premise then perhaps you should stop watching movies, because if you haven’t got the hang of it by now then you never will.

Facebook

Google

Twitter

We hope you're enjoying BRWC. You should check us out on our social channels, subscribe to our newsletter, and tell your friends. BRWC is short for battleroyalewithcheese.