De dødes tjern

This wonderfully shot (and short), powerful film is a lost horror gem. The film focuses on a group of friends that travel to the woods. It all goes a bit terrifying as a brother is missing, people start sleepwalking, and the truth mixes with superstition. The film is quite dialog heavy in explaining itself, as we have a hypnotist that refuses to believe in ghosts. The scenes build up with a kind of quiet charm, and never fully reveal themselves, allowing our thoughts to intertwine with how the characters see it. The audience is really included in this film, with a lot of moments seeming as though the characters are trying to persuade us onto their side.

After reading marvels about this one, considered a norwegian classic by some, I expected great things, but I think my expectations were over the top.

First off, my lack of knowledge on norwegian cinema is... complete. This was nominated the 4th best norwegian film of all time. I can't make any judgments on that. I'm very far from knowing enough movies from Norway to say anything at all, although I do believe it "may" be one of the best from that country. But it's certainly far from being one of the best movies ever.

For a horror movie and from what I read, I expected a scary or at least a tense movie with some atmosphere. I'm sorry, but the truth is that this movie hardly has any suspense at all, let alone scariness and real terror/horror. It lacks real atmosphere, being mostly about a group of adult people spending time with each other in an isolated but beautiful place where they experiment a few but brief tense moments. There is some gorgeous norwegian cinematography - the forests and the big lake which look stunning even in black and white.

This is the only movie that have scared me so much that I had to stop watching. Not many will find a norwegian black&white movie to be interesting, but this movie makes all those sucky american horror movies look just like sucky american horror movies. Enough said.

Don't let the previous poster scare (no pun intended) you away from seeing this film. It has a very good cast made up of seasoned Norwegian actors (including the writer himself, Andre Bjerke), and the plot is very good acted out. Now, it would be really unfair to compare Norwegian films made in the 1950's with their Hollywood counterparts then and now - they were made on very tight budgets and usually played for a limited audience. However, this film (made in creepy black and white) has some outstanding scenes that made me (at least) really very uneasy. It's really a very good attempt to make an exiting movie out of a brilliant psychological thriller novel. I think it still - even by today's standard - has a very high entertainment value, just as it had about 50 years ago. No CGI effects here - just good, solid acting!

This mystery is classified as horror because of the supernatural elements, a century old ghost story centered upon the cabin in the woods where this group of people came to stay with its missing owner. I won't ruin it with spoilers, but I saw this as a classic whodunit with a paranormal element. Filmed in glorious B&W which adds to the starkness, this film has a couple of spicy elements which must have been quite scandalous in its days: the big reveal about the twins and the revealing, see-through neglegee Liljan, the female twin wears. It is more cozy now, with an endearing group growing more suspicious of each other as the events unfold. This will take you back, yet with a fresh take on where the whodunit and horror genres meet.