Neverlake

Neverlake: This could have been a very good horror film but s left down by pacing, especially in the middle act.

A girl arrives in Tuscany, travelling from her US boarding school to visit her father who has carried out Archaeological work at an Etruscan site in a lake for the past 20 years. She meets some strange children who tell her that the spirits of the Etruscan's are disturbed because their statues have been removed.

This is a ghost story but also contains a real life saga which is far more terrifying .

Worth watching.

This film is just as effective as any of the really good high dollar films. I was very impressed with this movie - it's different than I was expecting and a lot better than I anticipated. If you liked the films The Others, The Conjuring, The Orphanage or The Woman in Black then you might like Neverlake! I was blown away by how good this film is.

I really can't talk much about the film or I will give it away. It's one of those films you will just have to watch for yourself. What I can say is it's a good ghost story (the souls of the lake), a girl with a very strange father and his housekeeper and it has one heck of a great twist so it's more than just a ghost story! That's all I will tell anyone so I won't ruin the movie for first time viewers.

This is one of those films that proves you don't need lots of money to create a very effective horror film... all you need is a great writer, cinematographer and actors. I really enjoyed this film.

9/10

A teenage girl who was born in Italy, but raised in America (none of which explains her crisp British accent) returns to Tuscany where her father, once a medical doctor, is now engaged in an archaeological project at an enchanted lake once worshiped by the ancient Etruscans. There she befriends a group of weird disabled children kept in a country asylum. Eventually a terrible family secret is revealed.

This is in some ways a ghost story like "The Devil's Backbone" or "The Orphanage", but it also hearkens back to the classic European "medical horror" films of the early 1960's like "Eyes without a Face" and "The Mill of the Stone Women". Like a lot of classic Euro-horror films this British-Italian co-production doesn't make a lot of logical sense but rather follows a kind of dream logic. The rational plot is often overwhelmed by powerful and striking visual images and kind of surreal mood reminiscent of Euro genre films of yore. This will no doubt annoy many of the terminal Americans out there unaccustomed to this kind of filmmaking (really though, Hollywood films aren't any more "realistic", people are just more used to their brand of unreality).

The movie does have its flaws. The Etruscan mysticism and the medical horror don't really gel together very well, and all the characters remain rather opaque. Its strengths though lie in its atmosphere, its arresting visuals (especially the underwater scenes in the lake) and its use of the beautiful Tuscany countryside and some haunting poetry from British Romantic poet Percy Blysse Shelley. Daisy Keeping who plays the protagonist is a strikingly beautiful young Brit actress who really complements the natural scenery and turns in a very decent performance (her unexplained British accent notwithstanding). This isn't a perfect movie, but I'd still definitely recommend it.

There are pretty straightforward pros and cons to this movie, and to me it seems to really be stretching things to call it "horrible" or "great storytelling.

The story itself - overall - wasn't that bad and, in fact, I enjoyed the ending. It was darker than I'd thought it would be, and definitely not entirely predictable. Ironically, that's also part of the problem. There wasn't really enough story development in the first 70 minutes of the film to lead you to predict much of anything, and by that time you're almost a little apathetic. Very little seems to be holding together what is presented during this stretch, and much of it isn't really that necessary.

A lot of the bad reviews I've read include phrases like "I couldn't make it half-way through" and "I turned it off with 20 minutes left." Because the story is so back-loaded into the conclusion of the movie, their reviews (to me) are rendered almost completely irrelevant. But because of the glacial pace I definitely understand where they're coming from.

Before I get the usual condescending "Most people (who aren't as smart as I am) who expect explosions and non-stop action/killing/slashing just won't 'get' this type of artistic storytelling (and are not worthy to cast eyes on the film like I am)," I beg to differ. I don't need nonstop action, especially in a horror/psychological thriller movie. But in lieu of action there needs to be story/character development to keep you engaged. And in this film that all came at the end, with only fairly disjointed bits and pieces for the first 70 minutes.

I give this a better-than-average rating because it IS better than most of the low-budget garbage out there. It is, indeed, watchable. But your life will not change. You'll think, "Hmmm. Didn't quite see THAT ending coming," then get back to your housework.

I'm a little different from many horror fans in that I appreciate a good story line within the genre without necessarily needing to be scared by it. Such is the case with Neverlake.

Jenny comes to her father's Tuscany home from New York as a teenager, not having seen him since she went away to school. The house is near a lake with a rich history of Etruscan legends, which Jenny's father is researching.

Soon she becomes bored because Dad tends to be elusive, his housekeeper is rather brittle and Jenny doesn't like her. One day she takes a walk and meets a blind girl who takes her to visit the orphanage where she lives. She tells Jenny, "It's fine, just don't let the grownups see you. They're bad." Jenny continues to visit, and one night she learns the full history of the lake and its power.

Meanwhile, the relationship between Jenny and her father becomes stranger and stranger. One night, she faints, only to wake up in a hospital bed with her father explaining that she'd been sick with an infection and had needed surgery. A heavily drugged Jenny goes back to sleep to wake up back in her own bed.

The story slows down a bit, and some viewers may become bored, but I found the film so atmospheric that it kept me engaged. Piece by piece, Jenny begins to learn of the powers of the lake and her father's involvement in the strange orphanage. The children send Jenny on a mission that brings the story to its very satisfying conclusion.

I will say that it was the first time I felt like crying at the end of a horror film. And that wouldn't have happened without an interesting story, good actors and a rich atmosphere in which to tell this unusual tale. You won't find monsters or ghosts in this film, but you won't need them because the horror comes not from the dead, but the living. I recommend this film highly for those cold, dark nights when you want to settle in with a good story with both atmosphere and foreboding.