Candlewood

I wasn't familiar with the 2025 movie "Candlewood" from director Myke Furhman prior to sitting down and watching it. And the movie's synopsis definitely sounded interesting enough.

While the storyline in the movie wasn't boring, I have to say that I found it a bit confusing, because I didn't really understand what was going on. It felt like writers Joseph Patrick Conroy, Victoria Flores-Argue and Myke Furhman had written parts of the movie independently of one another and without knowing what the others were writing, and the end result was a bit of a disjointed and erratic script. It wasn't really a scary movie at all, so that was sort of disappointing.

"Candlewood" didn't bring anything new or innovative to the horror genre, and it was somewhat lacking in coherency and the scare department, which made for a bit of a dull viewing experience.

The entire cast ensemble in the movie were all new faces for me, which is actually something that I do enjoy whenever I sit down to watch a movie. And I will say that the acting performances in the movie were good.

The movie wasn't rich on special effects. In fact, there was hardly any effects in the movie. Oh, and I absolutely love how the father could hold a shotgun in one hand and fire it without a shred of recoil. I guess the writers wasn't familiar with the physics of firearms.

There are far better and scary horror movies out there, for sure. But I will say that "Candlewood" certainly was a semi-watchable enough movie for what it turned out to be. But it is hardly a movie that warrants more than a single viewing.

My rating of "Candlewood" lands on a generous four out of ten stars.

I had high hopes for this movie. Unfortunately, I was extremely disappointed. I heard about the film years ago and was looking forward to it. Being from Connecticut, I had been to the lake many times. There are a lot of interesting stories about the lake. It is a 17 mile, man-made lake and there are a ton a creepy stories about it that we all used to tell each other as kids. All of them more interesting than the story in this movie. Very pedestrian directing effort and not a very entertaining script. All these high ratings must be from people involved with the movie or friends of the filmmakers. Not a good movie at all.

First of all Lovers Leap is actually above a river, a few miles from the lake.

I think the movie is an insult to the real New Milford. Many of their residents are NYC transplants.

My father came up from Brooklyn, building our house on Candlewood. Stories, legends are actually few. When a person claims a legend, it's generally confined to a story their grandpa made up during a summer barbecue and nobody else within 10,000 miles has heard of it.

So this movie was a stretch for me, but the moviemaker's effort to lay down the plot line, stoke curiosity, or build suspense is truly lacking.

There actually have been a fair amount of drownings by the dam in New Milford, and there are occasions the victims have not been found. I'd never get out of my boat up near the Rocky River pumping area. To be fair, many of the drownings are sadly Hispanic immigrants who are reading the signs and not not strong swimmers to begin with.

There was a man murdered in what we called Calm Cove in the late 1970s , so there is a little bit of true material.

I'm happy to see a Connecticut movie effort, but the only people giving this an 8, 9, or 10, are relatives of the actors or director in my opinion.

Almost all characters are unlikable. And the family dynamic was barely explained and makes no sense, detracting from any sense of plot. Liking the characters and wanting them to be safe is a hallmark or horror films - add in a bad guy or girl who we want to get their due is nice to, but don't kill kids in your movie.

10 minutes in and cannot see one good thing about the acting, poor camera work, dialogue.

Once I saw the cashier's face as the man walked away at the beginning I knew the acting would rival that of a burnt out tree stump. If this took more the the weekend to film, I will be shocked. The property manager gave off severe pedo vibes.

Well the cinematography is good. We can at least say that. Landscapes locations very well done actors not so much. Too much over acting. And it's so slow. I mean pick up the pace a little bit it's so slow. Anticipation to the next spooky point is just way over the top. I realize it's an independent feature. Low budget. All the locals doing background. Everybody wants to be in the movies. Very few people can pull it off and this crew have failed. So anyone who wants to make a film like this will you still have a shot of being better recognized for your work. Sad thing is person who wrote the script could not have possibly been satisfied with how it turned out on film.