LAKE OF THE DEAD (1958)
Ever feel like a film is above your pay grade? I mean, do you ever watch "art house" cinema with a blank expression and wonder how it's received by the intellectual elite? Kare Bergstrom's Lake of the Dead isn't exactly "art house," but I'm man enough to admit that much of the Norwegian chiller's discursive tactics and expository dialogue went right over my head. Two reasons. One! It's ridiculously Norwegian. Two! I may have shut my eyes in the second act, the most sluggish of acts. I did open them again. It should be noted that I enjoyed Lake for what it is, even if I'm not certain what it is.
So what the hell is it!? It's a chimerical black-and-white production that borrows from the mystery genre. Several people get together at a cabin retreat where superstition hangs thick in the fog. They regale each other with local legends, including a lurid tale of a madman who drowns himself after murdering his sister. It's all innocuous fun until a malevolent spirit possesses some of the expendable players. And that's where I'll shut my mouth. The acting is sharp, but it was hard to warm up to any of the characters. I took advantage of subtitles, so I don't know if I could claim that something was lost in the translation. Maybe I should have had Immortal or Mayhem blasting away in the background.
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