De Dødes Tjern
1958 Directed by Kåre Bergstrøm
Synopsis
A group of friends travel to a cabin in the Norwegian forest. It's a rumour that at night a crazy man can be heard screaming at a lake nearby the cabin.
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Lake of the Dead is considered one of Norway’s greatest horror films but sadly I think that says more about the state of genre cinema in Norway than the quality of the film. It isn’t a pure horror film, it attempts to rationalise the supposed supernatural elements which helps make the film stand out from the crowd but also strips the film of atmosphere. When compared to other horror films of the period, both in Europe and America, it comes up short. It never manages to build tension and the moments of supernatural strangeness have dated badly as they rely on special effects that have moved on greatly since 1958.
Many reviews cite the final ten minutes as being chilling…
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Norway! 31 Days of Horror: Day 5 - De dødes tjern (1958)
Pretty average 'ghost' story with shades of The Shining. The film starts off strong, and the cinematography is quite nice (in terms of framing), but the extremely poor day for night destroys the atmosphere of the film. Unless one of the characters states what time of day it is you have no idea whether its noon, midnight or mid day. The film needed some spookier lighting in the night scenes and just didn't have it. It was a well written film though, and outside of the unfortunate night scenes was well directed.
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Forfatter Bernhard Borge og hans kone Sonja, psykoanalytiker Kai Bugge, også forfatter Gabriel Mørk, jurist Harald Gran og hans forlovede Liljan Werner er seks Oslo-mennesker som skal besøke Bjørn Werner (Liljan bror) på hans hytte dypt inne i Østerdalsskogene. Men da gjestene kommer er Werner forsvunnet, og hunden hans finner de død ved et tjern i nærheten. Senere forsvinner også en av gjestene.
Det går ikke lenge før de begynner å gruble over det gamle sagnet som er knyttet stedet: En mann skal ha drept sin søster og hennes elsker, og etterpå ha druknet seg i tjernet. Siden het det at alle som oppholdt seg på åstedet - i morderens hytte - ville bli besatt av en underlig dragning: De…
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Lake of the Dead is considered one of Norway’s greatest horror films but sadly I think that says more about the state of genre cinema in Norway than the quality of the film. It isn’t a pure horror film, it attempts to rationalise the supposed supernatural elements which helps make the film stand out from the crowd but also strips the film of atmosphere. When compared to other horror films of the period, both in Europe and America, it comes up short. It never manages to build tension and the moments of supernatural strangeness have dated badly as they rely on special effects that have moved on greatly since 1958.
Many reviews cite the final ten minutes as being chilling…