Lake Bodom (2016)

good back-story, and good acting

As Good As It Gets

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Some modern teens set out to recreate the circumstances surrounding the real life Lake Bodom murders down to every last detail and once and for all figure out exactly how this happened in the first place. Motivations are scattershot - they aren't so much character motivated as plot (the two main guys are apparently not friends, though why they're on a trip together doesn't come up) and the one guy's "vision" for the weekend no one seems to want to go along with.Suffice it to say that killings happen and teens are stalked. There are a fair amount of twists and turns, movies within movies, that make for an engaging experience. Too much exposition and plot mechanics? Probably. But this is fun and solid horror filmmaking.

I guess if there is a tragic accidents or murders, we'll have movies about them. This isn't exactly what happened in Lake Bodom in 1960 and the action in the movie takes place in modern days. This is another attempt at the horror genre to make film with the same plot as almost every other slasher. I was kind of excited to see non-American film from this genre and i was hoping for a cool foreign movie outside of the Hollywood norms and tropes, which i got with movies like "The Martyrs", "High Tension", "Vertigo", "Rec", "Train to Busan" etc, but this is just the Finnish version of "Friday the 13th", just call it "Crystal Lake" and get over with it. If you want to watch new good horror watch "Split" or "Get Out", not this.My "hopes" were crushed when i got to the plot, which is totally overused and boring. Guess what was the first jump scare! Yeah... their friend popping out of nowhere. Guess what was the second jump scare! Yeah… a tree branch falling. Cliché after cliché after cliché. And don't get me wrong... i don't mind a good old jump scare that much if it's done right, look at movies like "The Conjuring", "Insidious" etc, they're making it the right way. And they put personal drama in one of the characters, which is totally misplaced. The tone is often off and on, at one time we have "suspense" moment, of course the background sounds, should tell you that, because you can't feel a real tension and then we cut back with this stupid backstory, because I guess, we have to give a motive for the group of people being in the woods.And don't even let me start with the characters... emotionless and flat. If you are making them that way, make them at least a little bit different... but hey, why should we have characters that are not trivial? Jerk - check, slut - check, harassed shy girl - check, dumb decisions made by them - check! Of course the bad acting did not contributed. If you are lost in the forest, one of your friends was brutally murdered and there is probably a serial killer, which is after you... maybe you should panic a little bit, not just walking around, talking for normal day drama. What were the director and the writer thinking? "Hey, we have a twist. Well that makes the movie a whole lot better, right?" Twist, which is very dumb, because in order to try something new, they fail and which is explained 20 minutes. "Why the twist should be shocking and interesting when it can be stupid and not well executed?".So… the script was poor, the acting sucked, as well as the idea, because it's overused. At least make it over the top fun. I wanted the movie to end after the 20th minute, but i watched it to the end anyway. Boring, lifeless and doll movie that is cliché to it's core. If something distinguishes it from the other indie-slashers is the camera work, which isn't great but it wasn't that bad and this is the best this movie has to offer. If you are bored out of your mind even before the half run time of the movie hasn't passed, something isn't right. 2/10

This film (in Finnish with English subtitles) riffs off a real-life unsolved crime in 1960, in which two teenage couples were stabbed and bludgeoned during the night while camping by Lake Bodom, near Espoo, Finland. Three of the four were killed, the fourth injured severely.In the movie, directed by Taneli Mustonen, another set of teens – two girls and two guys – camp at the site where the 1960 incident took place. The guys ostensibly want to re-enact the crime to test a theory. To lure the girls into coming along, the guys tell them they're going go a party at a lakeside cabin. The girls play along but have their own agendas.It's never clear that the characters are two couples. Elias (Mikael Gabriel) and Nora (Mimosa Willamo) swim together in their underwear and then retreat to the tent, but the film is ambiguous about what, if any, shenanigans take place therein. Ida (Nelly Hirst-Gee) and Atte (Santeri Helinheimo Mäntylä) hang out by the campfire until they decide it's safe to join their friends in the tent – that Elias and Nora probably are done doing whatever they were doing.But if that last point implies that Elias and Nora were fooling around, one might expect them to die first, according to convention for slasher films. Instead, socially awkward Atte is the first to go, stabbed from behind while poking his head into the tent to speak with Ida, who can't see the attacker.Elias is the alpha male, a heavily tattooed, Polynesian-looking guy who seems out of place in rural Finland. Atte is a geek, a long-haired guy with self-esteem issues. Ida is a stunning blonde trying to emerge from a dark period in her past, her face masked in sadness. Her friend Nora is wild, tomboyish brunette.Like many Scandinavian films, Lake Bodem is visually dark and austere. The production quality is professional, and there is some interesting camera work.As the various teens' agendas emerge, the plot takes a number of surprising twists, perhaps too many. I found the conclusion to be muddled, with little explanation or motive.Variety reported in February that the AMC Networks-backed genre streaming service Shudder had picked up the rights to Lake Bodom and would start streaming it in May 2017.###Stu Robinson does writing, editing, media relations and social media through his business, Phoenix-based Lightbulb Communications.

It was a good surprise this Finish movie. A group of friends go to lake Bodom trying to make a reconstruction on murders that occurred there some years ago. From there the story has a lot of unexpected twists that keeps your interest in the movie. I understand why the rating is low, it's not spoken in English and it's no an American movie, but for me this is really a good movie,with good acting and with a story full of twists. I recommend this movie.