Lake Bodom

Some of these reviews are so harsh. I loved this film, and the people I recommended it to did as well. As someone that often picks the ending in the first 15 minutes I loved being totally thrown, and even said a "Oh my god" out loud a few times. Great acting, fabulous script. Overall one of the best horror film I've seen this year - And I watch a lot!

In 1960 two couples consisting of two 18 yr old boys and two 15 yr old girls, decided to take a camping trip to Lake Bodom, Finland. Only one of the boys survived grave injuries sustained during a horrific slaughtering that left his three friends dead at their lakeside campsite. No one has ever been identified and convicted of their murders. It is considered to be Finland's most horrific unsolved crime. In this film two boys and two girls take a trip to the exact location of the murders and have the intention to recreate the event based on a theory that one of the boys hold. Things don't work out the way they had planned and their night by the lake turns into a nightmare. I was impressed with this little slasher. This film did a great job holding my interest. It has a couple of twist that helped with that. The subtitles I had weren't that great. It was in a broken english but I followed it well enough to understand what was happening. I thought the camera work was decent and as far as I could tell, considering that I was interpreting a broken english dialogue, the acting was decent as well. I wished there had been a bit more blood and the kills had been a bit more creative. However, those things didn't take away from my enjoying the film. This is a decent film. It deserves a recommendation. I'll give it 7.5 stars.

Four teens go to a cabin in the woods, except there is no cabin. They camp out at the infamous Lake Bodom the site where four teens were murdered in 1960. They never caught the killer. Atte (Santeri Helinheimo Mäntylä) is on the nerdy side and has a theory about the killer he wants to test. His friend Elias (MikaelGabriel) likes girls, especially the damaged Ida Mary (Nelly Hirst-Gee) who had a terrible thing happen to her...details later. And her friend and lover (?) Nora (Mimosa Willamo) round out our foursome. Elias drives a Volvo station wagon, a chick magnet in Finland. Yes, people die. Ida is set up early as the final girl as her dad "treats her like a dog" because of that thing. The film takes a nice wicked twist, and then changes directions into the film you thought it was going to be all along. It was like they wanted to make 2 different films. Guide: F-word. Brief nudity. No sex.

"Bodom" is a Finnish horror film from 2016, so still a very recent release written and directed by Taneli Mustonen, his most known work at this point probably, and this is actually not the only film at all dealing with the Lake Bodom tragedy from several decades ago. It runs for slightly under 1.5 hours and takes us on a trip with 4 young people into a really scary area, namely the lake mentioned in the title. Early on, it is a bit of a film where they get murdered one by one you could say, but it's never repetitive at all as you can also guess who's gonna get it next. And maybe you will be as wrong as I was as my order was pretty messed up. But halfway into the film, when there's only two alive still, the film heads into a completely different direction and it was an interesting one as I found the second half clearly better than the first. As a hetero male audience member, I can also not deny that the two female protagonists were breathtakingly stunning and no matter what you are into, I truly believe that at least one of the duo will really get you juices flowing. The suggestive shots involving the blonde (looks like a mix of Chloe Moretz and the young Elizabeth Moss) clearly didn't hurt the film either. But is not defined by the sexual component by any means. It is a pretty scary and shocking film at times, especially towards the ending, even if I did not like the very final ending too much, especially the extreme change in time and atmosphere that gave off an impression as if they wanted it to be a much more significant and way deeper film than it was. No need for that. Lets just enjoy it from the pointless sexy fun perspective. Story-wise I must say that it was never a realistic film by any means, but that's not a problem either. I enjoyed seeing it nonetheless for what it is. And that comes from somebody who does not enjoy slasher films at all. Then again the actually bloody moments weren't that frequent as I think of when I hear the word "slasher". This is most certainly the reason why I liked it. So I give this one a thumbs-up and of course you will need subtitles if you aren't fluent in Finnish and want to check it out. Which you should. There is also lots of subtle comedy in here like when we hear the guy's voice at the end. A good watch with friends as well as your significant other unless she despises horror and violence (in) movies.

I had to keep rewinding the movie because I would doze off. It was that bad. The acting was ok but the premise and the whole entire concept makes watching a slug crawling ax cross the ground much more interesting and dramatic.

Lake Bodom is an intriguing thriller that's built on a calculatedly fragile pretext. What this slasher/thriller starts out as and what it becomes, hinge on flimsy assumptions and deception that leads to savage, unanticipated consequences. This is a well made film which leads you in one direction and then suddenly and inexplicably changes course. There is a degree of certainty in the outcome but misdirection does add an interesting twist, lifting this film above the average slasher flick. The acting is solid and the visuals are polished giving this film an at times surreal quality that works well with its gruesomely outlandish subject matter. Eight out of ten from me.

Beginning starts with paper thin characters, and you don't care whether they live or die. Towards the middle there' a nice twist, and it seems promising, and then it completely falls flat after another twist. I don't get it, how do you come up with a good idea that grabs your audience, and then run it by doing nothing with it. The ending turned out to be dull and a mess. And then there was this weird editing choice where you would only see quick flashes of something happening, but you couldn't tell what was happening.

My Friday the 13th (Part 3d) evening was shattered when I heard a quick plug for this Friday the 13th (Part All) film. Despite the MANY horror concepts Lake Bodom "borrowed" from, this was one of the most strikingly original films I've seen in a while. And it didn't start out that way. The first half was the movie I love to see with a slight twist: Legend has it, a group of teens were brutally assaulted and killed in this particular area deep in the woods and by the Title's edge back in 1960. So, naturally, one curious young male nerd and his horny tattooed friend lure two slasher-friendly BFFs to spend the night at the very spot some 57 years later. As scares and jokes ensure, panic sets in and as in most in-the-woods, killer-on-the-loose films, they get picked off until even I questioned how this was different than the rest of the slasher-in-the-wood subgenre. That is, again, until the half-way point emerges. There comes the boom and boy, let's have some wild fun with many horror subgenre plot-twists. Aside from how I relished in the vines of the story emerging and multiplying, the movie was incredibly shot, well-acted and even had a pretty decent score. Yes, I am aware of at least 4-5 different movies this either stole from or played homage to. Didn't matter. It was fun pointing them out to myself as I watched the action, frights and film unravel. While the movie really opened my eyes to the delight of seeing many of my favorite types of films in one, the near-fantastic movie wasn't quite there. At a far-too-short runtime that might have just barely under- stayed its welcome, it almost felt experimental at points and might have benefited from some additional scenes and a tad more chapters to flesh more out as it, unfortunately, felt like it abruptly ended too soon. That all said, it's a roaring fun ride and if you're like me, a slasher subgenre fan, specifically a Don't-Go-in-the-Woods slasher advocate, you'd probably like this and the directions it takes you. *** Final thoughts: (Major Spoilers, for the subgenres I observed. Didn't want to give most of these away in the body as part of the fun was seeing it unfold to guess how many ideas this movie took. But, I gotta get them out of my head and into print. Just be warned: these could be considered major spoilers so stop now and watch the movie first before learning of the subgenres I observed…Okay, here goes: this is part (as stated) Friday the 13th, Tales from the Crypt, The Cabin in the Woods, I Know What You Did Last Summer and definitely, High Tension.)

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.

Postives The cinematography The editing Effects Negatives The acting for the most part The plot The dialogue The lighting it looks like midday when they are in the woods at night whos idea was to make the most unlikable persons as their main leads for the rest of 45 mins of the movie? The soundtrack is really really generic and annoying. The part where a pop song comes when they go to swim is the funniest thing ever. sound desing/editing. Sometimes you can hear footsteps while nobody is moving. And ADR is really obvious at times. full of plot holes and conveniences. Like they have no cell phones even tho its modern day? Etc Skip this one.