Candlewood

A movie about New Milford CT where a bunch of my friends and family live is enough to make me watch a horror movie. Make it about the urban legends surrounding Candlewood Lake and I'm more interested.

Sadly this movie decided to mix those legends with their own fictional tale that is insulting to New Milford and its residents and just plain awful. The plot is meant to have a shocking twist at the end but anyone with a brain will figure it out 10 minutes into the movie and be left with bad pacing that feels like a lifetime to get to that turn.

The acting is terrible so I couldn't tell if it was the actors or the script. Likely both. The opening scene is the only really graphic scene in the movie and it didn't need to be. It's also loaded with jump scares cause everyone thinks that's what makes a horror film. Give me a break.

I wouldn't reccomend this movie to anyone especially if you are familiar with New Milford or Candlewood lake.

It's funny that the real stories of the lake are enough to make a really good movie and yet they chose to ignore all of that and make this tripe. I'm not even giving this a 0 cause that's too high for this. It may be the worst movie I've ever seen.

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.

I actually got to see this film at some private screening. I am a former NYers now living in this CT town where apparently the movie was filmed. Its about some local folklore and a family that moves to this town. So it def struck a nerve. It was a fun ride and I actually laughed some some hilarious one-liners. It was more of a thriller and a psychological horror film that anything really gory. I found the acting really great and the cinematography really cool. This film does not scream indie and everyone around me laughed and jumped at the same time. I hear they are making a 2nd one which I will certainly watch. The writing was really smart and pretty great. It's nothing earth shattering but doesn't take itself too seriously. Again, I laughed really hard in parts. Def worth a watch!!

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.

A shockingly horrible horror movie. Increasingly unlikeable characters, nonsensical, yet still terribly boring plot. The characters have no motivations or interests, so is impossible to understand why they do what they do. The production and filmaking techniques are shoddy at best and grade school samsung footage at best. There are so many more films in the low budget horror category that yield a more enjoyable viewing experience, and don't get me wrong, I love a good tragically written horror film with no discernible plot or message, but trust me, this is not it. Do yourself a favour and do not waste your time. Horrible film.