The Darker the Lake

The first 10 seconds of the first opening scene convinces me this movie is going to be awful. The acting of the two female actors are beyond atrocious! Where did they go to acting school? Who did they have sex with to land in this B- movie (F literally speaking)?

The director is so incapable of telling a story, coupled with the writers who seem to be graduating from Devry university film program are all indicators that this horrendous movie has nothing substantial to offer, except to show how some rich but stupid studio spend time useless days wasting viewers' times to fill the void in their lives.

AVOID it at all cost.

No pun intended - I had no idea Veronica Ferres was doing international movies. If you are living in Germany, you most likely know her from things. Not that she has many fans here. But she is quite decent here - just in case you thought I was going to slam or bad mouth her. Although saying that you think someone is not the best actor/actress is just an opinion. One can say that without being too mean - which I am trying to do generally.

Anyway back to this and some interesting twists and turns. And while she is quite ok in this, some other actors have issues to convey feelings ... I'd argue they are not able to. Which makes watching certain scenes almost painful ... almost as painful as what the characters have to go through ... I said almost ... anyway, the story is filled with cliches and you will be able to see where this is going ... I am quite certain of it.

I was intrigued, at the start with the supernatural pretext and the Ringu (The Ring) type of style and story line.

The story built well until about a third of the way through when it kind of floundered. For some reason, the acting seemed to fall off also and I lost my connection to the two lead characters.

The initial feel of the movie was a Scandi noir and I even checked to see that they were actually speaking English and it was not dubbed as I prefer sub titles to English dubbing. They all were but with European accents. The insertion of the Asian characters didn't seem to fit with the locations of the story lines.

In all a confused piece of work that didn't seem to know who its audience was going to be but it did have an OK story .

Look its worth a watch but don't expect too much.

There was a lot going on here and was a bit of a mess throughout, yet not entirely unsuccessful. I quite honestly picked up my remote to turn it off after the very first scene. The acting was so poor and the dialogue so stilted that I was convinced there was no way it was going to get better... luckily, it did.

The acting vastly improved with the two main characters taking over and a few of the supporting ones as well, though it was not amazing over all by any means. Probably the most successful aspect of this other than the potential within the plot, was the aesthetics. It is what initially drew me to it and it was quite a lovely watch, even though the finesse of the shots let down the quality of the picture at times.

The story here was definitely intriguing and kept me engaged for the majority of it until the end. The third act got so convoluted, they jam packed the last 7 minutes with so much info and it ended as if it were the season finale to a series... which was SO confusing and quite the let down. It is inevitable that you're going to think, wait... what just happened?? Also, anytime the horror elements were incorporated aka spooky CGI, shadowy figures or disembodied voices it felt silly every time... almost made for tv vibes. While there was intrigue and suspense present, there was never an ounce of true thrill or fear which was also disappointing.

I definitely think that there was potential here and they were successful in creating a mostly entertaining experience... however, the lack of clarity in the plot and the ending really let this one down. I could recommend this one while keeping in mind you're probably going to be slightly disappointed upon completion... but still not a waste of time.