Review: ‘Lake of Death’ shrouds trauma in eerie folklore

(Shudder)

A secluded, lakeside cabin is always a petri dish of bedlam and psychological torture. A serene countryside does little to assuage dark, malevolent forces lurking in the nearby woods or what might be gurgling below the water’s surface. Or you might combat emotional trauma so raw, the lines between reality and fantasy blur like a watercolor painting. Blending together all of the above, writer and director Nini Bull Robsahm’s Lake of Death is a gorgeous visual feast, lining up themes of trauma, recovery, and a violent folktale about a man who killed his cheating wife and lover.

One year after her brother goes missing (and presumed dead), Lillian (Iben Akerlie) and her close friends return to her family’s cabin to say goodbye. She’s planning on selling the estate as an act of closure, but the three-day trip provokes all those awful memories to come flooding back. You see, Lillian is an unreliable narrator, so we not only see her past through a very blurry, distorted lens but her present, riddled with anxiety, midnight sleepwalking, and what appears to be a supernatural force hellbent on making her relive it. Patrick Walshe McBride portrays her weirdly obsessive twin Bjørn, who, as we learn, stopped talking in his youth when his sister was adopted into a foster family. In a conversation with Sonja (Sophia Lie), Akerlie reveals layers of her troubled childhood and the guilt that continues torture her. It’s quite clear growing up an orphan has had an indelible, and agonizing, impact on her frame of mind, particularly in how she handles romantic relationships. While returning to the site of tragedy could very well be healing, it only spells further disaster.

One by one, Lillian’s friends go missing, and while her mind plays tricks on her, a shadowy figure emerges to make sure she never forgets the past. Things start out innocently enough; on the first morning, someone has staged an extravagant breakfast buffet. But that doesn’t last too long. Soon, Lillian’s dog Toto is found bound with rope, and tensions and paranoia begin to percolate amongst the group until the unknown figure wrecks bloody mayhem through the cabin. Bodies hit the floor, and Lillian might be the only one who can save them.

Robsahm commands the visual narrative with such awareness for space, color, composition, and mood. Whether she’s building tension amidst a power outage as Harald (Elias Munk) pokes around the cabin with only a lit match or immerses the viewer in the natural beauty and serenity the location offers, the filmmaker is at the top of her craft. It’s unfortunate then that the script is tepid, written as a first pass rather than a final iteration. There are numerous wrinkles in the story, from the various horror film references to Misery, Cabin Fever, Evil Dead, Jaws, and A Nightmare on Elm Street, among several others, which just feel jolting against a film that’s otherwise played straight and serious, to character gags that feel equally out of place.

Lake of Death, taking cues from Norwegian author André Bjerke’s 1942 novel of the same name, has an elegance in its filmmaking craft, also owed to cinematographer Axel Mustad. The visual magnificence here is accentuated by Akerlie’s truly promising performance, and those moments when it appears suppressed trauma is literally leaking into the real world are deliciously satisfying. The film largely doesn’t stick the landing, but it’s worth watching simply for its artful presentation (see: the final showdown contains some of the most visually striking work this year).

Lake of Death arrives on Shudder this Thursday (July 16).

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