The Darker the Lake (2022) Review
1987, St. Michael, a group of high school friends discover an ancient board game and start to play. They become consumed by their addictive new pastime. But things turn deadly… the players start to meet a disturbing demise and the survivors vow never to speak of the game again.
Fast forward to 2021 and a spate of strange deaths – in the very same small town – have shaken locals to their core… bearing striking similarities to the events of more than 30 years ago, could the devastating events be linked?
Two detectives – with their own personal links to the area – are brought together to work on the case. When they track down those involved in the original mystery, all those years ago, things start to get complicated… With seemingly mystical forces at play, they are pulled into the dangerous and perplexing world of the game and as the stakes are raised, the danger gets perilously close to home.
With a roll of the dice will the detectives win, or will they pay the ultimate price in The Darker The Lake?
Director Lok Kwan Woo’s supernatural thriller, with a Nordic noir edge, starts off as a very muddled affair that only begins to make sense in the film’s latter stages. Before then you’ll be screaming out for it to be more coherent. more structured flick so that you can make sense of a film as it pans out.
The acting is fine and there is a decent idea at the story’s core, but the delivery of it is muddled at best. Right from the start the narrative lurches between three months ago, then years before that, then jumping back to the present without any thought as to whether this makes sense. And that’s just the beginning!
When you do finally find out what it is causing ‘supernatural’ events it’s more of a ‘huh’ than an ‘ahhh!’ – it makes sense to the characters in the film, not sure it did so well for the viewer. Finally, I’m still not sure what the title means, there’s a lake in the film but how the title fits the content I am not sure.
TRAILER
