Good movie but grossly overrated

Absolutely the worst movie.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Sometimes, someone has a pretty nice idea that depending on right, smart and carefully planned execution has the potential to become a great film. Neverlake is, in my opinion, an example of how a wanting execution spoils this kind of a nice idea. After watching it I couldn't help but feeling bad for whomever was responsible for the general plot, as it felt to me like showing such a story the right way could have been great, while showing it in this way simply didn't do it justice.As the trailers and plot summaries have already told you, Neverlake tells the story of a teenage girl going to visit her father in Italy. There, she is confronted by both his half colleague half lover (showing a bluntly exaggerated interest in her physical health) and a party of children of different ages each suffering from some sort of physical ailment of deformity. In addition, the storyline is saturated with hints alluding to something supernatural haunting the nearby lake. Enough to make one curious and follow the plot closely, but also enough to frustrate a viewer, because okay, we get it, stop wasting screen time with another unnecessary hint, that's not how you set up a plot twist.And then? Comes the plot twist, which is nefarious and grim, but has extremely little to do with the aforementioned redundant hints. Following the initial shock I couldn't help but wonder why the heck I was shown all these hints only to lead to such a twist. Either the hints or the twist should not have been used, it almost feels like the creators couldn't come up with enough relevant scenes.After all this criticism anyone reading could think that I didn't enjoy Neverlake, but I actually did. The fine acting and intriguing characters along with a story that could have been better but isn't all bad were seemingly enough to create a rewarding Horror experience. I'm merely saying one should lower their expectations in advance if they wish to enjoy this film, and not wait for anything spectacular or overly impressive. An average story in an average film.

This film is just as effective as any of the really good high dollar films. I was very impressed with this movie - it's different than I was expecting and a lot better than I anticipated. If you liked the films The Others, The Conjuring, The Orphanage or The Woman in Black then you might like Neverlake! I was blown away by how good this film is.I really can't talk much about the film or I will give it away. It's one of those films you will just have to watch for yourself. What I can say is it's a good ghost story (the souls of the lake), a girl with a very strange father and his housekeeper and it has one heck of a great twist so it's more than just a ghost story! That's all I will tell anyone so I won't ruin the movie for first time viewers.This is one of those films that proves you don't need lots of money to create a very effective horror film... all you need is a great writer, cinematographer and actors. I really enjoyed this film.9/10

Did I say this was a sick film? Well, upgrading that opinion to total demented ... and that comes from a person that know the full definition of both those words! It takes a little while to catch on to what the writer has done ... but, the real tangible proof occurs in a graveyard ... but surprise turns into disgust once you witness the madness! And the deeper you go, the sicker this movie gets! And when you reach the final secret ... you want to slap the writer's face ... at least I did! This is a writer I never want to meet ... or even discover his/her name.Okay ... the writer did a great job of bringing out the viewers worse moments, worse emotions, and that means the writer did exactly as planned. However ..... raping one of the world's greatest children's story is a pretty sick way of accomplishing his/her aims! The acting is quite good ... each actor accomplished their role with adequate precision! The talents in this film are quite remarkable ... except when it comes to the part of Olga ... nothing surprising there, her story was obvious from start to finish. Poor scripting? Possibly. But it could also be poor casting! She does come to fruition by the time the movie is in its final lap of the race ... unfortunately, she just isn't a thoroughbred ... not in this film anyway. The part of the father was played well ... but his part in this film was all too obvious! The ones that took their roles and ran away with it ... in other words, those that stole the film ... were the children, which includes the star role of Jenny! The bottom line ... the children made this film watchable ... but the story, itself, was totally demented! I will say this ... this is the first film I have reviewed that has said what needed to be said, without giving away any actual part, or plot, of the movie! Should you watch the movie? I think so ... but expect a whole lot of emotions to come pouring out of your mind!

I believe it was Aristotle who claimed that in fiction the impossible works better than the improbable. In other words, a horror movie with Etruscan ghosts haunting a Tuscan lake? I'm along for the ride. A guy managing to keep many people in captivity for years, successfully performing complex surgical procedures on them and getting rid of the corpses, all without anyone ever noticing? And not somewhere in the Gobi desert, but in one of the most densely populated European countries, to boot? I'm not buying it. And I will mention neither his demented motivations nor a spoiler - his connection with the victims - which make the premise even more ridiculous.Neverlake suffers from a case of overplotting. Either you go with the supernatural storyline or with the "medical experiments/abductions" cases: pick one and run with it. The two don't glue together well, and structure gets wonky; any horror movie where a medusa-like monster is there merely for a cameo, where a surgeon performs ludicrously difficult operations and follows them up with esoteric rituals, or where the protagonist first has to throw some relics in a lake to appease phantoms and then to recover other relics from the same lake to appease other phantoms... well, it should probably rethink its storytelling choices.5/10