Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Brainsbell The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Claudio Carvalho The traditional Hellestad Boarding School is celebrating its centenary, and the students are planning a big party. However, there is a dark legend about a brutal murder of three students by a local farm a hundred years ago. The killer drowned in a lake nearby and his body has been not found. One year ago, the disturbed intern Rebecka (Sasa Bjurling) committed suicide during the anniversary speech of the arrogant dean, and her deranged father escaped from the mental institution where he was lodged. The student Sara (Rebecka Hence) is preparing a composition about the tragic legend, and finds new evidences compromising the name of a traditional local family and top contributor of Hellestad. Meanwhile, two new arrivals, Leo (Peter Eggers) and Felix (Jesper Salén), become close to Sara and her roommate Therese (Jenny Ulving), and students and staffs are vanishing in the place.My expectation with "Strandvaskaren" were the highest possible, based on the name of director Mikael Håfström. His cruel "Ondskan" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338309/usercomments-45) is a stunning movie; indeed, it is a psychological study of violence taking place also in a boarding school. Unfortunately, the disappointing "Strandvaskaren" is nothing but a conventional slash movie, with no originality, and using the same clichés of many American productions. Anyway, I like this type of predictable movie as entertainment and my vote is six.Tiotle (Brazil): "A Maldição do Lago" ("The Curse of the Lake")

gothic_a666 From time to time, one cannot fail to run into bitter disappointments that shake one's faith in all sacred things such as trust, hope, and, in this case, good film-making. Excuse me this rant, but from my earlier experience with this director (Mikael Håfström), I was led to expect a remarkable movie experience: perhaps not necessarily anything as brilliant and insightful as Ondskan, but still something out of ordinary, original and tactful, as European movies aspire to be.All my expectations were flawed, however, completely destroyed and torn to little shreds of contempt. It seems to the movie deliberately sabotaged itself, opting to follow a by now more than exhausted trend of the America-Teen-Slasher which feels ill at ease in a Swedish setting and, in this adaption of what was not a praise-worthy effort to begin it, fail to follow the thriller-by-number with any amount of narrative coherent or scenic competence.The plot is formulaic: a predictable ensemble of characters set in a prestigious college (the building itself having a great potential for being a new Overlook, but, alas, it is completely wasted in this movie) wrapped up with a "mysterious" murder committed a hundred years ago, a pseudo paranormal demonstration, a suicide and an investigation undertaken by the said characters which, by the way, are nothing but one dimensional personality traits, not even stressed enough to be called clichés, one could say they are underdeveloped ideas.Of course, plot twists abound, none of them strike as fresh or even as surprising. Half-ways through, the movie takes a turn and tries to explore some psychological drama, which makes the final work even more flawed and utterly clueless.*****Mild Spoilers*****It should be stressed that nothing rings original in this mess. The ending is so reminiscent of Friday the 13th that it is nothing short of uncanny, a previous scene is a watered down version of something straight out of Seven, and I am quite sure the list could go on.Lovers of gore be warned, this movie has none. It is, however, peopled with silly to borderline intelligent characters who believe that staring and trying to reason with an armed murderer is quite a plausible excuse to get themselves killed.I truly hope that Mikael Håfström will find his way back to brilliance and quit this emulation of American cinema at its worst.

sol- A very well photographed Swedish horror fiasco, it features a creative range of camera angles and some wonderful camera movement, which keeps the film interesting on a visual level. Other than the camera-work, it is not at all extraordinary stuff. It has a formulaic story, a messy plot and run-of-the-mill characters. The acting is not much either, and is a bit overdone by some of the cast members. Just because it is Swedish does not make any difference - the film is still as trite as today's horror flicks from Hollywood that are marketed at the younger generation. However, the work of the cinematographer keeps the film from drowning.

Be Nice This is the first or at least one of the first "teen hack" productions from Sweden.I've seen a lot of the usual teen hack Hollywood productions such as "Scream" one to three. It is not my favorite kind of genre, I admit to that. The Hollywood productions mostly seems to handle this type of genre well enough. The scripting of these movies are quite good, the acting is often good and the movie elements are quite often timed well enough to create a fairly intense and scary atmosphere. So here we are with the first Swedish production of a teen hack movie.How did it fare you wonder? As you might expect, quite bad, I believe anyways. The story is average, early planting a myth of a ghostly killer on a path of revenge. The acting is quite good actually with a lot of the Swedish young "elite" in the acting ensemble. They perform well I think so a big + to them. The "planting" (the element you plant early in a scene to make the viewer slightly aware that something is awry thereby increasing the tension in the movie and later reap the benefits by creating a scary finish) is terrible. *SPOILER* The first example of this is when a student early in the movie talks to the porter of the school wanting his cell -phone and some stuff from the basement. The student heads down the basement... The killer of the movie now grabs the keys to the basement door. Unnecessary... You already know that this kid is "gonna get it". This kind of planting is not needed at all. And examples like this seems to be "haunting" this movie all the way through. Anyways... Sweden's got a bobsleigh team...