A Major Disappointment

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

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")

A student doing an essay on her boarding school's dark past, where three students where killed and the murderer was found dead in the lake over 100 years ago. Discovers a horrifically dark secret behind these murders and that off a recent suicide. The problem is that secret can have some big consequences on that of a respected student and his father who provides beneficial benefits to the school. While, Sarah is digging further into this mystery there's a killer on the loose knocking off people. During the hundredth anniversary of the murders a party is organised, but this night is when Sarah comes face to face with the killer.When I got to the ending credits I thought what a big waste of time I spent on this very lukewarm Swedish slasher. Other than the freely defined camera-work and glaringly grand location, nothing else hugely appeals or breaks any new ground. Simply it looks great, there's no denying that, but its has to have more then strong polished visuals to back it up with because it doesn't go anywhere that we haven't been before and the tangled up story aimlessly plods about. If you going make a slasher with a plot structure that we've seen over and over again, you might as well go out of your way to provide the big draw cards, instead it decided to wimp out and come up with a rather mercifully plain offering. The story is very familiar that it's just simply worn out in its supposed twists and it doesn't provide much in a way of suspense, so hopefully you would ask for some blood and T&A then, well sorry it cops out on those factors too.So what does it have going for it then! Well, actually the haunting opening scene with its pulsating score (that crops up at times) makes a better impression than it deserves. The performances are fine, if a little glum, although the characters are your standard stereotypes waiting for their chance to be killed off. Like I said the film's features are attractively glossed up. But in the things that mainly count in these films, all of that falls vapid. Please! Just add something in once in a while to make me sit up and pay notice in this drawn out fodder, because nothing, that is NOTHING (ah other then camera-work and location setting) is formidable and remotely enticing about what's happening. The deaths are incredibly lacklustre with most of it happening off the screen and when we did see one all we get was a puddle of blood in the most basic knockoff. Where was the atmosphere? Sadly with the countryside location and that of gloomy boarding school that has many poorly lit rooms, there was nothing generated to get your skin crawling and that's a sorely missed opportunity.The screenplay is handled in a wilted manner and the script tediously strings along its muddled back-story and the coincidences that make headway are all a bit too convenient. When things start to unravel you can't stop thinking of why didn't this come sooner, as pointless scenes cement themselves and the whole mystery becomes increasingly ragged with bits and pieces from other slasher flicks that aren't hard to pick up on. When it came to the sudden climax.. it had me thinking "was that it"!? Also the final scene was a bit puzzling in what it was trying to accomplish with the suggestion. The concept could've used some blatant energy to help with the stalk and slash moments too. Hence you know you're in for a jagged time when the murder scenes are even more boring than what's happening in between them.The film's production is well made and it might be a highly unoriginal slasher, but what killed it for me was that is was so dead flat and tame in its execution that it just moulders away without much of a spark.

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.

Yet another generic Hollywood teen-slasher with lots of attractive kids getting picked off at a boarding school... except its not a Hollywood slasher, its Swedish! Of course its fun to see this kind of genre film coming out of Scandinavia, but its less fun when its simply aping Kevin Williamson films and borrowing heavily from Friday the 13th (the "lake" motif et al). Any unique Swedish identity is lost as it slavishly follows all the standard clichés of the genre: lots of confusing back-story to uncover, difficult-to-distinguish characters who exist solely to get killed etc etc.Its disappointing that Swedish genre cinema has regressed to this after the awesome high-point of 2002's DEN OSYNLIGE, which similarly dealt with ghosts and teen murder but in a brilliantly original, fantastically entertaining manner that did not feel the need to follow any established genre rules or conventions. THE DROWNING GHOST's "by-the-book" cookie cutter approach ultimately means it will be ignored by any potential international audience in favour of identical Hollywood teen slashers, simply because they happen to be in English.