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eerie movie about a deranged young woman and her crimes


Hi folks,
I remember having watched a movie on (German) TV some 15 years ago which I would like to identify. these are some elements of the plot which I remember:
a) Background /setting
The story was supposed to take place in a very rural part of the U.S.; I think it was a small community of, maybe, some hundreds of people; or even smaller in terms of population; lots of woodlands in that area (in other words it wasn't set in the great Plains, nor in the South West). The small community was under the influence of one single family who owned a great part of the land, and further this family owned much of the local business and industry; you can see that the family is more feared than respected (especially the grandfather of the female main character must have been not only a wealthy person but also a very threatening "strange old man"...).
There were two daughters in that family; both got along with each other fairly well (at least until something happened, see below!). One of them left the village, at some point, with the intention to go to a big city. From then on, nothing ever was heard of her, and it seems no one of the village people did much care about her whereabouts. And further, when some time later the other sister also left, it was basically the same...
What I do not remember is whether the mother was still alive or already deceased like the father.
b) The crisis that lead to the crimes
From several "flashbacks" we get to know what was behind it all: One sister fell in love with a young guy from the same village; they went to the same college (?) and everything seemed to go well - but then the young man left her and - chose to leave the village, together with THE OTHER SISTER! At that point his former girlfriend must have gone mad:
--- Caution, here follows a big spoiler! ---
c) The gruesome truth behind the facade
Pretty late in the movie it turns out that the deceived / humiliated young woman took terrible revenge on those who had done this to her - somehow she must have managed to talk both of them into returning back to the village; then she killed them, and in some cellar (?) she arranged a terrible scenery:
I remember there was a long table covered with white linen, it was decorated with all sorts of expensive and beautiful china, silver forks and knives etc., there were lots of candles; on the plates there were rotting remains of various food - and around the table there sat three (or more) people, all in a mumified state!! I remember one female wearing a bride's gown. That was obviously the sister who supposedly had left for the big city - either she had been lurked back or her sister had killed her of before she could do so, i.e. she "had always been there"... I think the other one indeed murmurs something like that, staring at her sister's "mummy", with a crazy "smile"...
The scene might have been filmed not in the basement of an average house; maybe it was a place where to store wine barrels (or, in old days, ice) - in any case there must have been the "right conditions" to allow human corpses not to rot away but to turn into "mummies". You know, there's a kind of cellar which lies only halfway below the ground and has it's entrance not through the house (if there is any) but rather through a massive (single- or double-winged) wooden door behind which there leads a steep stairway downwards.
Indeed a very special kind of a wedding celebration!! Very eerie...
Unfortionately this is all I remember - neither do I know the title of the movie nor can I tell how the story ended.
Please, who knows the title?
I'm not sure about this - but somehow I feel the movie title contained something like the words "lake" and "secret" or "mystery".
d) Date and country of production
I'm 99% sure it was made in the U.S. (1 % goes for Canada, but I don't think so) - and it must be older than 20 years. Very probably the movie dates back to the 1980s or early 1990s.
Kind regards
Andreas (123all4me)


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Is it The Village with Joaquin Phoenix?

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Hello ColumboKate,
no -sorry- this is not the movie I'm looking for... I'm sure there weren't any monsters and/or supernatural elements in the story. No aliens, zombies, et al. Just a young woman who went mad, at a certain point, and then did a lot of very weird things...
BUT still I would like to thank you very much for your reply! (the thing is, I've posted several -more or less silly, maybe- questions, over the last 4 weeks; and you're the first one to answer, in two week's time... It seems most people are on holiday... ;-)
Can you see my other postings when you click on my "moviechat name"? If so, feel free to leave some comments, whenever you like to - it would be a pleasure to read more postings from you :-D
Kind regards
Andreas (123all4me)

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This sounds like a cool movie, but I couldn't find anything in IMDB that suits your description. Most of the searches returned Horror/Slasher movies. This one sounds more dramatic/tragic and but also falls under the horror category.

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Hello BourbonKing,
thank you so much for yor reply! There's indeed not much traffic on the boards now (I think it's due to the Summer Holidays...)
It's good that you mentioned the "horror/slasher" genre... I'll edit my post to exclude that type of movies.
I think I remember one other detail: It seems that the young woman who went mad and took revenge for being humiliated / deceived etc. did not only kill her sister and the young guy but also her own mother... I think the latter didn't give her daughter the support and comfort which she badly needed when left alone; so the daughter let her pay for what she had (or rather hadn't) done!
And yes, I found the plot indeed cool... but I don't remember how it all ended, e.g. whether she got ever caught; or whatever happened with her towards the end of the movie... At least there was no "cliffhanger" like, e.g. when the police arrived she managed to run away and disappeared in the forest, etc. etc. ;-)
(Another movie where you can see what might happen when a person who is not "bad" from the start -I think nobody is- gets exposed to some terribly shocking events and then turns mad, is this one: "Misery" - oh wow, this one makes me feel very uncomfortable... And still, "Misery" wasn't born as a crazy person, BUT then something happened and things went awfully wrong...
An equally powerful description of a similar plot, but MUCH less "violent" than in Misery -no blood and gore- , you can find in "The Nanny" (1966). Nobody believes William Dix when he warns that Bette Davis' character is evil; but she IS absolutely crazy. Usually Bette Davis wasn't typically known to play "bad" characters... so you just don't expect the story to end that way! Very good movie! ;-)
Kind regards
Andreas (123all4me)

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Hi folks,
isn't there anyone who has this movie in his/her collection? Nobody who remembers it from an airing on TV??
On imdb, I tried various keywords, e.g. "mummy" - but of no avail; there are hundreds of movies set in (or related to) Egypt, of course, and tons more which belong to the "zombie movie" genre...
Possibly this one wasn't ever published on DVD (or, only as part of a multi-dvd box set)?
I've got only some 100-odd movies on my shelves. I'm pretty sure that most of you have much bigger collections... Experts to the front, please! :-)
Kind regards
Andreas (123all4me)

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[deleted]

New ideas, anyone?
Seems to remain a mystery...
Kind regards
Andreas (123all4me)

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