De dødes tjern

De dødes tjern is a 1958 Norwegian mystery horror film directed by Kåre Bergstrøm and based on André Bjerke’s 1942 novel of the same name. The story follows a group of Oslo friends who travel to a remote cabin in the forests of Østerdalen, only to find its owner missing and an ominous local legend hanging over the nearby lake. Blending crime fiction, psychological unease and supernatural suggestion, the film is widely regarded as a landmark in Norwegian genre cinema and is often described as the country’s first true horror classic.

Although the story is set in the Østerdalen forests, the film’s lake and cabin atmosphere was created by combining several real locations closer to Oslo. The best-known of these is Skomakertjern in Nordmarka, one of the Tryvann lakes, which provided some of the film’s most iconic waterside imagery. Other scenes were filmed at Steinstjernet near Kolsås in Bærum, while some close-up material was shot at Tjernsrudtjernet, also in Bærum. Rather than relying on one single lake, the production built its eerie setting from several wooded and isolated waters, which helps explain why the landscape in the film feels both realistic and strangely dreamlike at the same time.