Product Description

No Description Available.
Genre: Horror
Rating: UN
Release Date: 18-MAR-2008
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28482 in DVD
• Brand: GERARD,TARA
• Released on: 2008-03-18
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 90 minutes

Customer Reviews

Blood is thicker than water...
After Dark has led me astray with films before. I have been disappointed in the past. This time though, I saw the synopsis and wanted to try it out since I adore movies about camping, horror, inbred family torturers, etc... This film wasn't too bad at all. It surprised me, I was expecting the usual implication of death but NO SHOW of gore that After Dark is known for, but nope. It showed the gore, it had a great plot, and it kept my attention. To describe it in my own way I'd have to say Hills Have Eyes meets Wrong Turn meets Motel Hell. Pretty good, pick it up for Friday flick and have some friends over, you won't be disappointed! ;) 3.5 I'm hoping for a part 2, it certainly left itself open for one.

Blood is thicker than water, but apparently some blood is thicker than most...
Is it cutting too fine of a line to say that I did not like this movie but I enjoyed it for the sick, twisted, and demented film that it is? Of all of the films in the 2007 After Dark Horrorfest collection, "Lake Dead"(which for some reason is stuck in my head as "Dead Lake") is the real groaner. But to give credit to the first time effort by director George Bessudo and writer Daniel P. Coughlin, they want you to groan when you see one of the most twisted screen kisses of all time and they want you to bang your head against the wall when the final double entendre is offered as the smoke clears and the final body count is established. This is not a movie so bad that it is good, but a horror flick that revels in coming up with a disgusting situation, without resort to disgusting amounts of blood and gore.

The film begins with a murder out at the lake, the context of which is conveniently cryptic. The victim turns out to be the grandfather of pretty young Brielle (Kelsey Crane), who did not know that her paternal grandfather was alive until now that he is dead. It seems grandpa has left Brielle, her sister, and their half-sister, a motel in the woods in the middle of nowhere (but near a lake). Their estranged father warns them not to go, but the girls and their friends jump in a camper and head out to the lake, where they manage to stay alive until shortly after the film's one nude scene. People start getting killed, things go from bad to worse, and when we find out what is really going on, then you can feel free to start groaning away.

All that being said, for me at least, living in my own little universe, "Lake Dead" has several things going for it. First of all, the title does a nice little bit of misdirection, because corpses might go into this particular lake, but they do not come out. So there is no way from looking at the title of this film that you can guess the specifics of this particular horror film (the cover art says either ghost film or splatter flick, but even if you guess right things are too general). Second of all, and more importantly, once things hit the fan the victims are not scared stupid (once again in the realm of stupid people doing everything they can to insure horrible deaths, I would point you to most of the cast of the remake of "House of Wax," who truly go out of their way to ask for it and then get it). Scared, yes, but they actually come up with some actions to help insure their survival (at least for the short term). When you are sending the psychic message "go, go, go" to characters in a horror film and it actually means something different than "run for your lives, idiots," then that is a good thing. This is not to say that the characters are fleshed out as human beings, because they are not; but if you can take somebody out while tied to a chair, I am going to be impressed.

Ultimately I would say that "Lake Dead" fits in the mold of the traditional exploitation film, because that is the cinematic niche where taking a taboo and running with it (usually into the ground) is the name of the game. I know that "Lake Dead" is the consensus pick as the worst one of last year's crop of 8 films 2 die 4, but it ended up being one of the most memorable ones for me (not that that is necessarily a good thing). It might be because once again I saw the best film first (that would be "Borderland" and everything has paled in comparison, but this one actually got a response from me several times. True, those responses were "Ewwww," "Eewwwwww," and "EEEWWWWW," but at least it got me to respond, and that becomes my justification for rounding up on this 2007 film (but I do not feel good about it, if that helps you swallow my rationale).

As is the case with all but three of these octet of films all you get for bonus features on the DVD are the same Miss Horrorfest Contest webepisodes includes on all of them. Yes, it was a bit much with the 2006 Horrorfest films when they came out on DVD and each one started off with the trailers for all of the other movies in the series, but at the very least they could have tossed the trailers for each film on the DVD. I know "Lake Dead" had one and at the very least it should have been included. Horrorfest 2007 is a notch below what we saw with the original films and that is reflected in the bonus features on the DVDs as well.

Lake Dead
If you like the feel and entertainment of 80's Slasher Films, then you'll enjoy this entirely. It's fun. It's campy. It has a plot. The necessary elements are there. I believe most of the goals were accomplished when comparing the intent and finished product of the film. I had fun watching it, because I'm a fan of the slasher genre.