Ghost Lake

Once in a while, you watch a movie where you can just immediately tell that the directors mother is also his aunt. One such movie is Ghost Lake. As a no-/low-budget filmmaker, I generally sympathize with others in this end of the field. One has to cope with annoying editors and actors who, in various strange ways, convince you that they can actually act and sign on to the point where it's too late to replace them. But much of this can be forgiven if the general intention with the movie is good or just honest. Not so the case with Ghost Lake. It repeatedly rips off one horror movie after the other, all the while setting new lows in acting, shooting and musicianship (yup, the score was awful to boot).

That being said, I did laugh my ass off watching it. Watching this movie was the equivalent of reading a list of cinematic don't's. And I don't mean "don't" as in "Don't use voiceovers" and similar snooty filmschool bs. I mean "don't" as in, "Don't do this, because it looks like you can't tell your ass from your elbow, anyway you slice it". If you're in any way into films (just being an avid moviegeek will do) this movie will provide literally dozens of laughs-per-minute with it's machine-gun like barrage of ineptitude. You're going to want to show this to your friends just to see their bewildered expression that simply says "Wtf were they thinking?!" like nothing else.

If your idea of awesome cinematic experiences is films like Death Tunnel or Kaw, well this movie is too shoddy for even that. No person living could possibly like this dreck, and the mere possibility is downright offensive.

Cinematography - 8 - very good for a low budget production. Special Effects - 9 - excellent for a low budget production. Acting - 0 - 6 -with 6 for the lead actress; supporting roles include some actors that are embarrassingly bad. Even with the few lines they had, the couple that survived a plunge in the lake were so bad I cringed every time they opened their mouth, especially the man. The doctor's voice was so loud, it was more startling than any of the zombie scenes. Audio - 3 - a number of indoor scenes had a distracting hollow/reverb sound. Plot - 4 - would be higher if not so confusingly told. Dialog - 1 - at many points it is totally amateurish and would have been as well written if it had been outsourced to a 5th grade class.

The saving grace for me was the lead actress, Tatum Adair. I found her somewhat compelling and she kept me watching the whole movie instead of bailing out. Sad that the weak points of this movie could have been easily fixed, because otherwise much of the production was very good.

I'm one of those who really get easily scared by movies, and especially horror movies, of course. I'm so easy scared that it's almost embarrassing. It doesn't even really have to happen anything; if the mood is at least done almost right, I can sit in intense suspense and wait for something to happen.

So the strange thing about this movie is: I did not get scared. I mean - I probably jumped a bit in the seat one or two times, and I think I felt a bit, and only a bit, of suspense maybe three or four minutes together, during the whole movie.

That must mean that they hardly did anything right, right? And that's right - they hardly did anything right: Most of the supposed-to-be-scare-stuff happened in broad daylight. I mean, how scary is broad daylight? And the mentioned stuff was for a big part filmed from far away, and how scary is stuff that is filmed from far away? Another thing: what did they do with the screen all the time?!? That division-stuff - disturbing!!! And I still wonder how the lead-lady figured out the secret of "now is the 13th year, so they are going to kill 13 people", for instance. Much of the plotting was completely not understandable.

Okay, one cool thing to end with: the start really freaked me out - with the place-to-place- and time-jumping.

Oh, did I mentioned that much of the acting (though not all) was completely laughable? The bad-guy-laughter from the three Zombies by the lake near the end was probably the most artificial (both concerning acting and directing) I've ever seen - and I've seen my share of oldies.

This is just another STV "horror" movie that plagues video stores everywhere. There is nothing I want more than a resurgence of good horror movies, but films like "Ghost Lake" do everything possible to ensure this never happens. The movie is garbage from start to finish; horribly written, shot, acted and edited. Even the minimal zombie make-up can't save it. I wasted $6.50 at Blockbuster with this one, and I've done the same thing countless times before out of desperation and a faint hope than someday, somewhere, someone will make a horror movie we've all been waiting for. As a horror filmmaker myself, I say give me the budget for Ghost Lake and I'll show you how it's done.

Low budget horror. What else can I say...some are good and some are just plain bad. Now there are different levels of bad...there's the bad that's good (like House of the Dead)and then there's bad that should be shot into the sun (like Home Alone 3,Good Boy). I've always been a big fan of low budget horror and I've been lucky enough that all the films I've checked out have been a real treat. I've only been burnt once and I was afraid that Ghost Lake might be like that one. I wasn't really in the mood to watch anything, but I heard the Ghost Lake started with the lead going topless and I decided to at least watch that part until I figured out something else to watch. Well, I ended up watching the whole movie and liked it very much.It's a good little film with a good plot,some good effects and good music. But the only real problem is that some of the actors seemed off at times which really annoyed me at times.Some of the plot seemed to get lost during the explanation scene and while you trying to figure out what the hell they're talking about they're already moved on. If they would cleared up alittle more on the history of the lake(which is a real place) then I would have saved me some stress.Now the movie does have a lot of story to it, there's no real ACTION to speak of so those who expected a non stop action ride better go watch Dawn of the Dead (04) again. Because this film is more about the story, the history and the ghost are really there to serve the plot then being the plot. But if you stick it out and forgive afew laughable moment, the off acting moments(I swear all of the old people in this movie were dreadful), then you'll like this one. A big plus for for me is having the lead,Tatum Adair, naked is always a big plus for me. Could it have been better? Yes. But I think they did good with what they had.