Ghost Lake

Rebecca Haster (Taturn Adair) blames herself for the death of her parents and decides to spend sometime alone in the lakeside cottage of her parents in Rushford Lake. She meets Stan James (Timothy Prindle) on the road and gives a lift to the stranger. Later they become friends, while Rebecca sees supernatural events with drowned people in the lake. While searching the accidents in the library, she finds that mysterious deaths happen in the spot every thirteen years.

I bought this DVD without any previous reference and only based on its creepy cover, since I love zombie movies. Unfortunately, this film is simply awful, with a messy and flawed screenplay. I have no problems with low budget movies with simple special effects, but with good story, direction and performances and this is not the case of "Ghost Lake". Further, I am not moralist but the lead character Rebecca has the behavior of a slut, having casual sex with two strangers in a couple of days and while grieving the death of her parents. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "O Retorno dos Mortos" ("The Return of the Dead")

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.

Rebecca leaves for a night of drinking wanting to be home by ten but her mom essentially says, and I might be paraphrasing here "no hon go whore around, we don't want to see you back till late". Of course she gets the message and sleeps with the first guy who gives he a kind of semi-compliment. As she'staking it all like the slut she is, her parents die of a horrible acting um.. I mean a gas leak. She goes to the cabin by the lake to get rid of her guilt, not before picking up a hitchhiker that she'll later screw (her parents would be proud) A mixture of bad and TERRIBLE acting, as well as some crappy split screen. What had the chance to be a perfectly good mediocre movie crashes and burns.

My Grade: D-

Eye Candy: Tatum Adair gets topless

I just saw the movie and I thought it to be an awful replica of return of the dead. Only this time people are drowning and spitting water.hahahaha kinda funny. It was somehow comedic and made no sense what so ever. I did however enjoyed the sound effect that was the only scary thing in the film. The actors where just as bad as the movie. Too much overacting and it had a trashy 80's look to it. The producer should have just made it a sex movie where zombies could get it off with the living. That would have been much more fun than that movie. If you choose to see it anyway, I would not recommend you to buy the film.

For those of you who saw the movie and understood the concept of the 13th hour on the 13th day please let me know. The melted chuckie dolls has me puzzled as well.

There are very few horror films in which I can find no redeeming quality - and "Ghost Lake" has the dubious honour of being one of them. Although it doesn't feature the same level of technical ineptitude as, say, "666: The Demon Child", its unspeakably annoying "actors", awful dialogue (which, I'm sorry to say, is perfectly audible at all times), and pitiful visual effects all add up to a thoroughly reprehensible waste of an hour and three quarters.

Add to all that the fact that the plot was gaffed entirely from a Matthew Costello novel entitled "Beneath Still Waters" (which, as luck would have it, is being adapted by the lovely Brian Yuzna) and you have a film that you simply can't like for any reason at all. Really.

Well, that's not completely true. In the picture's defence, the scenes involving forcible expulsion of water from the mouths of various people are awfully amusing... for entirely the wrong reasons, of course. Please avoid this dreadful thing.