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37%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #6,204
...out of 20,727 movies
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Three sisters and a group of their friends take a trip to the home of the recently deceased grandfather -- who died a particularly grisly death -- to learn more about the promise of an inheritance, only to encounter a family of psychos who have taken up residence in the old man's cabin.
--IMDb
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Review by Crispy
Added: July 16, 2009
The After Dark Horrorfest hasn't been getting the best reviews, but a lot of them have what seems like interesting premises, plus I'm a sap for these bad horror movies. And since a small handful have been decent, I decided to try my luck and gambled on Lake Dead.
So, an old man is arguing with his wife about some questionable "tradition" that he's seemingly had enough of. This doesn't sit well with the woman, or the local sheriff either it seems, and the old man is silenced via shotgun blast to the forehead. Later that night, Brielle Lake gets a call from her alcoholic father. Apparently, her grandfather, who she never even knew, has died. The next day, she gets a letter in the mail stating that the man left his motel to her and her two sisters. Brielle and her fiance, Ben, visit one of them, Sam, and tell her they'll be heading out to check out the motel after the funeral, accompanied by their other sister, Kelli, and a handful of other friends. Since Sam is a selfish, slutty drug addict, her and Ben don't exactly get along, so she decides to skip the funeral and go up herself the night before. As she's settling into her room, two large, disfigured men break in and throw Sam to the floor. Without wasting any time, they forcefully ram a pipe through her ankles, connect it to a cinder block and throw her in the lake. At the funeral, the girls' father begs the two to stay away from the motel, but they're too disgusted at the man to heed his warning. Perhaps they should have.
So, did I pick a winner? Eh, not really. See, this is George Bessudo's directorial debut, and it's quite obvious. There were quite a few scenes in here that were just a tad too cliche for my liking. Cliches that weren't even handled that well to boot. For example, at one point our group of survivors is running down a smooth road when one of them suddenly drops with a twisted ankle. Fifteen minutes later, that ankle isn't bothering them in the least. And that ending. Naturally I'm not going to spoil it, but let's just say it's a little closer to the deus ex machina line than I normally like to see. Not all of the blame could be placed on his shoulders however, as the script writers could wise up a bit as well. When the girls' father is pleading with them to stay away from the motel, he tells them, "He's a bad man." In an emotional rage, Brielle yells back, "How can you say that?!" You've never met this man before, you didn't know he existed until you learned he died less than twenty-four hours ago; but yet, you're going to defend him from a man who voluntarily walked away and hid his existence from you? Did she not think there was a reason for that? I understand you hate your father, but a little logic would go a long way here. Speaking of missing logic, their first reaction to his death is "we don't have a grandfather." It's not "we never knew him" it was "We never had one." Guess part of her parents' neglect was never sitting them down for that talk. Another thing that could have used some rethinking is all the 'fucks' that were thrown around. Now, it's not that this was offensive, it was annoying. There's nothing wrong with overusing the word, there are plenty of "classic"' movies that use it well over two hundred and fifty times, but there's a way to use the word effectively, and it sure wasn't done effectively here. Instead, it just sounded trashy.
Another thing out of Bessuo's hands were his assembled thespians. My God, did these women suck. Tara Gerard (Sam) was the absolute worst of the bunch, hands down. Also, the biggest offender of the aforementioned "fuck" problem. And no, actually pointing out that she uses 'fuck' in every sentence does not make it alright. I'm very happy she was killed off early on, because she was starting to make porn stars look like Kathy Bates. Coming in a close second is Kelsey Crane, who played Brielle. Like Gerard, I don't see her picking up any awards in this career either. Fortunately, our villains were pulled off decently enough, with Pat McNeely and James C. Burns both stealing all of their scenes. The rest of our trouble bound teens were various degrees of meh, but being that's the usual standard for these movies, I'm not complaining.
With all that said, there is a small silver lining here, and that lining is potential. This could have been a respectable entry in the slasher world had the aforementioned problems been cleaned up. There are some generally creepy scenes in here, such as when the kids are swimming in the lake mere inches from the drowned body of their sister. Plus, at it's heart, Lake Dead is primarily a slasher film, and watching those two deformed twins go about their grisly ways was quite entertaining for fans of the genre. The attack on Sam was especially well done; it was something original, the effects behind it were very nice, plus it looked painful as hell. What more can you ask?
As it stands, this one is a good one to get when you're hanging out with some buddies and beer looking to MST3K something. As for me, I'm looking forward to what Bessudo puts out in the future. Hopefully, with some experience under his belt (not to mention better actors and scriptwriters), he'll tap into that potential and put out some quality slasher films. 3.5/10 Also, before I wrap this up, I should warn those of you who are offended by rape scenes to avoid this one, as there's a few of them in here.
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#1:
George Snow
- added July 25, 2009 at 2:11am
This movie sucked so bad I couldn't get through
the first half hour.
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