Surviving Lake Lanier

This film felt like an official space where real people were safe to speak about their experiences with Lake Lanier and Oscarville. It's a good starting point if you've only ever heard whisperings of the lore and want a slightly more substantial source than hearsay and social media tidbits. I've already begun looking into the history of Oscarville after watching.

On another note: THIS IS A DOCUMENTARY that relies heavily on testimonials from relevant individuals. If you go into this experience with that in mind, you may just learn something. After all, what is history but a collection of stories.

This is pretty much unwatchable and badly done on about every front. I really did my best but I think there's about 20 minutes left and I just can't get through it. Oh, and by the way, it took that long to even get to a point where someone is talking about surviving Lake Lanier. Even then its someone who can not swim, who is on a float in a big body of water without a life jacket and then gets pushed off her float

Basically it's about Forsyth county having still a present day racist undertone and a guy cant get a vacation home on a short term rental because they are scared he will rent it to black people. That's 90% of it.......... Also the woman saw a tree under the water as if that's unique from any other lake.

He touches on a few interesting things, but then blows it with the presentation and finds a way to make it not interesting. Didn't even mention The Lady of the Lake or Chicken Trucks going of bridges to create giant catfish, etc, etc. Or so as the tales goes.

He wanted this to be about racism in Forsyth County. And I don't doubt that he's wrong about that. And with his misleading title and implications that Forsyth is trying to keep black people off the lake, he has fulfilled and contributed to just the thing he claims Forsyth is orcastrating.

This is not about surving lake lanier. He probably has a story with Forsyth but this is a jumbled mess.

Expected a lot more about the lore and "accidents" on the lake. Found that the time spent discussing the building of luxury homes was not on subject other than the continued existence of racism, which is of course worthy of talking about at every opportunity. Just don't expect to hear about all the deaths or tragedies. Wishes there was time spent with more authorities would be interesting as they see first what has happened there and the aftermath. The stories seemed swept under the rug for a longer than necessary tale of a builder that had issues because he wanted to make a part house. He should go on HGTV instead.

I was hoping to learn some real information about the history of this lake but what i got was racist propaganda and ignorant supersition. Believe in ghosts if you wish and surrender control of your life to random superstition and realize in that case that you have no value.

ABOUT MY REVIEWS:

I do not include a synopsis of the film/show -- you can get that anywhere and that does not constitute a meaningful review -- but rather my thoughts and feelings on the film that hopefully will be informative to you in deciding whether to invest 90-180 minutes of your life on it.

My scale: 1-5 decreasing degrees of "terrible", with 5 being "mediocre" 6- OK. Generally held my interest OR had reasonable cast and/or cinematography, might watch it again 7 - Good. My default rating for a movie I liked enough to watch again, but didn't rise to the upper echelons 8- Very good. Would watch again and recommend to others 9- Outstanding. Would watch over and over; top 10% of my ratings 10 - A classic. (Less than 2% receive this rating). For Lifetime Movies for Chicks (LMFC), drop the above scale by 3 notches. A 6 is excellent and 7 almost unattainable.

I loved it and I was amazed to learn about the history of Oscarville and how it was flooded, which now resides underneath Lake Lanier.

I definitely recommend everyone watch this with an open mind to a piece of history that was kept a secret. It's sad to see that there are some individuals who are not reviewing this piece of film in a good light. I urge you to not be swayed by the negative comments, use this film to propel you to research about this city and dive into the facts of how there was a thriving community who was targeted because a particular demographic of individuals who were jealous of the black citizens.