Alpine Lake

This is what happens when a guy with a desire to make a movie but zero talent to do so gets a stimulus check. Hands down the worst movie I've ever seen on Amazon Prime and that is saying something. This is pure, absolute, amateur trash. My apologies for insulting other trash with a comparison to this.

I've seen a lot of bad films. I've seen a lot of inept films. But this is on a different level. It fails on every level as a story and as a film.

The sound throughout is painful. Sometimes, you could hear the actors. Sometimes not. Most of the time, they were using a microphone on the camera to capture interior dialog, and all the echoes and reverb that provides. And most brain melting, is that sometimes, they had a wireless lav on actors, but for shots of the actor running around in the woods, so you hear more clothing rubbing than anything else.

The cinematography is equally bad. 90% of all the shots are on a tripod with a not-so-fluid head, so any panning was jerky and NOT smooth. 9% of the shots were from a cheaper consumer drone, with an operator who couldn't get very smooth movements, and it was too small to not have that floating around footage when trying to stay still. The ONE shot that moved was when they put the camera on a towel on the floor and dragged it across, simulating a slider. But the shot was pointless as it didn't show or reveal anything a static shot wouldn't have established. And then they put a go pro (or maybe an actual camera) on the hood of a car for a driving shot, but the reflections on the windshield were so extreme that you couldn't see into the car. So much fail.

It appeared that they had one small LED panel that was battery operated, so any exterior night scene (and there were many many MANY exterior night scenes) were all lit by this one small LED panel.

And then there's the editing. Oh, my, the editing. Characters would teleport. There was no way to judge the passing of time. After a certain point, it was impossible to know where any character was at any moment, since they could be literally anywhere in once scene, and then cut to the next scene and they were also there. I also think there was a scene that was accidentally put in the wrong place in the film.

The writing is ridiculous, and the characters even more so. The acting is wooden and unmotivated.

I could go on and on, but I won't. This is quite possibly the worst waste of time I've ever seen for everyone involved in this film.

It was in strange places. Acting was pretty good but overall I would not recommend this movie.

This is one of the worse movies ever. I can't believe anyone is allowed to put movies out like this. A 5 year old could have put a better movie together and the acting in this movie these people should be ashamed to have even considered being in this movie. Why? That's all I have to ask why as actors would u do this to ur self. Just please do not watch this.

Heading out to a cabin in the woods, a group of friends arrives trying to relax for a weekend after the stress of school, and as they stay there over the weekend come to find the area haunted by a vicious killer targeting them one-by-one and must find a way to escape their wrath.

While not great, this one wasn't as bad as it could've been. The fact that this comes across as cliche and overly familiar as it is works to give this a generally enjoyable feel when it hits the familiarity aspects of the storyline. Giving the expected wait until the killer arrives, the amount of time we get here getting to know the group and their business together provides this with the kind of proper build-up to where the expected notes of the killer hanging out around the outskirts of the area picking off stragglers or approaching the cabin it becomes a lot more fun. That gives the film some enjoyable scenes bringing the killer into the groups' focus. Once the lone victim arrives near-death and the group decides to leave, the revelation that they're trapped and forced to defend themselves leads to a nonstop series of confrontations where they are continually forced to run through the woods trying to get away. Thwarted and picked off one-by-one n the woods with a highly surprising death order, this all comes off incredibly well for what type of film this is as it's quite suspenseful and energetic, giving this some likable elements that hold it up for the most part. There are some big issues found here. The film's main problem is the generally unimpressive killer that we're supposed to be scared of here. The lack of an imposing physique or murder weapon makes for an incredibly laughable force when shown on-screen, and it's not helped at all by the scenes showing them wearing a hoodie wandering around lamely jumping someone from behind. Given no real backstory about their hunting the area or connection to the town to help tie those elements together, the killer here is a wholesale joke that we're supposed to fear. The other issue here is the wholly obvious one in the limited budget giving itself away nearly every chance it can. The on-location guerilla-style approach involving the lack of locations, constant continuity issues and real-time lighting which makes it nearly impossible to see what's happening at night, and given that a lot of this one takes place at that time really holds it back. Given that the majority of the kills are off-screen or cut away before anything happens is quite apparent and holds it back even further, making for the films' main problems overall.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Violence and Brief Nudity.