Landing Lake

The story, in theory, is a fun, and chilling way to approach first contact tropes in sci-fi horror. I have seen it done well in movies like "Yellow Brick Road" and "Star Lead". Unfortunately "Landing Lake" never coalesces fully enough to marry the dreamscape psychedelia and core sci-fi aspects. It all plays out like a wilderness mushroom high but weren't all tripping the same.

The fault doesn't fully fall with script or direction. Not that there isn't some issues in both, it just seemed that too many concepts came into play without proper structuring. The acting is decent, some characters really came out strong. A couple were just so---ugh! They just made it impossible to fully succumb to the movie's experimental theatre vibe enough to wanna like this madness.

Now on a positive note, the cinematography is great. And on its own, the whole surrealism, arthouse style was- at times impressive. Sadly the foundation of the story and continuity just didn't come together to allow the audience to make sense of the going-ons. Another cool aspect is the creative, throwback score.

Really don't need to say anything more. The acting was beyond bad, except for the accountant character. No real plot, and nothing made sense. Totally unbelievable: who would rescue plane crash survivors, but never ask them any questions. The psychedelic aire was totally off putting: basically, I didn't care about any of them, or what happened to them. I just wanted them to shut up and stop acting like total imbeciles. What a waste of my time: the best parts of the movie were the times I fell asleep during it. Total Crap!

"Landing Lake" is sunk by underwhelming acting acumen and proceedings so incomprehensible it is impossible to determine what these filmmakers intended. Except evidently to make their audience both baffled and bored.

I don't enjoy slating movies just to slate them, but this film is BAD! The script seems to be cobbled together by kids at school, the acting is just dire, the background music doesn't flow, there are scenes that have absolutely no relevance to the film - almost time fillers, and the plot itself is all over the place.... I really am struggling to find anything redeeming in this film, it was just poor! Please do not believe any review over a 5, especially the review from someone who worked at the Production company giving it a 10 stating it should be the only film you watch this year... it should be avoided if you can.

It's not a zombie film, so the movie earns a point there. The practical effects on 35 mm film, plus atmospheric locales and a genuine synthesizer score, raise this to above average, but the grade is paralyzed by the always-fatal imbalance of quality acting versus wretched acting. The bonkers plot, which does has the nerve to play out with little concern for coherence or audience-pleasing, still could have benefited from a 100% strong cast. Yet it's not often you encounter good acting in most horror-thrillers nowadays. At least there's ample gore and squishy killings to delight all the Fangoria geeks.