Le Lac des morts vivants

Really can't say anything clear about this movie because it just leaves me breathless. The laughter is a thing you won't be able to control on this atrociously awful turkey, where zombies are rapists, and lose their green make up behind the ears. Maybe they made this movie to see if they managed to make the worst movie ever, because it is a pretty good candidate to the title. This movie is probably the equivalent of used toilet paper, it looks as it's been made by a alcoholic butcher with the sexual appetite of a 18 year old. See it, it is absolutely unmissable, the crap is everywhere, and probably it was made on purpose: even the gunshots are out of sync! Don't miss the lake scenes, where the women are standing in a shallow water but the underwater shots show them swimming with water by their necks! Incredible piece of bad moviemaking, see it to believe that there are movies like this one!

Jean Rollin´s ("The Living Dead Girl") "Zombie Lake" is a giant laughfest, however a very entertaining one! The story (Yeah, what story?!?) is about a squad of German Gestapo soldiers who were killed by a bunch of French partisans and afterwards sank in a lake. Twelve years later they rise as living dead and take merciless revenge... As I said, a very cheesy flick, because the quality of this film is on not higher than amateurish level: the zombie´s faces were painted with green color, the acting is a joke, the camera is permanently wobbling and the location also could be the dump where I´m living in! The main attraction is when a bus of young chicks arrives at the lake, the girls take off their clothes, rush into the water and then get munched by the dead one by one! Absolutely hilarious!! You don´t have to wonder when you´ll notice that the script was written by sleaze master Jess Franco..! However, the liked the underwater shots and the WW2-flashback was well-executed, too! Finally another great party movie, extremely enjoyable when you´re drunk, and an absolute icon of bad taste!!!

ZOMBIE LAKE starts off with a young lass taking a VERY lovely swim, sans attire, in the dreaded lake -more like a smallish pond- of the title. Ah yes, we immediately know we're in Jean Rollin country!

Oh my!

Her delightful dip is interrupted by a man in green face paint, wearing a German uniform from WW II! The very same paint that will rub off during a future attack!

Meanwhile, the Mayor (Howard Vernon) is worried, and a reporter (Marcia Sharif) snoops about. She wants to do a story on the lake / smallish pond. The mayor tells the tale -through questionable re-enactment- of soldiers running around, and a clumsy, forbidden romance, that apparently produced a child. It seems that the town is cursed, since the German soldiers met their doom, and were dumped in the pond-ish lake.

Back in the present, a female volleyball team visits the lake-ish pond, disembarks from their van, disrobes, and goes for a lovely swim of their own! Let's hear it for team spirit! Alas, Nazi zombies attack, ruining everything! Soon, the living dead (aka: men with pool-cue chalk on their hands and faces) are on the move, lurching toward town to kill! Kill! KILL! No woman bathing outdoors is safe!

There's a touching scene where zombie dad returns to his non-zombie daughter, but their reunion is interrupted by his cohorts, who want to eat her. Is "zombie soap opera" a true sub-sub-genre?

The fiery finale is a rib-tickler beyond measure, as flaming dummies topple everywhere! Fabulous fun for those looking for something that can't be taken seriously on any level..

In World War II, in a small village in France vanquished by the German army, a local woman has a love affair with one soldier and they have a daughter, Helena. One day, the German soldiers are ambushed and killed by the French Resistance and their bodies are thrown into a lake.

Ten years later, the soldiers become an army of undead attacking the locals. The Mayor, who was part of the resistance, organizes a posse with a flamethrower, to destroy the living dead, and uses the girl Helena to help them.

"Le Lac des Morts Vivants" is another hilarious low-budget horror-trash by Eurocine from the 70's and 80's recently released in Brazil on DVD with attractive cover. Everything is absurd in this film, from the story and screenplay to the direction, acting, make-up and cinematography (the exception are the underwater scenes); but controversially I have enjoyed and had lots of fun watching this trash. Although not responsible for the direction, the touch of Jesus Franco is visible. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "O Lago dos Zumbis" ("The Zombie's Lake")

To my knowledge there are technically three underwater Nazi zombie movies. The father of the other two is Shockwaves and really the only one worth viewing. An odd spin off from this film is Oasis of the Zombies and Zombie Lake. Le Lac des morts vivants (Zombie Lake) was a project with Jesus (Jess) Franco's involvement and directed by Jean Rollin. Although I personally am not too fond of Jean Rollin's work and definitely despise the hack work of Jess Franco, a man who has never made a movie that could keep me interested, I honestly couldn't believe Rollin had anything to do with this project. On the outset the movie is horrible, but not nearly horrible enough to keep Jess Franco from remaking the insipid piece of cinematic waste again as La Tumba de los muertos vivientes (Oasis of the Zombies), which had the more interesting moniker of The Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies at one time or another.

Jean Rollin apparently understands one standard of z-grade horror, if the movie you find yourself directing has not one single redeeming feature at all, just pad the movie with ample gratuitous nudity and most viewers will be so distracted they may not notice how horrible the film actually is. Modern directors should take note of this since 99 percent of horror films made after 1986 are boring and virtually unwatchable and won't go lowbrow because the director thinks he has integrity. Hint, if you're directing a lame, boring film that is going directly to video anyway and can't fix it or at least make it interesting you have no cinematic integrity.

Rant aside, Zombie Lake is loaded to the gills with naked woman that just throw caution (and their clothes) to the wind at the sight of this undead infested pond. Naturally the zombies swim around and eliminate all comers in a decidedly stiff and mostly bloodless fashion. The lake scenes are just awful and could well be used by film schools as a glaring example of how to completely destroy anything resembling film continuity. We have naked ladies splashing in knee-deep water. Cut to the zombies completely submerged walking under the girls' thrashing legs. Cut back to knee-deep water then back to them swimming and freely floating in ten feet of water above the zombies. Back and forth we cut between the lake shots and the underwater shots probably filmed in the deep end of Jess Franco's swimming pool. Add to this mixture horrible zombie makeup, dull acting, a plot scripted by a highly evolved plankton, Jess Franco, and you have all the trappings of a complete disaster of a film the has Jean Rollin's name on it. This film runs neck and neck with Oasis of the Zombies for being the worst zombie film ever. Oasis of the Zombies lacks even gratuitous nudity but has other redeeming qualities. Both movies are truly awful and even the cheese factor isn't high enough to warrant humorous jibes at it. Princesse de l'érotisme Christina (Virgin Among the Living Dead) is still worse than Zombie Lake by light years however and it is, you guessed it, another Jess Franco project. Fortunately the underwater Nazi zombie movie genre played itself out after just a few movies and actually should have ended with Shock Waves. Given with the state of Hollywood these days it should only be another year or so before Zombie Lake is remade by some flash in pan director that is completely devoid of any of his own ideas. It will probably be remade with a multi-million dollar budget and will still be awful or even worse than the original. Is that possible? Oh yes, very possible.