Ghost Lake

There are very few horror films in which I can find no redeeming quality - and "Ghost Lake" has the dubious honour of being one of them. Although it doesn't feature the same level of technical ineptitude as, say, "666: The Demon Child", its unspeakably annoying "actors", awful dialogue (which, I'm sorry to say, is perfectly audible at all times), and pitiful visual effects all add up to a thoroughly reprehensible waste of an hour and three quarters.

Add to all that the fact that the plot was gaffed entirely from a Matthew Costello novel entitled "Beneath Still Waters" (which, as luck would have it, is being adapted by the lovely Brian Yuzna) and you have a film that you simply can't like for any reason at all. Really.

Well, that's not completely true. In the picture's defence, the scenes involving forcible expulsion of water from the mouths of various people are awfully amusing... for entirely the wrong reasons, of course. Please avoid this dreadful thing.

I just saw the movie and I thought it to be an awful replica of return of the dead. Only this time people are drowning and spitting water.hahahaha kinda funny. It was somehow comedic and made no sense what so ever. I did however enjoyed the sound effect that was the only scary thing in the film. The actors where just as bad as the movie. Too much overacting and it had a trashy 80's look to it. The producer should have just made it a sex movie where zombies could get it off with the living. That would have been much more fun than that movie. If you choose to see it anyway, I would not recommend you to buy the film.

For those of you who saw the movie and understood the concept of the 13th hour on the 13th day please let me know. The melted chuckie dolls has me puzzled as well.

Rebecca Haster (Taturn Adair) blames herself for the death of her parents and decides to spend sometime alone in the lakeside cottage of her parents in Rushford Lake. She meets Stan James (Timothy Prindle) on the road and gives a lift to the stranger. Later they become friends, while Rebecca sees supernatural events with drowned people in the lake. While searching the accidents in the library, she finds that mysterious deaths happen in the spot every thirteen years.

I bought this DVD without any previous reference and only based on its creepy cover, since I love zombie movies. Unfortunately, this film is simply awful, with a messy and flawed screenplay. I have no problems with low budget movies with simple special effects, but with good story, direction and performances and this is not the case of "Ghost Lake". Further, I am not moralist but the lead character Rebecca has the behavior of a slut, having casual sex with two strangers in a couple of days and while grieving the death of her parents. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "O Retorno dos Mortos" ("The Return of the Dead")

Low budget horror. What else can I say...some are good and some are just plain bad. Now there are different levels of bad...there's the bad that's good (like House of the Dead)and then there's bad that should be shot into the sun (like Home Alone 3,Good Boy). I've always been a big fan of low budget horror and I've been lucky enough that all the films I've checked out have been a real treat. I've only been burnt once and I was afraid that Ghost Lake might be like that one. I wasn't really in the mood to watch anything, but I heard the Ghost Lake started with the lead going topless and I decided to at least watch that part until I figured out something else to watch. Well, I ended up watching the whole movie and liked it very much.It's a good little film with a good plot,some good effects and good music. But the only real problem is that some of the actors seemed off at times which really annoyed me at times.Some of the plot seemed to get lost during the explanation scene and while you trying to figure out what the hell they're talking about they're already moved on. If they would cleared up alittle more on the history of the lake(which is a real place) then I would have saved me some stress.Now the movie does have a lot of story to it, there's no real ACTION to speak of so those who expected a non stop action ride better go watch Dawn of the Dead (04) again. Because this film is more about the story, the history and the ghost are really there to serve the plot then being the plot. But if you stick it out and forgive afew laughable moment, the off acting moments(I swear all of the old people in this movie were dreadful), then you'll like this one. A big plus for for me is having the lead,Tatum Adair, naked is always a big plus for me. Could it have been better? Yes. But I think they did good with what they had.

I'm one of those who really get easily scared by movies, and especially horror movies, of course. I'm so easy scared that it's almost embarrassing. It doesn't even really have to happen anything; if the mood is at least done almost right, I can sit in intense suspense and wait for something to happen.

So the strange thing about this movie is: I did not get scared. I mean - I probably jumped a bit in the seat one or two times, and I think I felt a bit, and only a bit, of suspense maybe three or four minutes together, during the whole movie.

That must mean that they hardly did anything right, right? And that's right - they hardly did anything right: Most of the supposed-to-be-scare-stuff happened in broad daylight. I mean, how scary is broad daylight? And the mentioned stuff was for a big part filmed from far away, and how scary is stuff that is filmed from far away? Another thing: what did they do with the screen all the time?!? That division-stuff - disturbing!!! And I still wonder how the lead-lady figured out the secret of "now is the 13th year, so they are going to kill 13 people", for instance. Much of the plotting was completely not understandable.

Okay, one cool thing to end with: the start really freaked me out - with the place-to-place- and time-jumping.

Oh, did I mentioned that much of the acting (though not all) was completely laughable? The bad-guy-laughter from the three Zombies by the lake near the end was probably the most artificial (both concerning acting and directing) I've ever seen - and I've seen my share of oldies.