Blood Lake: Attack of the Killer Lampreys

Just seen this movie on Pick TV channel.

Well, I was entertained but just not in the way that was intended... Or was it?

Honestly, everything about this movie is atrocious. Literally EVERYTHING.

But despite that, I watched the whole thing. Why? Because I can only assume it was filmed on a shoestring budget and presumably without a script or any any idea about continuity or without considering if the cast could act - everyone could have a go at acting. Lovely. They even went to the trouble of hiring people with zero sense of balance as at every opportunity people would run up to water or places in general with the Lampreys in the vicinity and just fall over.

Honestly I don't want to go into detail as it's not really worth the effort but if you like awful movies which waste an hour and a half of your life then this is worth a go.

BLOOD LAKE: ATTACK OF THE KILLER LAMPREYS is the latest monster movie from those schlock purveyors at The Asylum. It's as cheesy as it sounds, but somehow also quite nifty for an Asylum film and certainly nowhere near as bad as I'd feared. It comes across as a rip-off of PIRANHA 3D in its depiction of a multitude of underwater menaces and even features Christopher Lloyd to hammer home the similarities.

The story is simplistic and barely worth recounting. A local water supply is contaminated by lampreys with a taste for human flesh and various authority figures have to combat the menace. I like the underwater nature of these monster flicks as you get all the scenes of swimming pools and showers being invaded by the creatures as well as the local lake. Plus, the CGI isn't too bad here. It's no better than in a giant monster film but the fact that the creatures are small just makes them look more realistic.

Shannen Doherty is the big name here, but she's clearly past it and looking embarrassed by the whole thing. The rest of the cast are as wooden as they come, aside from the hammy Lloyd. It's a predictable, action-focused romp that nevertheless offers plenty of creature action and death and destruction, and it's also a notably gruesome offering with blood everywhere. It doesn't take much for a monster flick to entertain me and BLOOD LAKE just about gets by in this respect.

Knowing (and dreading…) the The Asylum production studios, it has to be said immediately that "Blood Lake: etc…" is a lot less rubbishy then their usual work. By no means should you expect a great movie, obviously, but at least this isn't as insultingly retarded and preposterous as for example - oh I don't know - "Sharknado" or "Mega Piranha". The main reasons why this film is more or less a success, I presume, are the original choice of animal species (so original even that Animal Planet aired the film) and the fact that it's largely an old-fashioned type of 'creature feature horror flick in terms of plot, characters and structure. Haters could of course quote this last argument to claim that "Blood Lake" is very clichéd and derivative, but I firmly believe that ALL animal attack movies are fundamentally a rip-off of the almighty "Jaws". Although filmed in sunny California, the events supposedly takes place in a little lake town in the state of Michigan. They struggle with a lamprey infestation, and after the aggressive eel-like monsters devoured all the fish in the lakes, they break through the hydraulic turbines and into the city's water reservoir. The simple plot easily allows all the familiar clichés to be present. There's the obnoxious mayor who severely underestimates the dangerous situation and absolutely wants to avoid at all costs that his town gets negatively portrayed in the media, the hero's disobedient teenage daughter who flees from her bedroom and ends up in peril and the chaotic beach attacks. It's all very enjoyable since director James Cullen Bressack assures there is sufficient action and not too much idiocy. The Asylum has the bad habit of over-sizing their monsters, but the lampreys luckily remain their natural modest size. The film stars a few familiar faces, most notably Christopher Lloyd as the outrageous mayor and Shannen Doherty as the concerned family mother. Shannen got a little chubby in the face, but hey, she's a woman over forty now and no longer the rebellious Breda from "Beverly Hills 90210".

In this movie, killer eels go through the plumbing, slither up Christopher Lloyd's butt, then pop out his mouth.

That's horrifying on oh, so many levels that have nothing to do with this being an effective horror picture, which it is not.

That the famously reclusive character actor apparently needed the dough so badly that he'd add this call-in DTV role to his Reverend Jim / Doc Brown / Uncle Fester repertoire is sad enough. That he shakes and gesticulates in every of his few scenes like he's got the delirium tremens makes me worry for his sobriety.

But when the scariest thing in your horror movie is Shannen Doherty's face -- most specifically her Botox-frozen lips and cig-poisoned skin pallor -- you're gonna want to use your digital effects to make your lead actress look at least a bit less revolting than your vampire water snakes.

You didn't here. Ugh. Not ugh blood-sucking eels. Ugh Shannen Doherty.

Nobody dies spectacularly; none of the hot girls take their clothes off; the ending's a letdown. The Asylum, ladies and gentlemen.

Netflix "Night of the Creeps" or "Slither" instead for a movie that takes awesomely better advantage of its similarly dumb premise.

As awful as Blood Lake: Attack of the Killer Lampreys is, I didn't think it was entirely without redeeming values. Christopher Lloyd(often has been one of the better aspects of bad movies, and he's had a fair share of those) is immensely fun to watch, Ciara Hanna is very sassy and actually seems to give a toss about the situation and there are some nicely composed shots here and there. However, the CGI effects are suspect at best and for me the lampreys weren't enough of a threat, we learn absolutely nothing about them, where they come from and why they're attacking and their attacks are not well executed at all. Instead they are very repetitive and come across as silly and lacking in variety, relying on silliness and excessive gore rather than genuine tension and suspense. The most inventive the attacks get is that facial expression freeze frame when one gets impaled, which did raise a good laugh. The music could and should have been used much less and plays too much of an over-dramatic dirge. The script is very flimsy, it's corny and underwritten and never allows us to identify with the characters or care about the situation. Suspense levels are next to non-existent, the movie is often too stupid and repetitive to be fun and there are exposition and melodrama parts that really plod and come across as ham-fisted. The story is very erratically paced, mostly on the dull end when ranked on the pacing spectrum, with absolutely no surprises, while not one single character is likable. Apart from Lloyd and Hanna, the acting- from people who have actually shown some degree of acting talent- is not very good. Most of them seemed oblivious to their situation and come across as annoying and charisma-free. Shannen Doherty also looks tired and acts it too. Overall, apart from a few shots, Lloyd and Hanna(and to some extent the freeze frame) Blod Lake: Attack of the Killer Lampreys is a mess. 2/10 Bethany Cox