Lake Alice

A family consisting of mother, father, daughter and boyfriend take a retreat to a cabin at Lake Alice, Wisconsin, during the Holidays, but the joys of the season take a deadly turn when a mysterious slayer suddenly emerges.

"Lake Alice" (2018) is a modern slasher Indie in the mold of traditional slashers with the tropes thereof, e.g. The silent killer with a mask of some sort. The technical filmmaking is good except for a couple of issues. What works best is the authentic cold winter setting of northern Wisconsin. I like the whole set-up of the family returning to their home town in the rural Great Lakes region and the entertaining drama thereof. Sometimes the director spends a little too much time on a mundane scene, but I felt it established the reality of the situation, so I didn't mind.

The second half is where some weaknesses rear their heads. I didn't find the killings very convincing for the most part. For instance, when the first person is fatally attacked I giggled and thought maybe it was a prank. Most of the rest of the assaults have an unreal vibe as well and were okay at best. So the director is good at drama but needs to improve when it comes to staging action/suspense sequences. The micro-budget Indie "The Ridge" (2005) had the opposite problem: The drama of the first half is so weak it tempts the viewer to tune out, but the horrific second half wherein the killer chases the victims is superbly done.

The diff between this and "The Ridge" is that "Lake Alice" features a Whodunit angle. The first half establishes 4-5 possible suspects and the scriptwriter came up with a decent conclusion (as far as whom the killer turns out to be and the details thereof). The director just needs to work out the kinks in the attack sequences.

The movie runs 1 hour, 18 minutes, and was shot at Tomahawk in the Lake Alice region of northern Wisconsin.

GRADE: C.

Bad movie, we spent 40 minutes waiting for something to happen and nothing happens, when at last the suspense and the terror start, it is all very obvious and boring.

The reason for the murders to take place does not make sense, nor does the ending.

Get away from this movie.

Wow, I really have no idea what movie some of the positive reviewers were watching here. This movie that clocks in at barely 80mins was painful to get through. Awkward acting, terrible editing...just bad all round.

Firstly the "action" really doesn't begin until about 65 minutes into the film at which point you're thinking to yourself "when is everything going to happen?, "At what point are people going to start dying?" By the time this does start occurring, you really don't care. I personally WANTED these unlikable characters to die..

The editing in the last 30 minutes...will make you care even less about the outcome, characters pop in and out at different environments, even for a horror, I was like "how the hell did they get here?" "Characters act more moronically than they usually would in a horror, and that's saying something. The poster of this movie looked great, hence my reason for watching it...but as the saying goes, 'Don't judge a book by its cover'...in this case, the cover is way better than the content.

As for spoilers...whatever you do, don't read the IMDb "Storyline" it essentially gives away the "big reveal" and I'm assuming the viewers who watched this movie and stated it was an unpredictable ending, hadn't read this...not that one really needs to, to guess who the killer may be.

I only watched it for Eimeen Dietz, best know for her ultra short performance in the classic The Exorcist (1973) as Pazuzu. And she do gives the best performance in this flick. Sadly it's the only positive thing I can say.

You have to wait over half the flick before things go wrong. Before that it's all about having a Christmas diner with the family and the new lover of their daughter. Going back to the cabin do offer a few issues in town with the family. But nothing comes out of that. When you think it's going to happen, in fact, nothing happens at all. Once the terror comes in it's all low on horror and gore and the must have shower scene doesn't offer a thing too.

It did had some potential but the director chose to make it a low on everything with too much blah blah going on. Throughout the flick you will find out yourself who the killer is. There are a few twist but you won't be surprised about it.

Lake Alice is out there but not for the geeks...

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

Lake Alice (2018) is available on Tubi and tells the tale of a family who decides to go to their cabin for Christmas. As they head into town to get supplies they meet some old friends and locals from their years coming to the area to staying in the cabin. On Christmas Eve strange things start happening around them leading to their first Christmas at the cabin possibly being their last...

This movie is directed by Ben Milliken in his directorial debut and stars Brando Eaton (Dexter), Peter O'Brien (The Return), Michael Shamus Wiles (Fight Club), Laura Niemi (The Who Wish Me Dead) and Caroline Tudor (Mortal Kombat Legacy).

The storyline for this movie had potential but takes too long establishing the characters rather than getting going. This is a 78 minute movie and nothing happens for the first 46. The kill scenes are bad, without gore and contain sound effects that sound like they were taken from a cartoon. The acting is also mediocre to bad. I did like the final resolve but it was too little too late.

Overall this is a disappointing Christmas horror movie that could have been better written in and executed. I would score this a 3/10 and recommend skipping it.