Ghost Lake (2004)

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

This is one of those DVD's that you can find for almost free in new condition and it shows why. Still, it's a mystery how those flicks can be distributed all over the world without any problem, you get it, this is really bad.It's bad on part of acting, editing and the way it was shot. When the production is using CGI then it's really laughable but when the corpses pop up at the ending they really looked fine. It's so strange that some effects are pure crap and others were well done. The worst thing in CGI is when a ghost smashes one's head, the blood splatters on-screen but purely CGI and it really looks stupid.The story isn't worth watching but being really bad for some it even becomes good. I was also surprised that we do have a bit of juggs being shown here and there by the main lead Tatum Adair. If you are into Z-flicks with laughable effects this is one to pick up but thinking that you will be necking a brewskie and are having the time of your life then you are really wrong. Gore 0,5/5 Nudity 0,5/5 Effects 1,5/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

Once in a while, you watch a movie where you can just immediately tell that the directors mother is also his aunt. One such movie is Ghost Lake. As a no-/low-budget filmmaker, I generally sympathize with others in this end of the field. One has to cope with annoying editors and actors who, in various strange ways, convince you that they can actually act and sign on to the point where it's too late to replace them. But much of this can be forgiven if the general intention with the movie is good or just honest. Not so the case with Ghost Lake. It repeatedly rips off one horror movie after the other, all the while setting new lows in acting, shooting and musicianship (yup, the score was awful to boot).That being said, I did laugh my ass off watching it. Watching this movie was the equivalent of reading a list of cinematic don't's. And I don't mean "don't" as in "Don't use voiceovers" and similar snooty filmschool bs. I mean "don't" as in, "Don't do this, because it looks like you can't tell your ass from your elbow, anyway you slice it". If you're in any way into films (just being an avid moviegeek will do) this movie will provide literally dozens of laughs-per-minute with it's machine-gun like barrage of ineptitude. You're going to want to show this to your friends just to see their bewildered expression that simply says "Wtf were they thinking?!" like nothing else.If your idea of awesome cinematic experiences is films like Death Tunnel or Kaw, well this movie is too shoddy for even that. No person living could possibly like this dreck, and the mere possibility is downright offensive.

As some have mentioned, this is, well, not a good movie. The only good part are the scenes at the beginning and at the end in which our hot lead actress Tatum brings out the twins - and nice twins they are. I would NOT, however, care to see them again if that means watching the whole damn movie - it was THAT bad.Fine, so it's low-budget. And yes, i've seen Eclipse and I've seen Back From Hell, and I enjoyed them! I've even ANALYZED Black Woods. These films are all fine examples of cult-like films that have done the most out of their budgets. I'll give you another example of low-budget horror: "Blair Witch" ring a bell? True, it didn't need as much special effects as this move would need, but every single actor in that film was better than every single actor in Ghost Lake - and for one hell of a lot less money. For Nick, who wrote that the acting was more done "like in real life" instead of exaggerating - please watch the movie one more time. I could never in my life have talked anything like any of those actors. They talked like they were reading from the script during the whole film, from start to finish. In fact, I found myself thinking several times, "what the hell? Didn't they get time to memorize their lines properly??". This movie is one I would not want to watch again unless my life depended on it. Let's say we forget about the acting that makes Coolio look like Oscar material for a minute. Let's say that we didn't notice the make-up that is supposed to make the actors look like zombies but instead makes them look like they dropped buckets of various paint over their heads, or when water came out the "zombies'" mouths like when you put water in your mouth and talk - you know, like when you were in kindergarten. Let's say that just for a minute, the story wasn't utter rubbish, and didn't contain almost exclusively script flaws and logical errors. Let's then say that we would be able to overlook ALL of this at ONCE, in an attempt to find other good things about this movie. The what would we have?We would still have a bad movie.The first thing that struck me was that this was actually a comedy! My thoughts wandered off to "Scary Movie" or "Dawn of the Dead" - in other words either an intentional parody or, well, another kind of intentional parody. I was sad to see that I was mistaken. Never mind the laughable scene in which our boobalicious Tatum is PUSHED out to the party by her parents; never mind the scenes where it switches between her driving, her letting the nice, big twins out for some air and some lickin' - it's the plot. First of all: For a horror movie, something happening every 13 years is way too often. A curse is not something happening twice every generation. I can not for the life of me figure out how anyone in their right mind will even CONSIDER the plot or the storyline in any way anything but awful. Secondly, I can say the same thing about the directing - yes, he does film very well at night, fine. But he's using amateurish cutting and ways of quickening the pace. It seems to me that he's rushing the production to make the suffering shorter.. I don't think even Jay Woelfel really knew what the explanatory mathematics at the end meant, and our poor Tatum and her twins looked just like a teenager pretending to understand when being presented with the Theory of Relativity - "Ah, so THAT'S what's happening! Of course! I KNEW that E wasn't good for you, but i never knew why!"And thirdly, and this is the worst part of the whole movie: The beginning. And i'm not even talking about the laughable way Woelfel is cutting the memories into her driving, or the humorous "Days of our Lives"-wannabe expressions on Tatums face when she tries to act on the cuts, either. No, i'm talking about the way her parents dies.This is a major spoiler for you who haven't seen the movie yet, but it's a fun one, and the reason why I thought this movie was a comedy at first: Her dad wakes up in the master bedroom, coughing - he smells the gas and yells something like "honey! *cough, cough* I think there might be a gas leak! *cough *cough' Honey?!", with no response. So he crawls (yes, CRAWLS) out of bed, and KEEPS crawling, actually, across the floor and to the stairs - from which he falls down and dies. And how does her mother die? From the gas as well - as she is sitting right next to the stove. Now hold on, I'll say that one more time: Her MOTHER dies next to the stove without noticing the gas leak, but her FATHER not only notices the gas, but he notices the gas IN HIS SLEEP and WAKES UP! Not only is it highly unlikely that the father would even be much affected in the second story of such a big house - he would CERTAINLY not wake up from the smell! There are so many logical flaws at the beginning of the film that I could not see how this could be anything but a parody. I even told my girlfriend as we started watching, "oh, cool, it's a parody! I thought it was a horror flick!" - and sadly, I was mistaken. I rank this among the two worst movies I've seen along with "Dracula 3000".However, I still just can't bare to give this a one. After all, Tatum ARE letting her twins out. Twice. That, to me, doubles the value of this film.

This film has to be a candidate for scariest of the century. I felt truly overwhelmed with fear throughout this gut wrenching horror. The special effects were exemplary and really brought the film alive - at one point, where one of the ghosts from the lake kills an innocent picnicker with a ferocious blow over the head, I almost went over and wiped the blood from the screen as blood splattered over the camera lens. One of my friends said it looked unreal and like it had been drawn onto the tape with felt tip, but it sure had me fooled. Also, the use of Vaseline on the dead (or undead?) bodies really gave me the creeps - I've always been paranoid about getting near the stuff! The film was directed with true talent and precision - all the shots were called right and the camera transitions were just great - it really took me back to the seventies! The running scenes were a work of art, the actors choosing to jog rather than run from their attackers as they were gripped with too much fear to use their legs properly.The acting is some of the best I have seen in years and I'm really surprised that none of the actors received any Oscars after these convincing, truly inspirational performances.Overall, I thought the film was a worthy addition to gleaming hall of horror fame - a real gore treat that will leave you bricking it!