When a subtle title just won’t cut it…
LAKE DEAD
2007/87m
“Beneath the calmest surface lies the deepest nightmare.”
Director: George Bessudo / Writer: Daniel P. Coughlin / Cast: Kelsey Crane, Jim Devoti, Kelsey Wedeen, James C. Burns, Pat McNeely, Vanessa Viola, Alex Quinn, Tara Gerard, Malea Richardson, Dan Woods, Christian Stokes, Trevor Torseth.
Body Count: 8
Part of the second ‘After Dark’ horror festival, the cleverly named Lake Dead is what you get if you rip-off Wrong Turn, stir in some Simon Says, add a clove of Wolf Creek and toss with two-parts remake of The Hills Have Eyes, but make sure you suck out everything that’s interesting and clever in those films and replace it with stupid torture porn shit.
A trio of sisters, Brielle, Kelly and Sam (the latter is adopted), inherit a rundown lakeside motel after the grisly death of a grandpa they never knew they had. The vulgar Sam goes ahead to check it out and is attacked by a couple of inbreds who skewer her ankles together with a steel pole, weight her and toss her into the lake. Their surname is Lake too, and they now have a place by a lake! Isn’t that the coolest, most coincidentally amazing plot device y’ever did encounter?
A couple of days later, her goody-goody siblings arrive with a gaggle of friends in tow, all of whom serve no purpose but to have sex with each other and (if female) be raped and then slaughtered, bar Brielle’s hunky boy-toy Ben. The surviving trio soon learn that the killers are all part of their family remove and now they want the sisters back home with the happy clan to continue the lineage.
Crooked cops, loon inbred brothers (called Kane and Abel – groan) friendly old grannies who turn out to be psychos… we’ve seen it all before and a squillion times better in the Texas Chainsaw remakes. Lake Dead only succeeds in establishing itself as an ugly pretender – a runt of a film, much like the homicidal brothers in the film. All of the pretty young girls are tortured and raped while the guys are far less in number and done away with quickly or off-screen. The requisite teen sex-a-thon sees the girl buck naked while the guy retains all his clothes!
Additionally, there are some really stupid scenes to stare open-mouthed at: one character dives into the lake and swims directly under a dead body suspended beneath the surface but completely fails to notice it’s there and later, when running from the killers demands a breather, the fleeing victims decide to sit in the middle of the road and wait. Look, there’s a huge, thick forest to hide in, just inches away!
Weight this, toss it in the lake and pray it never floats topside.
Blurb-of-interest: Kelsey Wedeen was in Detour.
