Reel Advice: Lake Dead

By Steve Anderson Apr 22, 2008, 14:54 GMT

Three beautiful sisters learn of a long-lost grandfather, but only make this discovery upon the news of his grisly death. Enticed to visit grandpa\'s old home after hearing of an inheritance, the sisters head to the back country with some friends. We quickly follow the group of friends through the gates of a redneck infested hell. The psychotic family occupying the inherited property goes on a long-awaited, and much enjoyed ...more

Well, the Broken Clock Theory does have its obverse - while it may be right twice a day, it's still wrong plenty of others, and "Lake Dead" is going to be one of those.

You would think that the upshot to the After Dark Horrorfest is that even the worst movie in the rotation is still pretty good, but sadly, for the first time, that's just plain old not the case.  "Lake Dead" is garbage.  Utter garbage. How this got into a block of otherwise excellent movies is beyond me.

But, I guess, someone's got to be the dog, so let's sail right into this barker.  Basically, sisters of a really horrible family managed to inherit a motel out in the middle of nowhere, and they need to figure out what to do with it.  Meanwhile, the sisters stumble across a family of redneck psychopaths in the midst of a killing spree, and put themselves unwittingly on the block. 

Plus, they get to learn just how horrible their family truly is.
Which has been done unto death several times, and I guess "Lake Dead" is just trying to be the "The Hamiltons" of the 2007 Horrorfest, but man.  One, I can't believe Texas Chainsaw Knockoffs still exist, and two, I REALLY can't believe that one of them got into the After Dark Horrorfest!  That's wrong for so many reasons that just picking one is tough to do.

And this is really all "Lake Dead" is, folks, just another Texas Chainsaw Knockoff packed with psychopathic backwoods types who like killing and raping and suchlike.  That filmmakers actually think this kind of gratuitous violence passes for scary is perhaps the greatest blow of all.

Worse yet, "Lake Dead" suffers minus points right off for its use of thoroughly chee-zee CG blood effects.  Used to be they'd have to do something semi-realistic with blood makeup and squibs and such...now they can just drop in a graphic of a head shot and call it a day.  I can't say I approve of that, but it by itself is a minor issue.  Especially when compared against everything else.

The ending borders on the downright reprehensible, frankly, because rape is bad enough, but incestual rape is even worse.

The special features include audio and video options, English closed captions, Miss Horrorfest Contest webisodes and both English and Spanish subtitles.
All in all, I'm thoroughly revolted by "Lake Dead" and am having a really hard time wrapping my head around the existence of this miserable little thing.  An easy contender for worst of the Horrorfest yet, "Lake Dead" makes "The Hamiltons" look like "Night of the Living Dead."

Lake Dead is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.

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