Customer Reviews

Wicked Lake [Blu-ray]

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1 star:		(5)

 

 

As a longtime aficionado of horror cinema, I've spent countless hours trudging through some pretty awful horror movies in my personal quest to find films that are truly tasty. Sadly, WICKED LAKE is not something I'd recommend to the horror gourmet. True, it is not the worst horror film I've ever experienced, but it comes close enough that it took me several minutes to dredge up from memory the few titles that actually made me gag more. Oddly enough, the film has many of the ingredients needed to cook up a pretty entertaining contemporary horror flick--a few decent actors, lots of grue and gore, a bizarre and eclectic musical score, and copious T&A shots. Unfortunately, what is ultimately served up under the moniker WICKED LAKE is only half-baked...and almost totally unpalatable.

With so many yummy horror-film ingredients, why did these filmmakers cook up such an unappetizing dish? Well, the primary reason that WICKED LAKE falls flat is the script by Adam Rockoff and Chris Sivertson. Just stirring in a lot of nudity and bloody violence isn't enough to generate a delicious horror story, especially if your characters--the primary ingredients of good storytelling--are flavorless, one-dimensional, and wholly unbelievable. But alas, the characters created by Rockoff and Sivertson are simply a mixture of social stereotypes--cardboard-cutout femme fatales and cliche rednecks make up the bulk--and there is little (if anything) in the story that plausibly motivates any of them. Indeed, the only things kneading the plot forward are lots of scenes with nudity and simulated girl-on-girl sex, which leads me to conclude that Rockoff and Siverston lifted most of the recipe for this script right out of some old direct-to-video porn films.

To be fair, I must admit that WICKED LAKE is a dish that is not totally devoid of flavor. The weird but enjoyable musical soundtrack includes some groovy 1960s-like sitar passages, and there are a few cool rock-and-roll songs peppered throughout (the industrial-rock covers of Golden Earring's RADAR LOVE and Louis Armstrong's IT'S A WONDERFUL WORLD are especially interesting). As mentioned before, lots of female nudity has been whipped into the mix, and director Zach Passero tries to add some subtle seasoning here and there with interesting camera work and a clever use of special FX. In the end, however, WICKED LAKE does little more than leave a nasty taste in the viewer's mouth. If you truly hunger for a good horror film, you'd better dine elsewhere.

For the first 40 minutes or so "Wicked Lake" is among the most unwatchable horror films I've ever sat through. Awful, awful film. So why would one such as I not turn it off when I knew it sucked? Two reasons: T&A. It's superficial and moronic, but it's effective and it's the only real reason to watch this movie. Actually, I'm not that shallow; there was one more reason I kept watching: to see the most embarrassing gallery of male characters in the history of cinema get massacred horribly, and they do, God bless it, they do. And in epic fashion. So "Wicked Lake" is not the worst film ever. But it's still pretty much garbage.

First, the good. This won't take long. The four female stars are among the hottest women ever to spend most of a movie getting naked and making out with each other. Plus they are all natural which I heartily applaud. Next, the soundtrack is awesome. Of course it's awesome, Al "Alien" Jourgensen (who also has a cameo and gives and an inane introduction at the start of the film) of the legendary industrial metal band Ministry did it. It primarily consists of heavy industrialized covers of classic hits of artists like T. Rex and Louis Armstrong. I may buy it. The supernatural girl-power rampage of the last half of the film has it's moments and is bloody and brutal as can be so yay on that. Tying a dude to a bed and eating him alive? Sweet. Severing a wheelchair-bound old pervert's limbs and laughing at him? Also sweet. And now I want to try drinking an idiot's brain with a straw. That's not healthy, is it? So some quality violence in this one to add to the quality nudity.

Now the bad. The only reason to buy this film is if you don't have the internet (and we both know that if you're reading this then you do) and you are embarrassed to be seen buying porn. Any movie with a choreographed, ritualistic lesbian foursome makeout session that adds nothing whatsoever to the plot and is measured in full minutes loses all credibility. Did I enjoy that scene? Well yes, but when I watch a movie I want a story and any movie that resorts to such tactics to keep an audience obviously has nothing much going on in that area. It's a bit pathetic, really. Even the flick's other strong point, the music is actually more distracting then anything. But considering the movie it was distracting from, that may still earn it points. And the male characters, son of a b!+ch did I want them all to all die horribly. Every single male in this movie is just horrible to watch. And that's before they start trying to victimize the girls. I seldom complain about acting in B-horror films, but this sh!+ was so obnoxious it made Jar-Jar Binks look like James Bond. The spastic emo kid decked all in pink who can't stand still. DIE! Not just the character, either; I mean the actor. He was that bad. The hillbilly who repeats everything the other characters say and hops around like Cesar Romero playing The Joker in the 60's? DIE! Old man in the wheelchair who lost most of his penis in combat who was leading the choruses of "Suck the KNOB!". That was actually pretty funny, but still: DIE! They are the best reason to avoid this movie altogether. And did I give a damn about the cops who fully investigate the girls and track them down about an hour after they find the first body? Not even a little. Why bother with such a useless side story? Nothing worthwhile comes from it. I could continue on, but I'd rather wrap this up.

Okay, so if you like good movies, are a straight female, are the type to question flimsy vampire mythologies, haven't seen every vampire movie ever made yet, and are looking to spend 90 minutes of your life doing something you will actually enjoy, then pass this by and don't look back. If you only care about the hotness of the girls in a film and are looking for some nudity, cruelty, gore, girl-girl action, and misogyny poorly disguised as female empowerment then you may wanna rent this. And get a girlfriend. In that order, or you will likely lose the latter. There's some cool music, lots of blood, and a ton of sex, but there is just too much inept filmmaking to give this a pass. Like the four lovely ladies of "Wicked Lake", this movie sucks HARD!

The movie is about a group of 4 college girls who head to a lake for the weekend to relax. As they get there to start relaxing, they end up finding out they have been followed by a family of hicks. That apparently knew they were heading out there by a chance meeting as one of the girls works as a nude model in the shy kids art class. Who start to torture and mess with the girls until it turns midnight and they turn the tide and starting killing the hicks one by one. Okay...the story has potential, but ends up being poorly done...
the cast of actors is well done for the 4 girls. But the hicks they get to come after them is just so bad...you have a retarted kid, a kid who is so shy or messed up he seems retarted, the leader, and a 60-70 old man who is a war veteran. With the girls we have a sense that they're more than meets the eye. But still no real backround story and we don't even find out if they're vampires or werewolfs at the end. And they try to add a couple of cops that are tracking them down to give us a sense that it has happened before, just doesn't work. You get some good scenes and it's not a terrible movie, it's just they're so many scenes that hard pretty hard to watch..not in the sense of gore or graphicness just how they're done it makes the movie uncomfortable at times. It's just hard to say that the movie is as good as it could have been with the story it had to work with.

The basic formula for the home break-in film is bad guys break-in and terrorize the women. Then the victims turn the tables. This is the basic formula except the women are witches with certain supernatural powers at midnight during the full moon. The problem is that it disobeyed the successful sub-formula. The nude scenes should start with the break-in. In this case there were ample nude scenes before the women are terrorized and none during the event.

The movie features two play modes, one with a special commentary, and by "special" they mean ride the short bus special. The DVD also includes a music CD. The sound track was better than most, but the movie was so bad, it was wasted. Michael Esparza plays Ray, the role normally assumed by David Hess in the classic home break-in movies. He did an exceptionally lousy job as the lead bad guy. What was with the weak cop subplot?

While there was a bunch of nudity, it wasn't "full frontal" as the cameras were careful to avoid that area, almost to the comical point as an Austin Powers film.
If you like topless, blood, "brain sucking with a straw," bad acting, bad plot with a decent sound track, and a muscle machine you got it.

F-bomb, explicit sexual talk, sex, nudity.

This is by far, one of the worst horror films I've ever seen. The director should be embarrassed. There is almost no plot at all, the acting is TERRIBLE, and for the most part, it only seems to be about cheap half-nudity. The horror element is completely missing from this movie. The writing is just as bad as the acting. CONSIDER THIS YOUR WARNING. IT IS A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY TO SEE THIS MOVIE. If anything, watch it for how bad a movie can really get, without being entertaining what so ever.

I had a very hard time even making it through this movie. It took me a couple of days because I couldn't take it all at once. This movie is one of the worst horror films I have ever seen. And I have a collection of well over a thousand horror films. The acting is bad. The story is bad the characters are bad. It seems like the movie makers were counting on the nudity and lesbian action to make this film work. I would most definitely rather have a good story which this film does not have. Do not waste your time or money. I even enjoy bad B horror films quite a lot. This can't even compare to those. I'm putting up my copy of this movie for sale on an internet auction site right away!

What's not to like? Lots of boobs and lesbian action, deranged rednecks who get ripped to shreds, more boobs, puts it in the winning category for me.
Not all movies need an engaging story line or even any sort of plot.
Lots of action films get dumped on because of that. People say, oh the story sucked. Who cares, I just want to see things get blown up, not a drama about the lives of two old french men shot from the perspective of their knees under a cafe table!
Some stuff needs to be brainless.

Yes I like good story telling, yes I like engaging or touching movies, like Love Actually or Waking Ned Devine. But sometimes you just want to see Bad Ronald!

Boobs? GOOD!
Lesbians? GOOD!
Blood and gore? GOOD!

This by far has to be the worst movie I have ever seen hands down. I tend to thoroughly enjoy offbeat horror movies but this one only belongs in the trash can!! Avoid at all costs nothing clever or entertaining about it at all.

I've seen some crappy movies and this one certainly ranks up there. It's got a really stupid plot, a lousy cast who can't act, and is just cheap and LAME. If you're looking for scary, gory, or interesting, Wicked Lake is not for you.