Customer Reviews

Zombie Lake [VHS]

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

Ed Wood's films (particularly Plan 9 From Outer Space) are widely considered to be the worst ever made. That is absolutely untrue. Zombie Lake makes Plan 9 look like Seven Samurai or Lawrence of Arabia. It is without doubt the worst film ever made. It has to be. It must.
I will not give a synopsis; other reviewers have done that. I will instead share some of the treasures contained in Zombie Lake:
1) A beautiful, nubile young woman is completely nude during the opening credits. Yes, this must be a record; full frontal nudity during the opening titles!
2) The zombies' makeup is of the 99 cent, K Mart variety. The makeup rubs off on the victims' bodies, and as the film progresses, washes off of the zombies. By their final emergence from the lake, one zombie's face is completely devoid of makeup.
3) During one shining, glorious moment, the camera operator can clearly be seen in a mirror.
4) The female "basketball" team, emerges from their VW bus and begins to play with a volleyball.
5) Said female team begin disrobing, and reveal that none of them are wearing underclothes (and they just came back from practice). In fact, none of the women in the film wear underclothes, except for one young woman who is taking a bath (the tub conveniently located on her lawn).
6) One member of the team gleefully strips off all of her clothes, and enters the lake still wearing her shoes. She must be a modest young lady. In the very next scene (an underwater shot),her shoes have miraculously disappeared.
7) The underwater shots are obviously shot in a pool. Canvas has been draped over the walls of the pool, and the ripples and folds of the canvas are completely visible. A light and drain are also on full display.
8) The dubbing was done by the worst actors who have ever lived. They speak their lines with all the enthusiasm of a ninety year old lung cancer patient. The "rallying the town" scene perfectly illustrates this and stands as one of the high points (?) in the history of bad cinema.
9) The daughter of one of the zombies is eight years old. She was born thirty years previous.
All right, that's enough. Trust me, there is much more to be seen in this film. Any aficionado of bad film must not only see this film, but buy it as well. I have watched my favorite scenes over and over again, and they just improve with each viewing.
It is the worst film ever made. Nothing comes close.

If you cross the three genres horror, soft porn and family drama you get Zombie Lake. It was probably hard for the distributors to find an audience for this one. None of the genres work very well in this film expect the nudity of course. But it tends to be more comical than erotic especially in the scene where the female basket team baths nude in the lake. The music in that scene must be heard to be believed. Howard Vernon, who plays the mayor, gives the film some dignity it maybe don't deserve. This is much worser than Oasis of the Zombies and the zombie make-up is so bad you won't believe your eyes. It's so bad it's hard to think intelligent people has made it. But at the same time it's entertaining to watch so I give it three stars anyway. Fans of bad euro films may like it, but others probably want to stay away from it.

As a fan of Italian horror/zombie movies, I wasn't sure what to make of this French release when ordering it. The price was right however so I decided to give it a try. While not the worst film I have ever seen, it was completely different from Italian Zombie flicks. The violence is toned way down. Even when someone is killed there is a limited amount of blood. There are other noticeable things about the movie that only took me one viewing to notice such as: the underwater scenes of the zombies were obviously filmed in a pool (you can see the side wall in the background), the time line is way off as a former Nazi solider who died during the war could not have an eight-year-old daughter 35 years after World War II (this part really amazed me) and as mentioned by other reviewers, the makeup was poor (it would rub off when the zombies attacked someone).
That being said, it was different and it was worth the price ($9.99) although I'm glad I didn't spend $20 or more on it.
It was nice also to finally see a film by Jean Rollin, a director I have heard of but had never had the chance to see any of his works.
Don't expect anything along the lines of Italian cinema here and you won't be disappointed.

I'll start my review of "Zombie Lake" by saying that I had very low expectations for this film, based on the other reviews I had read about it. It seems that nobody likes this film, not even the zombie-flick fans like myself. But, being stubborn as I am and really taking a liking to the cover of thr DVD, I figured "What the heck". At the very least, I should be entertained by the pure cheesiness of the film....WRONG!!

This movie is bad!

ZOmbie movies rarely have a plot(Romero's films aside) and that's usually OK. But, this film doesn't even have a point and that is not OK! The opening scene consists of a woman, walking down to this lake by herself, stripping and jumping in. This goes on for like 10 minutes. Then she is pulled under water by what I am guessing is supposed to be one of the zombies. You would not know that though, because this 'thing' is so un-scary. Anyway, people in town notice she is missing. After 3 days they decide to call the police(Hey, nothing like taking quick action) and after another week or so, the police actually show up; just to be murdered the first day they are there.

The town gets a visit from a reporter, who is dead-set on learning as much as she can about the lake, from the mayor. He tells her the story of the Nazi soldier who made love and had a child with one of the townsfolk. HE was later murdered, along with his unit, by some members of the French "Resistance" and their bodies thrown into the lake. Now, they are terrorizing the town, some 10 or 15 years later.

This film might have had some promise. But, it is just plain terrible. The soundtrack sounds like music you would hear while shopping at a supermarket. The zombies look more like people than most of these weird extras they cast to play the townfolks. Oh, and this film must have been shot in 1 day, since everybody, including the mayor, is wearing the same clothes at all times in the film.

Please, even the hardcore B-movie fans will find this one tough to sit through. If the lack of tension doesn't turn them away, the reunion of the zombie father with his daughter most certainly will.

Good Luck!

What happened??!! The other film, known as "Pesticide", was so moody and cute.
This one is really amateurish, stupid, so worse that you MUST see to believe. You MUST have it and store it -as the black sheep- next to "Shock Waves".

Almost all of the previous reviewers got
this totally wrong.
I found this movie very romantic,
haunting and
strangely
beautiful.

This Eurotrash grade Z zombie film is hillarious. Chock full of nudity (lots of nudity)a very long sex scene in which the nazi keeps his pants on the whole time(?) oh and the zombies makeup is nothing but green paint poorly slapped on and whenever they attack their victims it rubs off on the victims as well...not to mention the watercolor red blood that leaves no puncture marks on the flesh...great stuff. But the real kicker of this film...this movie was obviously taking place in the late 70's so doesnt it seem odd the nazi's daughter is still a little kid????...hahahaha classic bad cinema..I love it

I don't know much about Nazi's but they are mean SOB's in this scarefest. Incredible acting, esp. in the underwater shots. I've looked and can find no scuba gear. I would rate this as a definate buy. And I tell you something else, I am never going to swim naked with my basketball team in a lake in France with those zombie's wandering around. I thought the leader zombie was kind of cute too.

Zombie Lake (Jean Rollin, 1981)

In the seventies and early eighties, one could not have a genre but that Jean Rollin had to contribute something to it, bringing his own special blend of the absurd, allegedly erotic, and silly to the table. Zombie Lake is Rollin's take on the Nazi Zombie subgenre. While it certainly hits new heights (even for Rollin) of absurd and silly, "allegedly" is the best word to describe the eros factor.

So anyway, there's a lake, and it's full of zombies, as we find out in the opening scene, when some chick decides to go swimming and gets munched. (As that's the extent of her role in the film, there's not much else to say about her.) Her boyfriend heads into town looking for her, and, of course, here comes the horror movie trope of the crazy old man warning him about the creepy crawlies whilst everyone else tells him to shut up. Also, coincidentally, a reporter is in town looking to do a story on this mysterious lake. So, yeah, everyone seems to know about the mysterious lake except the munching victim's boyfriend. Then along comes a womens' soccer team who like to get naked and swim. Now, while all this is going on, there's also a touching zombie father - human daughter reunion. Folks, you can't make this stuff up unless you're Jean Rollin.

I'm not one to disparage Rollin's films simply because he made them; some of his output over the years was quite enjoyable. This is not one of those movies. Rollin, who spent most of his horror career doing erotic vampire tales, subscribes to the belief that zombies look best when the makeup used to determine who's a zombie and who isn't consists of some green foundation and dark circles under the eyes. (Which doesn't look that much different from some of the members of the women's soccer team...) If there's a zombie movie cliché, it's in here somewhere, and then there's that whole girl-befriends-zombie subplot that's so far beyond ridiculous I'm not even sure where to classify it. An absolutely ludicrous piece of filmmaking from start to finish; watch Shock Waves for the umpteenth time instead if you're craving Nazi Zombie goodness (and don't we all, now and then?) (half)

I thank god for nudity in zombie films. The "underwater" nazi-zombies had green face paint, too bad it wasn't waterproof. It's amazing that the underwater shots clearly show that the filming was done in someone's swimming pool :D Boy! That's about all I have to say, but isn't that enough?