8 Films to Die For: Lake Dead (2007)
Directed by George Bessudo

“Lake Dead” is one of the most mediocre horror films I’ve ever seen. It takes no chances and never veers off the well-trodden path made by the thirty years of slasher movies that came before it. The intent of first-time filmmakers George Bessudo and Daniel P. Coughlin is fairly obvious: they wanted to create a “Texas Chain Saw Massacre” for this generation. Honestly, their endeavor was a success; the only problem is that “Lake Dead” mirror’s the shitty 2003 remake and not the original Tobe Hooper classic.

The basic plot of “Lake Dead” reads like a patchwork quilt of overused horror-movie clichés. Three sisters inherit a motel after an unknown grandfather dies; their estranged father cryptically warns them not to inspect their new plot of land, but he refrains from telling them why. Instead of heeding their father’s repeated warnings, the sisters, along with a group of friends, use the inheritance as an excuse for a camping trip.

They all head up to the motel in an RV and immediately engage in some illicit drug use and premarital sex. Expectedly, the group of nubile twenty-somethings are not alone in the woods, and one by one they get picked off by a pair of retarded mutant twins. Two of the sisters and a boyfriend escape the madmen and find safety in the arrival of a local Sheriff, who takes them back to the motel rather than the police station. Following in step with the ongoing predictable nature of the film’s plot, Sheriff Lake turns out to not be the peace officer he claims to be. From there, “Lake Dead” just follows a downward stroll on the spiral staircase that it’s built for itself out of the skeletons of past horror movies and finally comes to a unintentionally corny, sequel-promising end.

“Lake Dead” offers just enough, chills, kills and thrills to keep the film afloat, but by never trying anything daring or new it simply treads water. Every moment is either a predictable page out of the how-to-make-a-horror-movie handbook, or is simply telegraphed from a mile away. The filmmakers attempt to create a creepy family similar to Leatherface’s kin, but it’s completely uninspired and feels unnecessarily forced. The main killers of the film, a pair of inbred giants named Cain and Abel, are goofier looking than terrifying. They kind of resemble the muscle-bound Barbarian Brothers, stars of such late night eighties cable classics as “The Barbarians” and “Double Trouble.” That is if the brothers let themselves go and picked up a nasty case of jaundice.

The few positive moments of “Lake Dead” keep it form being a total waste of time. There are some bloody kills, some decent tit shots, and a couple of sex scenes. The way the killer retards dispose of the first sister who arrives at the hotel shows a possibility of ingenuity in the filmmakers, but the silly plot holes that riddle the script ultimately keep “Lake Dead” grounded in mediocrity. A prime example of this stupidity is that the sisters are going to inspect the hotel they just inherited, but rather than stay in the rooms, they go off-site to camp in the woods…huh?

At times “Lake Dead” shows a possibility of originality, but every time the film even glances at the road less traveled, its naïve filmmakers pull on its leash and force it back onto the path of familiar territory. The only other thing worth noting about this otherwise average film is that if you scrutinize the backgrounds of the main characters, a surprising number of them (all but the adopted one) have the possibility of being inbred.

With almost all of this year’s Horrorfest DVD offerings being real stinkers, I’m going to suggest a similar yet more-effective recent independent horror film for the ones that fail to hit the mark. Rather than simply reprise the same worn-out horror clichés the way “Lake Dead” shamelessly does, Adam Green’s kick-ass “Hatchet” builds off those similar themes and creates an ode to horror films and their creators. It’s got better gore, it’s got quality actors, and it is legitimately funny; plus, the mutant killer in “Hatchet” is played by Kane Hodder, the best actor to ever don Jason’s hockey mask. To top it off, “Hatchet” features non-gratuitous cameos from horror icons like Robert (Freddy Krueger) Englund and Tony (Candyman) Todd.

Read all of Tyler Shainline’s articles and reviews in his Archives