REVIEW: LE LAC DES MORTS VIVANTS
REVIEW: ZOMBIE LAKE
REVIEW: JEAN ROLLIN [ 1981 ] 83'
REVIEW: EUROCINE
CAST: HOWARD VERNON, PIERRE-MARIE ESCOURROU,
CAST: ANOUCHKA, ANTONIO MAYANS
PERSONAL RATING:
CRITICAL RATING: - | +
WTF-FILMOMETER: ZOMBIE KNIFE FIGHT?... CHECK...

There are films out there that are panned by virtually every critically thinking mind on the planet, that have so much bad press circulating about them that it's sometimes hard to not want to see them. Sometimes you sneak out to the video store late at night, pick up a copy whilst no one but the overweight drunkard of a late shift clerk can see, and tiptoe back home to check it out for yourself. And sometimes the movies don't live up to all the negative hype and you think, "Gee, this wasn't so bad. I wonder what all the fuss was about?"

This is not one of those times.

Every single bad thing you've ever read, heard, or even imagined about ZOMBIE LAKE is true. And then some.

ZOMBIE LAKE begins with a rather uplifting bit of scoring - an unfortunate choice, perhaps, as it seems hardly fitting for a title card that translates directly to THE LAKE OF THE LIVING DEAD. Bumbling around in the background is a quite attractive young actress who lasts a mere 59 seconds of screen time before beginning to undress - at the 1:20 mark the audience receives its first full frontal nude scene of the film. Subsequent shots leave little to the imagination as they scrawl over the sunbathing beauty like a sweaty handed high school voyeur. Hardly content to pose endlessly as the camera leans on, the woman decides to go for a swim in the lake nearby - considering the title for the film, one can hardly imagine that this will end well. Obviously putting her personal safety first, she immediately takes to pulling the posted warning sign - a pictograph that translates pretty directly to 'SWIMMING = DEATH' - from the ground and tossing it into the underbrush. Gratuitous amounts of footage of an admittedly beautiful woman frolicking about in the water ensues but is rudely interrupted by the entrance of a zombie who's eye is hideously obscured by a glob of silly putty. The two thrash about wildly, obviously trying to simulate a terrifying underwater struggle but failing in pretty much every sense of the word.

Back in town a completely unknown amount of time has passed, but it's been long enough that two guys at the local bistro are worried - they're so worried that one of them makes the bold move of deciding that if the girl doesn't show by the following morning, he'll talk to the mayor. Another abrupt cut mystically whisks us to the next morning, and the mayor's office no less. The man from before has shown up as promised after having searched for the girl and returned with her wardrobe. The mayor joins in the fun by boldly stating that if she still doesn't show by tomorrow that he'll ring up the police. Indeed, the town with the zombie infested lake seems to be a veritable hotbed of inactivity on the part of pretty much everyone there. Further into the future of the film, the putty-eyed zombie from scene one has risen from the lake once more. For no real discernible reason he follows a maid around as she does busy work and kills her by brutally spitting fake blood on her neck - a horrific fate to be sure. The townspeople find her and carry the corpse through the streets to the mayor's house before dumping her on his doorstep. The mayor looks surprisingly unsurprised and comforts the citizenry by letting them know that nothing can be done until the police arrive. Natch. Afterwards he stops two children at random and asks them for all the details they can remember of what they saw - we, sadly, don't hear any of them.

Next up - thrill as the mayor wanders into his office, picks a book from the shelf and reads it quietly to himself in real time. An abrupt but welcome cut takes us back to the restaurant - a reporter has come to town (we know because she announces herself by saying, "I'm a reporter") with interest in the 'Lake of Ghosts'. The man who talked to the mayor in scene three takes her to talk to him herself. She's initially refused but, after sacrificing a book on unnatural phenomenon, is invited to sit a spell. Before long we're hitting flashback mode full-tilt-boogie. Suddenly it's 1945 and some Allied forces plane is making things irritable by bombing the town - at that time full of Nazis. One of the soldiers is wounded going out of his way to protect a young woman. After receiving medical treatment they head off to a barn and make blissful soft core love to each other as a delightful soundtrack bit plays in the background. Nine months later the war is over and a child is born. The soldier, withdrawing from France with his comrades, is ambushed by the townspeople. After stealing some Nazi boots the townspeople chuck the corpses into the lake. The mother of the Nazi's child dies and leaves the newborn in the care of an elderly woman I can only assume is the child's grandmother. The reporter thanks the mayor, who looks remarkably as he did back in '45 though a full 36 years have passed, and promptly skips town. A quick and useless scene takes us to the barn from the earlier flashback - also looking remarkably the same - in which now sits the Nazi's daughter. Though all logic dictates that the child should be roughly 36 years old she's not a day over 12 - and the grandmother isn't any worse for wear either.

Before you can say, "Gee, this movie could use another nude scene", a van load of volleyball playing nymphets just happens upon the lake. They initially attempt to amuse themselves by tossing around a ball, but everyone knows that volleyball players really just like to strip down to nothing and splash each other with water in out-of-the-way and zombie infested lakes. Even the lake is taken aback by the shear acreage of naked young flesh bouncing around about it and alternates depth between 2 and 12 feet depending on whether the shot is from above and below. Ho hum. One volleyball chick exits the lake and puts on her skirt just in time for the undead Nazis to make short work of her buddy-buds. She runs shrieking into town and collapses on a table at the restaurant after screaming, "The lake! The lake!" The mayor finally calls up the police who send two total incompetents - one of whom is the director of the film - to the area. It's too late, however, as the Nazi zombies are already strolling the city streets - but wait! The undead daddy Nazi soldier zombie recognizes the house where his beloved once resided and decides to pop in for a visit sans compadres. The touching sex music from the flashback sequence plays all manner of hysterical havoc with the proceedings as he meets up with his way-too-young daughter and offers her back a necklace that her mother had given him as a token of her affection. One jarringly placed cut later we're back in the restaurant where the two detectives are busy aggravating the public at large - they eventually make their way to the site of the volleyball team massacre and are quite massacred themselves.

But the Nazi zombies aren't satisfied with this humble victory and wade back into town to wreak all manner of vengeance on the townsfolk, most of whom are either drinking, bathing in huge wooden buckets, fixing their stockings, or having sex. Deeply unsettled by the latest happenings the citizenry take to their guns and wait for the next inevitable zombie assault - sadly the guns prove entirely useless and they're forced to flee. The undead daddy Nazi soldier zombie goes back to his daughter, only this time he takes her hand and leads her to the shore of the lake. Putty-eyed Nazi soldier zombie is unhappy with this, however, and what ensues is what very well may be the world's only Nazi zombie knife fight. Undead daddy Nazi soldier zombie triumphs, I guess, and his daughter is saved just in time for her to run back home. The mayor talks to her and she assures him that her daddy is a good zombie (shades of Toshio from DAIKAIJU GAMERA [1965] are all over this scene), but is eventually convinced that setting them up to be flame-throwere'd by the townspeople is the best solution for all involved. But there's a catch - she must have a bucket of fresh blood to lure them away from town with. The mayor happily provides this, though it's never ever made clear where he got his hands on an honest to God Bucket-o'-Blood(tm). The scheme works, the Nazis are fried, and the town lives happily ever after. The End.

It may seem odd that my biggest gripe with this film, which is absolutely overflowing with Z-grade ridiculousness, is something so minor that many a film goer might easily overlook it. Throughout the course of the last half hour of the film we are treated to a number of shots of the zombie Nazis feet as they march into town. The problem here is that every single one of them is wearing their boots. This flies in the face of the flashback, in which the film goes out of its way to show one of the townsfolk stealing a pair of dead Nazi boots. Am I honestly supposed to believe that there just happened to be another pair of the appropriate size shuffling around at the bottom of the lake? I digress. Other more obvious issues include the fact that underwater shots of the 'lake' were all filmed in a large swimming pool complete with liner, a Nazi who has too operate his own blood pump to create the illusion that he's been shot in the face, and too many blinking, smiling, laughing, stumbling dead people to count.

The real shame in the proceedings is the total ineptitude on the part of those responsible for the production - namely Jess Franco (writer) and Jean Rollin (director). For starters, the script on display is completely nonsensical and doesn't even succeed in the intention of creating a Nazi zombie romp suitable for stringing together endless amounts of soft core nudy footage. Everything else with regards to the production screams, "We spent our budget on titty shots!" - the zombies are accomplished almost entirely through the ultra-unrealistic use of giblets of latex and gobs of bright green face paint; both of which rub off on a number of victims. I feel the most disappointment in regards to Jean Rollin here, however. At his best he can be a master of atmosphere and erotically-charged suspense - needless to say he's a far cry from being at his best this go around.

But that's all been covered before. It's safe to say that almost no zombie film to date has received such universally abhorrent reviews as ZOMBIE LAKE. So this go around I'm going to do something very brave and admit something that flies in the face of all those reviews.

I actually enjoyed this movie. . .

Now that the gasping has subsided, I have to also admit that I certainly didn't enjoy all of it. In fact, the entire first half of the film can be written off entirely as far as I'm concerned. But the second half of the film - nigh, the last half hour alone - is so chock full of awful goodness that it was hard to keep from laughing at any given moment. For starters is the relationship that develops between the undead daddy Nazi soldier zombie and his amazingly young daughter. These scenes are always accompanied by a variation of the same theme that played during the sex scene between the not-so-undead father and mother. These scenes are so horrifically handled that they really must be seen to be believed - but it also helps that the undead daddy Nazi soldier zombie bares a remarkable resemblance to a friend from North Carolina. Next up in ZOMBIE LAKE's land of wonders is the aforementioned zombie knife fight. Again, this is so laughably executed that it simply must be seen. The conclusion of the film, starting with the mayor's discussion with the daughter, is also not to be missed - if only for her dialogue. Hearing her say in a cutesy child voice, "We'll do it tomorrow; it's the full moon. Bring me a whole lot of fresh blood," is a Z-movie experience to rival any other. ZOMBIE LAKE is full of other moments of unintentional hilarity, but I feel they'd be best left discovered by viewing the film itself rather than simply reading about it.

Don't get me wrong. This is a horrible film - the first I've reviewed and felt the need to give a negative star rating for complete lack of competence behind the camera. If you ever wondered if there was a French zombie film worse than OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES [1981], you need look no further. This comes recommended but with strict guidelines - don't see it alone. See it with someone you love, or at least someone with whom heckling of such things can be enjoyed. It's a terrible film. I loved it.